The following article served to introduce the first issue of Tradition, a German journal of business history, in October, 1956. It constitutes a review of business history generally, with particular reference to progress and ideas in Germany, notes of efforts in other Continental countries, and comparative references to American progress. Guideposts are set up both for the journal and for scholars active in the field. These illustrate certain unique problems facing German historians, but at the same time emphasize the existence of broad agreement among business historians on basic goals and operating methods. Reprinted in translation through the courtesy of Tradition and of Professor Wilhelm Treue, Editor.

The centrality of transportation improvements and financial institutions to the economic development of Upper Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century is well known. In this article, Professor George and Mr. Sworden argue that the evolving legal system and legal institutions also played an important role as part of the infrastructure contributing to increased economic efficiency. In support of their thesis, they draw on court decisions on contract and property law, primarily from the judicial career of Sir John Beverley Robinson, chief justice of the Court of Queen's Bench for Upper Canada from 1829 to 1862.

The political hazards that host country governments pose multinational companies are multifaceted and persistent. This study focuses on the experience of the Canadian subsidiary of British retailer W.H. Smith and Son in order to examine how host country policy can influence a multinational operating in the cultural industries. While bargaining models have previously provided the principal analytical lens for analyzing the interaction between multinationals and host governments, I argue that such frameworks lack the necessary nuance in order to explain fully the interaction between the Canadian government and W.H. Smith. In order to address the intricacy of these relations, it is necessary to integrate insights from new institutional economics with conventional bargaining frameworks.

In the manner of the Creole tradesmen of Louisiana, whose lagniappe to their patrons is legendary, the Editor offers a similar bonus to readers of the Review. Instead of trifling presents added to a purchase, however, our lagniappe will be notes and documents illustrative of the evolution of business enterprise.

As the oil industry grew, comfortable family firms, hitherto untouched by the ferocities of competition, found their position under attack and their independence menaced. The painful, inexorable process of substituting a new economic order for an old is here detailed from the viewpoint and records of one of the dispossessed.

Probably most Americans who read Dumas' immortal Three Musketeers and its sequels have no clear idea of the coins in question when the great novelist writes of pistoles and louis d'or. And though the louis d'or was coined for only about a century and a half, it has left, thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances, a lasting mark in history.

As a challenge for further research and analysis, Professor Kirchner suggests some of the cultural differences encountered by Western businessmen in Russia which significantly shaped their conduct of trade.