For the greater part the environment of a people is deficient—that is, the locality of a people does not yield all that is required for the necessities of life. For instance, the New England plateau requires an enormous amount of fuel for its manufacturing enterprises; but practically no coal is found within its borders; hence the manufacturers must either command the coal to be shipped from other regions or give up their employment. The people of Canada require a certain amount of cotton cloth; but the cotton plant will not grow in a cold climate, so they must either exchange some of their own commodities for cotton, or else go without it. The inhabitants of Great Britain produce only a small part of the food-stuffs they consume; therefore they are constantly exchanging their manufactured products for the food-stuffs that of necessity must be produced in other parts of the world.
The dwellers of the New England plateau might grow the bread-stuffs they require, and in times past they did so. At that time, however, a barrel of flour was worth twelve dollars. But the wheat of the prairie regions can be grown, manufactured into flour, transported a thousand miles, and sold at a profit for less than five dollars a barrel. Therefore it is evidently more economical to buy flour in Minnesota than to grow the wheat and make it into flour in Massachusetts.
All these problems, and they exist without number, show that man may overcome most of the obstacles that surround him. So we find civilized man living in almost every part of the world. Tropical regions are not too scorching, nor are arctic fastnesses too cold for him. In other words, because of commerce and transportation, he can and usually does master the conditions of his environment; his intelligence enables him to do so, and his ability to do so is the result of the intelligent use of experience and education.
CHAPTER II
HOW COMMERCE CIVILIZED MANKIND
The history of western civilization is so closely connected with the development of the great routes of travel and the growth of commerce that one cannot possibly separate them. Commerce cannot exist without the intercourse of peoples, and peoples cannot be in mutual communication unless each learns from the other.
Feudalism.—When the Roman Empire fell civilization in western Europe was not on a high plane; indeed, the feudalism that followed was not much above barbarism. The people were living in a manner that was not very much unlike the communal system under which the serfs of Russia lived only a few years ago. Each centre of population was a sort of military camp governed by a feudal lord. The followers and retainers were scarcely better off than slaves; indeed, many of them were slaves. There was no ownership of the land except by the feudal lords, and the latter were responsible for their acts to the king only.
But very few people cared to be absolutely free, because they had but little chance to protect themselves; so it was the common custom to attach one's self to a feudal lord in order to have his protection; even a sort of peonage or slavery under him was better than no protection at all. A few of the people were engaged in trade and manufacture of some kind or other, and they were the only ones through whom the feudal lord could supply himself with the commodities needed for his retainers and the luxuries necessary to himself.