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

What is more indicative of progress than the increase in the tonnage constructed is the growth in the percentage of steamers and iron and steel ships built, as compared with the wooden sailing ships turned out. During the decade 1872–81, we built 800,000 tons of steamers and 224,000 tons of iron and steel ships; in the decade following, we constructed 1,200,000 steam tons and 485,000 tons of iron and steel vessels; and from 1891 to 1898 our yards turned out 730,432 tons of steamships and 543,850 tons of iron and steel vessels. As these figures indicate, the reconstruction of our merchant marine is progressing with a fair degree of rapidity. At the present time one half our tonnage consists of steamers; but our percentage of iron and steel is still small as compared with other countries. Over seven tenths of our tonnage consists of wooden ships, whereas our chief commercial rival has practically no wooden vessels whatever. Only 7 per cent of the French marine consists of wooden ships, and in the case of Germany less than 5 per cent.

The outlook for iron and steel shipbuilding is so promising that a rapid increase in iron and steel tonnage is certain to come. Largely through the influence of the reconstruction of our navy, numerous large plants for the construction of steel ships have been established at Bath, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Newport News, San Francisco, and other seaports. Cities on the Mississippi River, and especially those on the Great Lakes, are engaged in building ships of iron and steel. There are several steel plants in the Lake ports, and in them we have built the larger part of our steel tonnage. Our iron ships have been built chiefly in the seaboard yards. During the present year, 1899, the American yards are busy constructing vessels both for the navy and for our merchant fleet, and new yards are being established. Having begun selling crude and structural iron and steel and various classes of machinery in Europe, even in Great Britain, we shall ere long be selling iron and steel ships. The excellence of our navy has brought us orders for war ships, and the skill and invention of our shipbuilders will bring us foreign orders for merchantmen.

VIII. CAUSES ACCOUNTING FOR THE CENTURY’S COMMERCIAL PROGRESS.

The commercial progress of the nineteenth century, the salient phases of which have been depicted in the foregoing pages, has been the result of three sets of causes, economic, political, and social.

The economic causes of most importance are the improvements in transportation, the reorganization of industry on a large scale, the accumulation of capital, together with the growth of corporations and credit institutions whereby the utility of capital has been enhanced, and the discovery of large stores of gold.

CRAMP’S SHIPYARD ON THE DELAWARE.

Transportation is the handmaid of trade. Whatever enables this handmaid to do her work cheaper and quicker enlarges the scope and volume of the world’s commerce. When one considers that it cost nearly four times as much in 1875 to ship wheat from New York to Liverpool as it did twenty years later, and fully three times as much from Chicago to Liverpool, one can readily understand how transportation has removed hindrances to commerce.

Cheap and rapid transportation has made an extensive commerce possible, but it has been the organization of industry on a large scale that has created the chief demand for commerce. Industry at the present time is, to a large extent, so organized as best to promote the territorial and international division of labor; and each large producer regards the whole world as his market. The amount of commerce required increases with the concentration and specialization of industry, and with every widening of the producer’s market.

It has been the accumulation of capital and its increased availability for purposes of production that have made possible the organization of industry on its present basis, and enabled men to construct the highly developed transportation system by means of which commerce is accomplished. The material progress of the past century is unprecedented. Industry has created wealth as with the touch of a magic wand; and this rapidly growing wealth has been made available capital through the instrumentality of the corporation which, by means of stocks and bonds, has gathered into giant organizations the property of hundreds and even thousands of individuals. The industrial corporations have been greatly assisted in their work of concentrating and applying capital, by the banks and other institutions that have enlarged credit and made a given amount of property capable of performing a much larger work. The expansion of industrial credits, furthermore, has been greatly facilitated by the issue of government bonds in large amounts during the century. These state obligations constitute excellent business securities, of which banks, other corporations, and individuals make extensive use. Such are some of the factors that have promoted the accumulation of capital and increased the volume of commerce.