In this way Italy, Sweden and Norway all leapfrogged the coal-based stages of industrialization and entered the industrial age on the basis of the most modern power technology. Other countries, such as Austria, despite its Alpine potential, found it difficult to follow suit, not least because of the inhibiting effect of the German economy: thus, for example, while German chemical companies could obtain sulphuric acid as a cheap by-product of the metallurgical industries, Austria, lacking modern industries of this kind, had to import it in the old-fashioned form of Spanish pyrites, at a much
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