TOPICS FOR REVIEW
After covering the history of commerce in different countries the student will find it profitable to review certain general topics, piecing together what he has learned of their local history and endeavoring to get a clear conception of the general development. The following are suggested for study in the modern period (1500-1800): (a) shipping; (b) transportation on roads and rivers; (c) production and exchange of foodstuffs; (d) production and exchange of textile materials (flax, wool, cotton, silk); (e) production and exchange of finished textiles (linen, woolen, cotton, silk); (f) production and exchange of iron; (g) development of the system of manufactures (gild, domestic and factory systems); (h) development of banking; (i) effect of wars on the commerce of different countries; (j) European colonial systems; (k) commercial policy; (l) trade of Europe with Asia; (m) trade of Europe with North and South America.
PART IV.—RECENT COMMERCE
CHAPTER XXVIII
COMMERCE AND COAL
315. Statistical survey of development since 1800.—In entering the nineteenth century the student approaches the period in which commerce has achieved the most notable progress. Great as former advances may have seemed to the people in whose time they occurred, these sink almost to insignificance when compared with the growth of commerce since 1800. A recent estimate by a German author pictures the progress of the export and import trade of the commercial countries of the world as follows, in milliards of marks (roughly, units of 250 million dollars): 1700, 0.5; 1750, 1.0; 1800, 6; 1850, 17; 1899, 76. Some of the striking features of recent growth are shown in the following table. It is necessary, however, to warn the student that these figures, especially those for the earlier part of the century, can be regarded only as approximations to the truth. It may not be out of place, further, to advise the student to turn to the end of the chapter for suggestions as to the best way of studying the figures.
316. Great growth of foreign commerce.—Assuming, for purposes of discussion, a fair degree of accuracy in the figures, some conclusions from them may be pointed out. The commerce of the world increased in this century at the astonishing rate of 1,359 per cent. We have before encountered instances of remarkable commercial expansion, in particular countries, but we must bear in mind that the figures here are supposed to include the whole world, the backward as well as the progressive countries, the many millions in the interior of great continents who scarcely trade at all, and the Chinese, perhaps in themselves a quarter of the world’s population, who trade still to but a slight extent. Clearly the growth of commerce in some countries must have been enormous to raise the total figures to the point at which we find them.
Foreign Commerce and Production of the Countries of the World
| Year | Aggregate Commerce Thousand Million Dollars | Per Capita Commerce Dollars | Coal Production Million Tons | Pig Iron Production Million Tons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1800 | 1.4 | 2.31 | 11.6 | 0.8 |
| 1820 | 1.6 | 2.13 | 17.2 | 1.0 |
| 1830 | 1.9 | 2.34 | 25.1 | 1.8 |
| 1840 | 2.7 | 2.93 | 44.8 | 2.7 |
| 1850 | 4.0 | 3.76 | 81.4 | 4.7 |
| 1860 | 7.2 | 6.01 | 142.3 | 7.2 |
| 1870 | 10.6 | 8.14 | 213.4 | 11.9 |
| 1880 | 14.7 | 10.26 | 340 | 18.0 |
| 1890 | 17.5 | 11.80 | 466 | 27.2 |
| 1900 | 20.1 | 13.02 | 800 | 40.4 |
| 1910 | 33.6 | 20.81 | 1,141 | 65.8 |
| 1913 | 40.4 | 24.47 | 1,443 | 77.4 |
317. Increase in the relative importance of commerce.—Not less striking than this growth in absolute quantity, as measured in current values, is the growth compared with the estimated increase of the world’s population. The value per capita (“by head”) of a country’s commerce is secured by dividing the total amount of trade by the number of inhabitants; it shows the average share of each person in commerce, and furnishes, therefore, some index of the relative importance of commerce in different times and places. Now, even if this value per capita had remained the same we should regard the absolute increase in commerce as a very important fact. Commerce, however, has actually increased much faster than population; the share of the average human being in the world’s trade has grown over tenfold. Let the student reflect on the difference it would make to him whether he had $2 or $20 for spending money in a given time, and consider the extra articles he could buy with the larger sum; he will then be better able to appreciate the broadening and deepening of the commercial current in recent times.
318. The world now passing through a commercial revolution.—The student is now in a position to understand the significance of the statement of an English writer, that “the commerce of the world may almost be said to be the creation of the past seventy-five years.” We are living in the midst of a vast, though silent, revolution. Reference to the figures will show that the process of change quickened strikingly in the latter half of the century, and at its close we still do not dare to say when the movement will slacken. The change which we find so marked in commerce affects equally other sides of human life. An American author, Adams, writing in 1871, could say with truth that “the discoveries of Guttenberg and Columbus have produced more startling and more clearly defined results upon the destinies of the human race within the last twenty-five years than in any other equal period of time during the four previous centuries.” Have the results been less startling in the quarter-century that followed? Another American economist, Wells, said about 1890, “When the historian of the future writes the history of the nineteenth century he will doubtless assign to the period embraced by the life of the generation terminating in 1885 a place of importance, considered in its relations to the interests of humanity, second to but very few, and perhaps to none, of the many similar epochs in time in any of the centuries that have preceded it.” Is the generation terminated in 1915 willing to admit that it takes a less important place in history than its predecessor?