From that time international trade grew by leaps and bounds. By 1870 it was $10,000, 000,000, and by 1900 $20,000,000,000. Even this rapid increase, however, was outdone in the opening years of the present century, for in 1913, the year before the opening of the great European War, the international •trade of the world was $40,000,000,000, having actually doubled in the short period 1900-1913.
The causes of this rapid growth following the application of steam to transportation were the opening of new areas to population and production, a reduction in the cost of transportation by which many articles were added to the list of international exchanges, the increased facility of intercommunication by the mails, the telegraph, the telephone and the wireless telegraphy, the increase of money and of banking power, and the development of great manufacturing systems, which supplied their products to all the world and took in ex change the manufacturing material from all sections of the globe. Steam vessels on the ocean grew from 1,000,000 tons in 1850 to 30,000,000 in 1913; railways from 25,000 miles to 700,000, • and telegraphs and ocean cables from 5,000 miles to about 2,000,000. World currency enormously increased and the banking power of the world grew from $3,000,000,000 in 1850 to $65,000,000,000 in 1913. Meantime world population increased with extreme rapid ity, the result of the opening of new areas to population and production; and with the trans portation of plentiful food supplies from the new areas, world population which was but little more than 1,000,000,000 in 1850 grew to 1,600,Q00,000 in 1913, and the producing and purchasing power of each man greatly in creased. North America, which had in 1800 but about 7,000,000 people had in 1900 about 140,000,000, and in many other areas the de velopment of population and producing power was phenomenal.
With the increase of transportation there came a great reduction in the cost of moving merchandise between the continents and ch znatic sections. The wheat and corn and meats, and cotton and other manufacturing material of North America were transported to Europe and the manufacnues of that continent senf in exchange; the meats and wool and hides and grain of South America and Austra lia crossed the equator to Europe, and were also paid for in manufactures; and the tea and coffee and cacao and spices and sugar and fruits and manufacturing materials of the tropics were sent to the north temperate zone in great quantities, and paid for in the prod nets of the farrns and factories of the temper ate zones, upon which the tropics rely for. their flour and meat as well as clothing and other manufactured articles.
The wonderful growth of the world's com merce is pictured in tables presented herewith. One of these shows the total world trade and the trade of each grand division at 25-year in tervals from 1800 to 1900, and also in 1913 and 1916, showing not only the total commerce at each period, but the population and the aver age per capita commerce at each of the dates, both for the entire world and for each grand division. Another table shows the commerce of each of the principal countries of the world, imports and exports separately, at intervals from 1850 down to 1916, though in certain of the countries at war the commerce of 1916 can only be estimated by reason of the absence of official figures. Care has been exercised in the
preparation of these tables to include only the domestic exports of merchandise of the vari ous countries, omitting the precious metals and the foreign merchandise re-exported, though in certain of the smaller and newer countries this has been impracticable.
An examination of these tables of imports and exports of the various countries will dis close the fact that in many of the older coun tries, notably those of Europe, the imports con stantly exceed the exports, while in the newer countries exports are greater than imports. This excess of imports by the European coun tries is due to the fact that they are compelled to draw upon other parts of the world for a large proportion of their food and manufac turing material, and as they have little except manufactures to offer in exchange their im ports in most eases exceed their exports, the difference being made up by the earnings of their steamships, the earnings of dieir capital invested abroad, the profits 111)011 the-merchan dise imported and re-exported. Many of the countries of Europe have, however, consider able quantities of natural products to export, which is in some degree an offset to the general fact that manufactures are the chief exportable material of that part of the world. Great Britain, for example, exported prior to the European War large quantities of coal, which she sent to all parts of the world largely as ballast for her ships carrying the lighter products, manufactures, and scouring the world for foodstuffs and manufacturing material as the return cargo. Some of the coal she supplied to the adjacent countries of Eu rope, taking in exchange the beet sugar of Gerpany, Russia and Austria; the iron of Spain and Sweden; the lumber and timber and wood pulp of Norway, Sweden and Russia; the copper of Spain, and the cork of Portugal, though much of this she paid for in certain manufactures. The imports of Eu rope as a whole, as shown elsewhere, are nor mally less than those of the exports, while in America, ,Africa and Oceania the exports ex ceed the imports. In the case of the United States the exports have for many ycars ex ceeded the imports by from $300,000,000 to $600,000,000 per annum, and in most of the South American countries and Australia the exports also exceed the imports, and this is also true of most of Africa. Tables presented here with show the total imports and exports of the countries forming each continent, and also the excess of imports or exports, also the total imports and exports of certain principal coun tries of the world for a series of years. It will be noted that the aggregate trade of the coun tries of each grand division other than Europe shows larger exports than imports, while in Europe the imports exceed exports by $2,700, 000,000 in 1913, the latest normal year.