COMMERCE OF THE WORLD, Inter national. World commerce is primarily the interchange of the products of its great natural divisions. Nature gave to the world three great natural divisions: the broad tropical belt stretching around the globe at the equator, and on either side of this a temperate zone. Between the 30th parallel of north latitude, which runs through New Orleans, Cairo and Shanghai, and the 30th parallel of south lati tude, which runs through Southern Brazil, the southern tip of Africa and the southern part of Australia, the products are chiefly tropical. North and south of these lines the products are chiefly temperate. Curiously, the area between these two lines, the 30th degree north and the 30th south, is about one-half of the land sur face of the globe, exclusive of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. That tropical area has, too, about one-half of the world's population. Its products — cotton, silk, hemp, sisal, jute, rub ber, hides, sugar, tea, coffee, cacao and fruits— are demanded by the people of the temperate zone for food and clothing and for use in manufacturing. The temperate zones, with one-half of the world's area and population, produce the cereals, meats and other food stuffs, and are the great manufacturing section of the world. These products of the temperate zones are demanded by the people of the tropics, for food, clothing and the requirements of their domestic and industrial life. So there are great and perfectly natural interchanges of the natural and artificial products of these two great climatic sections of the globe, the tem perate zones and the tropics.
Nature, however not content climatic divisions of the earth's surfaee, also subdivided them by the creation of continents and islands, separating them by great oceans, across which the various products of these climatic divisions must be transported by ves sels. To add to this complication of inter changes, certain of these natural sections were populated and their producing powers de veloped long before others of them. Western and southern Europe, northern Africa, India, China and the Euphrates valley, were the seats of a busy population long before America, central and southern Africa, Australia, or the islands of Oceania were peopled or began to contribute their products to the requirements of the world.
It is the interchanges between these great sections of the globe and the various countries into which they are subdivided which we call international commerce. The exchanges began
in a small way, with commercial caravans pass ing between Egypt and the Orient, and coasting vessels creeping along the waterfronts of south ern and western Europe. But these exchanges were of comparatively little value, and it was not until the introduction of the compass when men learned that the oceans were a highway and not a barrier to commerce that trade be tween the great natural divisions and subdi visions really began.
It is not surprising, then, to find that the international trade of the world in 1700 was but about $350,000,000, of which about $200,000,000 was conducted by Europe and the remainder by Asia and America. Great Britain was then, as she has been ever since, the leader of commerce, her trade amounting in 1700 to about $50,000,000 a year, Spain $40,000,000, France and the area which we now call Germany about $25,000,000 each, Spanish America and the East Indies $40,000,000 each, and the British colonies $10, 000,000. By 1750 world commerce had doubled, amounting to about $750,000,000, and by 1800 it doubled again, reaching $1,500,000,000 at that date, these figures being a rough aggregate of the imports and exports of all the countries of the world at that time.
In the next half century, however, a series of events changed entirely the commercial movements of the world and tfreatly stimulated commerce, multiplying the interchanges and stimulating development and the producing powers of the hitherto undeveloped regions of the globe. In 1819 a little vessel of 300 tons, the Savannah, crossed the ocean from the United States to Great Britain by steam power, and gave to the astonished world a lesson in multi plying the usefulness of the oceans in commerce, and at the same time reducing greatly the cost of interchange between the great natural di visions. About the same time man learned to transport merchandise and people on land by the use of steam power, the railway. The result of these two great contributions to trans portation and commerce was that in the year 1850 there were upon the oceans nearly a mil lion tons of steam vessels and on land 25,000 miles of railways, and international commerce in that year was about $4,000,000,000, or nearly three times as.much as in 1800.