A History of Commerce

PART III. Modern Commerce

MODERN COMMERCE

XV. EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 128

XVI. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 139

XVII. CREDIT AND CRISES 150

XVIII. THE MODERN STATE AND THE MERCANTILE SYSTEM 161

XIX. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 174

XX. THE NETHERLANDS 190

XXI. ENGLAND: SURVEY OF COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT 199

XXII. ENGLAND: EXPORTS 209

XXIII. ENGLAND: IMPORTS; SHIPPING; POLICY 219

XXIV. FRANCE: SURVEY OF COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT 229

XXV. FRANCE: POLICY 242

XXVI. THE GERMAN STATES 250

XXVII. ITALY AND MINOR STATES 263

PART IV. Recent Commerce

RECENT COMMERCE

XXVIII. COMMERCE AND COAL 270

XXIX. MACHINERY AND MANUFACTURES 280

XXX. ROADS AND RAILROADS 290

XXXI. MEANS OF NAVIGATION AND COMMUNICATION 302

XXXII. THE WARES OF COMMERCE 317

XXXIII. THE MODERN ORGANIZATION 329

XXXIV. COMMERCIAL POLICY 345

XXXV. ENGLAND: COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 1800-1850 357

XXXVI. ENGLAND: REFORM OF COMMERCIAL POLICY 368

XXXVII. ENGLAND: COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 1850-1914 376

XXXVIII. ENGLAND: PRE-WAR PROBLEMS 386

XXXIX. GERMAN STATES 400

XL. GERMANY UNDER THE EMPIRE 408

XLI. FRANCE 422

XLII. MINOR STATES OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN EUROPE 431

XLIII. STATES OF SOUTHERN EUROPE 442

XLIV. EASTERN EUROPE 454

PART V. United States

UNITED STATES

XLV. ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION, 1789 469

XLVI. INTERNAL TRADE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE, 1789 485

XLVII. COMMERCE AND POLICY, 1789-1815 498

XLVIII. NATIONAL EXPANSION, 1815-1860 511

XLIX. EXPORTS, 1815-1860 530

L. IMPORTS, POLICY, DIRECTION OF COMMERCE, 1815-1860 540

LI. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, 1860-1914 552

LII. EXPORTS, 1860-1914 566

LIII. IMPORTS, POLICY, DIRECTION OF COMMERCE, 1860-1914 578

PART VI. World War

WORLD WAR

LIV. COMMERCE AND THE WORLD WAR, 1914-1918 593

LV. UNITED KINGDOM, 1914-1920 607

LVI. FRANCE AND THE PROBLEM OF REPARATIONS 622

LVII. CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, 1914-1920 634

LVIII. UNITED STATES, 1914-1920 648

INDEX 671

LIST OF MAPS

NO. PAGE

1. The Ancient World (colored) Facing 9

2. Roman Roads in Southern Britain 28

3. Tolls on the River Loire 58

4. The Fairs of Champagne 66

5. Trade Routes between Asia and Europe 85

6. The Venetian Empire 91

7. Trade Routes between Germany and Italy 94

8. The Hanseatic Commercial Empire about 1400 106

9. Commercial Geography of Europe about 1250 108

10. Trade Relations of a German Merchant about 1400 114

11. A Medieval Map of the World Facing 129 The Laurentian Portolano of 1351. Reproduced by permission from Beazley’s “Prince Henry, the Navigator,” (Putnams).

12. Discoveries of the Portuguese 131

13. Map of the Known World in the Time of Columbus 132

14. European Powers in America (colored) Facing_ 166

15. The Spanish Monarchy 175

16. European Powers in the East about 1700 193

17. Spheres of Trade of English Companies in the Early Seventeenth Century 203

18. The French Colonial Empire 237

19. Germany in the Eighteenth Century 251

20. Italy, 1515 263

21. Waterways of North Central Europe 294

22. Growth of the European Railroads 298

23. The British Empire, 1902 (colored) Facing 362

24. Development of the German Zollverein 403

25. The Trans-Siberian Railroad 463

26. North America in 1782 470

27. United States, Acquisition of Territory, 1783-1853 513

28. River Transportation in 1860 517

29. Canals of the United States Facing 520

30. Railroads, 1830-1850 524

31. Railroads, 1850-1860 525

32. Products of the United States 568

33. Course of Steamship Lines in 1880 587

A HISTORY OF COMMERCE

Part I.—Ancient Commerce

CHAPTER I

GENERAL CONDITIONS

=1. The purposes of commerce.=—The reader will follow more intelligently the history of commerce if he will stop a moment at the start to consider the purposes of commerce and the difficulties which must be overcome if it is to be successfully carried on.

