Early Economic Policies

Transylvania began to feel the political impact of enlightened absolutism around 1770–71, although the tendencies and effects were mixed. The Habsburgs' least successful initiative was in the field of economic policy, with the establishment of a Commissio Commercialis. A similar committee had existed for a short time around 1754, and in 1760, the central government made another attempt to create an economic directorate for Transylvania. The decree called for a mixed, administrative-treasury committee, chaired by the treasurer, and charged with promoting industrial development; Seeberg, the man who had restored order in the Saxons' public finances, was to participate in the exercise. In the event, the initiative was not carried through.

Around 1768, Governor András Hadik had recommended in a memorandum the establishment of an economic commission (Commissio Oeconomica). A preparatory committee, formed in 1769, gathered data on the Transylvanian economy and submitted its report, via the Gubernium, to the central government. Their timing was unfortunate, for the initiative coincided with the development by the Kommerzhofrat of an industrial development plan for the empire. The Kommerzhofrat was the government's highest economic agency, and it strongly favoured the interests of the industrial middle class in Lower Austria and the Czech provinces. It regarded the empire as a single economic unit and did not wish to see a duplication of industrial development in the various provinces. Preferring to build on strength, it recommended that industrialization be concentrated in the most developed provinces, {2-695.} in Lower Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia. In this imperial division of labour, Hungary's assigned role was to be a source of agricultural products and industrial raw materials.

The mandate of the Commissio Commercialis, created pursuant to a decree issued on 19 May 1771, was influenced by the Kommerzhofrat's 1770 plan. The goal was to develop agriculture and thereby generate a positive balance in Transylvania's agricultural trade. The means to this end were reminiscent of the proposals advanced by the estates back in 1751: the development of new breeds of cattle and sheep, the lengthening of calves' suckling time, the cultivation of fodder plants, and the stabling of milk cows. The government requested that plans be drawn up for the development of horse breeding. It called for an end to the apiarian practice of destroying bee-swarms after two production cycles and urged the dispatch of suitable Transylvanian candidates to Vienna's school of apiculture. It also wished to promote the cultivation of flax and hemp.

The government's plans for industry were more modest. It wanted to boost the production of only the most basic consumer goods; for the rest, it considered that competition with producers in the hereditary provinces would incur unnecessary expense. Thus the government did not back the development of factory-scale manufacturing, preferring to leave such activity to the guilds, which were already considered to have too many members. It was only prepared to back the development of the industries that produced textiles, leather, common iron tools, and wire, and even in their case, to the exclusion of higher-quality products. The authorities opposed any growth in the number of glassworks, which they believed should only serve the domestic market. And while they approved of the development of silkworm breeding, they saw no need to create facilities in Transylvania for the production of silk cloth.

{2-696.} In the case of the guilds, the central government wanted to reduce the number craftsmen in certain over-manned branches. In the case of merchants, it felt that there were simply too many of them and instructed that henceforth, commercial permits could be issued solely by the Commissio Commercialis; only with the latter's approval could landowners issue letters of privilege to traders, and local officials award the right of citizenship. Independent wholesalers would be allowed in Saxon towns and towns of similar size in the Hungarian and Székely regions; elsewhere, the government would only allow small merchants dealing in basic necessities. The authorities were intent on limiting the activity of Armenian merchants to national fairs and the towns of Szamosújvár, Erzsébetváros, and Gyergyószentmiklós; and to redirect some of them to the industrial sector — though that hardly seemed consistent with the proposals to reduce the industrial labour force. The government was not prepared to rescind the privileges of the Greek merchants, but it wanted to restrict their activity to wholesale trade in Turkish goods.

These policies were scarcely calculated to reduce the economic gap between Transylvania and the industrially more developed, western provinces of the Habsburg empire. To the contrary, by prohibiting large-scale manufacturing and allowing only basic goods to be produced locally, they threatened to increase the disparities. Despite these imperial priorities, new factories did come to be established in Transylvania, some — like the Orlát paper mill and several iron and precious metal smelters — on the initiative of other government agencies. In any case, the commission's life was short: the abolition in 1776 of the Kommerzhofrat led, a year later, to the disbandment of the Commissio Commercialis.

The nature and mandate of the Societas Agriculturae were of a wholly different character. Although the government had been instrumental in its establishment, the association did not have executive authority. The roots of Transylvania's first agricultural society {2-697.} can be traced back to 1776, when Maria Theresa urged — without success — the creation of municipal economic societies in Hungary and Transylvania. The direct stimulus to the establishment of the Societas Agriculturae came from Governor (and General) Hadik, who, in the above-noted memorandum, proposed that a society be formed to deal exclusively with agricultural reform and that it be headed by the chairman of an eventual Commissio Oeconomica.

When, in spring 1769, the Societas Agriculturae came into existence, it was given its own chairman in the person of János Lázár, a councillor on the Gubernium. Eighteen months later, he was succeeded by Farkas Bánffy. To confirm that the society's function was to advise the government, Gubernium officials were appointed to the posts of secretary and recorder. The society's most important activities were noted earlier in connection with Fridvaldszky, though there were others who had urged that a study be made of the application of potatoes to bread-making and brandy-distilling. The society also invited local authorities to report on flax cultivation and beekeeping.

The Societas Agriculturae was the forum where Sámuel Enyedi — the Kolozsvár clockmaker noted earlier for his innovations in mining technology — presented his invention of a wheeled plough. The society devoted attention to Transylvania's coal and peat deposits. In spring 1771, the sheriff of Hunyad County, János Petrik, delivered to the society a report on hard coal deposits in the southern part of his district. None of these investigations had brought practical results when, in November 1772, the Societas Agriculturae was folded into the Commissio Commercialis. Neither Fridvaldszky's Planum, nor his inventions or those of others came close to realization, and almost a hundred years would pass before Transylvania's coal resources came to be exploited.