Trade Routes

The first transcontinental railway from Atlantic to Pacific was completed through the United States in 1867, but the day of transcontinental carriage of goods in bulk did not begin until about 1878, when for the first time the grain of the prairies was brought to England.

Modern Developments.

Much more immediately significant was the opening in 1869 of the Suez Canal (q.v.). A large part of the ocean-borne commerce to the East was almost at once diverted to the new route. The approach to India, which round the Cape was as easy to Calcutta as to Bombay, was now more direct to Bombay, and thence the railways of India were constructed south eastward, eastward and north-eastward, radially from the ter minus of the new ocean-ferry from Europe. Simultaneously the piercing of the Alps by railway tunnels, of which the first, the Mont Cenis, was completed during the Franco-Prussian War in 187o, facilitated the transfer of the European points of departure for India to the Mediterranean ports. Italian Genoa became the principal southern exit for German commerce, and even British liners had to call at Marseilles.

Towards the end of the 19th century the railway net began to cover wide areas on the continents, and for some purposes land transport seemed likely to rival sea transport. Transcontinental railways now traverse Asia, Australia and South America, and it is only a question of time before the Cape to Cairo line, the dream of Cecil Rhodes, will be realized. None the less for the carriage of bulk the sea holds its own. The tonnage through Panama already exceeds that through Suez, although the completion of the second interoceanic canal has not affected a change in trade routes at all comparable with that which so quickly ensued on the opening of the first.

Air Routes.

To-day, 1929, the commerce of the world is on the verge of yet another change. Air routes are being added to land routes and sea routes. At first sight it would appear that there can be even less of a route in the air than on the sea. In fact, air craft are very closely dependent on their prepared landing places. One of the most interesting services of aeroplanes as yet in operation i that from Egypt to 'Iraq, along the most ancient of all routes. Great airships are building, 700 feet long, which will float in the wind when tethered to mooring towers like sea ships anchored in a current ; these are expected to make the voyage from Great Britain to Karachi, the airport at the entry to India, in 4 days with a call at the mooring tower on the Suez Canal.

Two things are clear. Air traffic will supplement and not sup plant the older means of carriage, for the lifting capacity of an airship of 5 million cubic feet gas capacity is only 15o tons ; and the capital which is being sunk at the new airports will tend to fix the more important air routes. In regard, also, to the lie of

those routes there are two things which may be said with some certainty. The first is that the courses followed by aircraft will for economic reasons have regard to the prevalent winds and will approximate rather to the sailing than to the steaming tracks of surface vessels. It is not improbable that, when experience has brought courage, the airship track from Great Britain to Australia will run southward to South Africa and then eastward on the great west winds of the "Roaring Forties" of the Indian Ocean. The second is that similar economic considerations must limit the height at which commercial aircraft will fly ; there will be an "economic height" just as steamers and motor vessels have an "economic speed." That height will be such as to retain the maximum lifting capacity compatible with a safe margin for manoeuvring. Thus aircraft will respect the major elevations of the land, just as surface vessels seek to avoid rocks and shoals. It is probable, for instance, that airships from Great Britain will commonly pass southward through the gap at Marseilles between the Alps and the Pyrenees.

The tendency of the trade routes of to-day—by land, sea, and air—is to exhibit on the map the appearance of a net. Within the limits set by the consideration that goods are carried most cheaply in reasonable bulk, transport now seeks the direct line from the place of production to the place of consumption. Thus the "depot" trade, associated in the past with such "nodal" centres as Alexandria, Venice, Lisbon and Amsterdam, and of late with London, is not increasing. But the brain centres, the centres of the higher control of exchange, are if anything becoming fewer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Information

in regard to the trade routes of the past is to be found scattered through books on general and commercial history ; there are very few works specially devoted to the subject. See 0. Noel, Histoire du Commerce du Monde, 2 vols. (1891 etc.), with a useful bibliography ; H. de B. Gibbins, History of Commerce in Europe (1891) ; E. Speck, Handelsgeschichte des Alterthums, 3 vol. (19o1—o6) ; E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (1928). The history of trade routes is closely involved in that of geographical discovery ; see E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography (1879) and H. Yule, Marco Polo (3rd ed. 1903). See also Russell Smith, The Ocean Carrier (1908) ; A. J. Sargent, Sea ways of the Empire (1918). (H. J. MA.)