As to the purposes we may be brief. The largest part of the time and energy of the ordinary man is consumed in getting the material things which furnish him with the means of subsistence and of culture. We are accustomed to think of the farmer and the manufacturer as charged especially with supplying our material wants, but a little reflection will show that the work of these classes, without the aid of another class, would be of little use to us. The food and clothing and tools and other desirable articles which they produce are valuable only when they are put into the hands of a man who wants them and can use them. Articles which we all should pronounce desirable, the ripe fruit of the farmer and the finished product of the manufacturer, have still only the possibility of good in them; and this possibility is realized only when they are put in the place where they are wanted at the time when they are wanted. It is the business of the merchant to attend to the proper distribution of wares, in place and time. He does not change the form of things, like the farmer or the manufacturer, but he is as truly a producer as they are.

Ice may be manufactured in summer by the ammonia process, or it may be saved from the preceding winter, or it may be brought in summer from Greenland. To the consumer it makes no difference which one of these methods is employed; he wants his ice in summer, and the trader who satisfies his wants by saving or transporting the ice is as useful a member of society as the manufacturer who makes the ice.

=2. Obstacles to the development of commerce. (1) Personal.=—Great as are the advantages of commerce, ages of progress were required to give it the position which it holds in the modern world. It has had to make its way against innumerable obstacles; and to some of these obstacles the reader is asked now to give his attention.

There is, first of all, the difficulty which we may term personal. A man now accepts trade as a matter of course. He devotes himself to some special line of production, the growing of wheat or the making of shoes, feeling sure that he can exchange his surplus for whatever else he wants, and making his exchanges without hesitation. An uncivilized man, however, is accustomed to satisfy his wants in only two ways, by his own labor in production or by robbing another man. He is suspicious of any offer to exchange wares, and is unwilling to apply himself to any special line of production that would make him dependent on trade. The ignorance and suspicions of men were in early times the greatest hindrances to the rise of commerce, as they are still in backward portions of the world; it has required generations of experience to teach men wants for things which they did not themselves produce, and to teach them to satisfy these wants by exchange. Commerce took on definite proportions and became of considerable importance only when a special class of traders and merchants arose, who made it their business to study wants, to inspire new ones, and to provide the means of satisfying them.

=3. (2) Physical obstacles.=—Another difficulty in the pursuit of commerce, which we may term physical, appears in the exchange of articles which are produced at some distance from each other, so that they need to be transported by land or sea. A farmer who sets out for the city with a load of grain will have to count carefully the cost of getting it to market. Assume that he feeds himself and his horses from his wagon-load; evidently, if the road is long, or so bad that progress is slow and many horses are necessary, he may find all the wheat consumed on the journey before he has secured a purchaser. In this aspect the facilities for transportation, whether by land or water, by pack-animal, cart, canal boat or steamer, are of great importance. It has been estimated that a human burden bearer would require more than a day and a half to move a ton of goods a mile; a strong pack-horse can carry three hundredweight a considerable number of miles in a day; while on first-rate level roads a horse can drag a ton even further. Another factor in this question is the character of the ware. A farmer who could not afford to bring wheat to market might still find it profitable to bring butter, which has much greater value in the same bulk, so that the profits on a wagon-load might pay the expenses of the journey. Gold can be exported from the interior of Alaska under difficulties which would make the transportation of any other product impossible.

=4. (3) Risk of loss at the hand of public enemies or robbers.=—The carrier of merchandise has to face not only physical difficulties, but also dangers from another source. From time to time we read in the modern newspaper of high rates charged for war insurance, when ship or cargo may be captured and confiscated by an enemy on the sea. The merchant must count his insurance charges before he can figure out his profits. This illustration will make clear the character of one of the obstacles to commerce, which we may term military, by some stretching of the current meaning of the word. It gives, however, no idea of the extent of this danger in earlier times, when not only were wars far more common, but when even in times of peace the state was so weak that the merchant, in every mile of his progress, was exposed to attack by highwaymen on land and by pirates at sea. Either the merchant must bear his own risks, or pay somebody to protect him against them. In either case the result would be the same, the necessity of charging higher prices for the wares, and so making sales less attractive and less common.

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