Part 1 (1/2)
Commercial Geography.
by Jacques W. Redway.
PREFACE
The quiet industrial struggle through which the United States pa.s.sed during the last decade of the nineteenth century cannot fail to impress the student of political economy with the fact that commercial revolution is a normal result of industrial evolution. Within a period of twenty-five years the transportation of commodities has grown to be not only a science, but a power in the betterment of civil and political life as well; and the world, which in the time of M. Jules Verne was eighty days wide, is now scarcely forty.
The invention of the Bessemer process for making steel was intended primarily to give the railway-operator a track that should be free from the defects of the soft, wrought-iron rail; in fact, however, it created new industrial centres all over the world and brought Asia and Africa under commercial conquest. The possibilities of increased trade between the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific Coast States led to the building of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways. But when these were thoroughly organized, there unexpectedly resulted a new trade-route that already is drawing traffic away from the Suez Ca.n.a.l and landing it at Asian sh.o.r.es by way of the ports of Puget Sound. It is a repet.i.tion of the adjustment that occurred when the opening of the Cape route to India transferred the trade that had gathered about Venice and Genoa to the sh.o.r.es of the North and Baltic Seas.
In other words, a new order of things has come about, and the world and the people therein are readjusting themselves to the requirements made upon them by commerce. And so at the beginning of a new century, civilized man is drawing upon all the rest of the world to satisfy his wants, and giving to all the world in return; he is civilized because of this interchange and not in spite of it.
The necessity for instruction in a subject that pertains so closely to the welfare of a people is apparent, and an apology for presenting this manual is needless. Moreover, it should not interfere in any way with the regular course in geography; indeed, more comprehensive work in the latter is becoming imperative, and it should be enriched rather than curtailed.
In the preparation of the work, I wish to express my appreciation of the great a.s.sistance of Princ.i.p.al Myron T. Pritchard, Edward Everett School, Boston, Ma.s.s. I am also much indebted to the map-engraving department of Messrs. The Matthews-Northrup Company, Buffalo, N.Y.
J.W.R.
CHAPTER I
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Commerce and modern civilization go hand in hand, and the history of the one is the history of the other; and whatever may be the basis of civilization, commerce has been the chief agent by which it has been spread throughout the world. Peoples who receive nothing from their fellow-men, and who give nothing in return, are usually but little above a savage state. Civilized man draws upon all the rest of the world for what he requires, and gives to the rest of the world in return. He is civilized because of this fact and not in spite of it.
There is scarcely a country in the world that does not yield something or other to civilized peoples. There is scarcely a household whose furnis.h.i.+ngs and contents do not represent an aggregate journey of several times around the earth. A family in New York at breakfast occupy chairs from Grand Rapids, Mich.; they partake of bread made of wheat from Minnesota, and meat from Texas prepared in a range made in St.
Louis; coffee grown in Sumatra or Java, or tea from China is served in cups made in j.a.pan, sweetened with sugar from Cuba, stirred with spoons of silver from Nevada. Spices from Africa, South America, and Asia season the food, which is served on a table of New Hamps.h.i.+re oak, covered with a linen spread made from flax grown in Ireland or in Russia. Rugs from Bokhara, or from Baluchistan, cover the floors; portieres made in Constantinople hang at the doors; and the room is heated with coal from Pennsylvania that burns in a furnace made in Rhode Island.
Now all these things may be, and usually are, found in the great majority of families in the United States or Europe, and most of them will be found in nearly all households. Certain it is that peoples do exist who, from the immediate vicinity in which they live, procure all the things they use or consume. In the main, however, such peoples are savages.
A moment's thought will make it clear that before an ordinary meal can be served there must be railways, steams.h.i.+ps, great manufacturing establishments, iron quarries, and coal mines, aggregating many thousand millions of dollars, and employing many million people. A casual inspection, too, reveals the fact that all of the substances and things required by mankind come from the earth, and, a very few excepted, every one requires a certain amount of manufacture or preliminary treatment before it is usable. The grains and nearly all the other food-stuffs require various processes of preparation before they are ready for consumption by civilized peoples. Iron and the various other ores used in the arts must undergo elaborate processes of manufacture; coal must be mined, broken, cleaned, and transported; the soil in which food-stuffs are grown must be fertilized and mechanically prepared; and even the water required for domestic purposes in many instances must be transported long distances.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE SUPPLEMENT EACH OTHER]
A little thought will suffice to show that not only are all food-stuffs derived from the earth, but that also every usable resource which const.i.tutes wealth is also drawn from the same source. The same is also pretty nearly true of the various forms of energy, for although the sun is the real source of light and heat, and probably of electricity, these agents are usable only when they have been transformed into earth energies. Thus, the physical energy generated by falling water is merely a transformed portion of solar heat; so also the coal-beds contain both the chemical and physical energy of solar heat and light converted into potential energy--that is, into force that can be used at the will of intelligence. Indeed, the physical being of mankind is an organism born of the earth, and adapted to the earth; and when that physical form dies, it merely is transformed again to ordinary earth substances.
The chief activities of living beings are those relating to the maintenance of life. In other words, animals must feed, and they must also protect themselves against extermination. In the case of all other animals this is a very simple matter, they simply live in immediate contact with their food, migrating or peris.h.i.+ng if the supply gives out.
In the case of mankind the conditions are different and vastly more elaborate. Savage peoples excepted, man does not live within close touch of the things he requires; indeed, he cannot, for he depends upon all the world for what he uses. In a less enlightened state many of these commodities were luxuries; in a civilized state they have become necessities. Moreover, nearly everything civilized man employs has been prepared by processes in which heat is employed.
Therefore one may specify several cla.s.ses of human activities and employments:
(_a_) The production of food-stuffs and other commodities by the cultivation of the soil--_Agriculture_.
(_b_) The preparation of food-stuffs and things used for shelter, protection, or ornament--_Manufacture_.
(_c_) The production of minerals for the generation of power, such as coal, or those such as iron, copper, stone, etc., required in the arts and sciences--_Mining_.
(_d_) The exchange of food stuffs and commodities--_Commerce_.