Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

I. MAIN FEATURES OF THE WORLD’S COMMERCE AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

A hundred years ago, the volume of trade, both domestic and foreign, was necessarily kept within proportions relatively small as compared with present traffic, because of the slowness and high costs of inland transportation. Domestic inland traffic is directly dependent upon facilities for water and land transportation, and until the railroad came into use, some seventy years ago, only those countries having numerous navigable rivers or well-developed canal systems could extend their commerce much beyond the cities and districts adjacent to tide water. In all ages since the world became civilized enough to engage in commerce, an overland traffic by caravan or wagon has been carried on; but the amount of commodities could not be large, and the kinds of goods transported were necessarily limited to articles of high value per unit of bulk or weight. Such an inland traffic as this did not establish the basis for a large coastwise or over-sea commerce.

At present, bulky commodities produced long distances from the sea-ports comprise a large portion of international traffic, and supply the coast cities with the raw materials from which they manufacture the articles they contribute to swell the volume of foreign trade. When the means were wanting for the inland transportation of these bulky commodities, only a few countries, such as Phœnicia, the Italian cities, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the British colonies in America, could develop an important maritime commerce. During the past fifty years, the improvements in transportation have been such as to enable all industrial countries, inland as well as maritime, to engage extensively in the world’s trade. Commerce has become general; and countries like Switzerland and Saxony readily market their wares the world over.

The volume of foreign trade, as late as a hundred years ago, was really small, even in the case of the most important commercial nations. The imports and exports of the United Kingdom in 1800 amounted to about $360,000,000, which, for a population of approximately 18,000,000, would be about $20 per capita. At that time the trade of the United Kingdom was about one tenth what it is now. At the present time the foreign commerce of the United Kingdom amounts to nearly $100 for each inhabitant of the country.

The thirteen British colonies in America and the original commonwealths of the United States were all maritime States with navigable rivers, and their industries, lumbering, fisheries, production of food products and tobacco, called for the exchange of large quantities of commodities with the manufacturers of the home country, and with the tropical islands of the West Indies. For their time, then, these States were large traders. The statistical information which we possess of their commerce is meagre, but we know that the total trade of the colonies with the mother country in 1770 was about $13,000,000 a year, or something over four dollars per person. There was a trade of considerable proportions with the West Indies, some with the Mediterranean countries and Africa, and, after the colonies became States, with the East Indies and the Orient; but in all probability the foreign trade of the Americans did not reach ten dollars per capita until after 1790. At the present time, in spite of the very rapid growth of population in the United States that has continued throughout the nineteenth century, our foreign trade is equal to twenty-five dollars per person.

It is when the commerce of the eighteenth century is viewed from the standpoint of the transportation agencies by which it was served—the size, speed, and efficiency of the ships—that the contrast with present conditions becomes most striking. Two hundred years ago, the 560 ships owned at London averaged 157 tons. A century ago, a vessel of 300 tons was still considered a large ship, and as late as 1840 vessels of that size traded from the United States to India and China. The Grand Turk, of 564 tons, built in 1791, was probably the largest ship built in America up to that time. During the fourth decade of the nineteenth century numerous vessels of over 1000 tons were constructed, and in 1840 the Great Britain of 3000 tons was ordered. In her day the Great Britain was more of a marvel than is the recently launched Oceanic, of 28,500 tons displacement.

When we consider that these small vessels in use a century ago took from a month to six weeks to cross the Atlantic,—their speed being about one third that of the freight steamers of to-day,—we realize the great difference in the efficiency of the merchant marine of the present as compared with that by which commerce was served in 1800. The efficiency of the ships, however, does not depend alone upon their size and speed. The commercial auxiliaries which enable vessels to enter and clear harbors without delay, and to load and unload cargoes quickly,—lighthouses, beacons, buoys, spacious wharves and docks equipped with mechanical appliances for handling freight,—make it possible for vessels to spend a greater portion of the time at sea. A merchant marine to-day has fully five times the efficiency that one with an equal tonnage had a century ago. We shall better see how this has been brought about, by briefly reviewing the technical revolution which has taken place in ocean navigation during the past seventy years.