The unsound companies went by the board; even sound ventures were in some cases overturned.

How grievously public credit suffered may be seen by the later official admission, that liquidations and bankruptcies of public companies in the following ten years inflicted on shareholders a total loss of more than 345,000,000 marks (L17,250,000)[83].
[Footnote 83: German State Paper of June 28, 1884, quoted by Dawson, _Bismarck and State Socialism_, App.

B.] Now, it was in the years 1876-77, while the nation lay deep in the trough of economic depression, that the demand for "protection for home industries" grew loud and persistent.

Whether it would not have been raised even if German finance and industry had held on its way in a straight course and on an even keel, cannot of course be determined, for the protectionist movement had been growing since the year 1872, owing to the propaganda of the "Verein fuer Sozialpolitik" (Union for Social Politics) founded in that year.

But it is safe to say that the collapse of speculation due to inflowing of the French milliards greatly strengthened the forces of economic reaction.
Bismarck himself put it in this way: that the introduction of Free Trade in 1865 soon produced a state of atrophy in Germany; this was checked for a time by the French war indemnity; but Germany needed a permanent cure, namely, Protection.