In the first period commerce centred in the Mediterranean and extended over western Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. In the second period, when the use of the com pass encouraged man to explore the oceans, the Atlantic was crossed in 1492, India reached in 1496, China in 1516, and the first voyage around the world made in the period 1519-22. Yet with these long experiences of the sailing' ves sel, 3,000 years of the first period and 500 years of the second, the entire international trade of the world when the period of steam began 100 years ago was but $1,500,000,000, and to-day is $45,000,000,000. Thirty-five hundred years of the sailing vessel on the oceans and animal transportation on land had developed but $1,500,030,000 of international trade, then, with the advent of steam and electricity 100 years brought the total to $45,000,000,000, or 30 times as much in 100 years as had been developed in 3,500 years without steam and electricity.
The exchanges between nations and peo pies have always been governed by certain great natural laws. Tropical products have always been wanted by temperate zone men and tem perate zone products are wanted by the people of the tropics. Also, the people of the older and more densely populated areas demand the food and other natural products of the more recently developed regions and the newly de veloped areas demand the manufactures and luxuries of the older communities. Densely populated Europe buys the foodstuffs and manufacturing materials of the more newly developed continents, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania, and these newly developed areas take the manufactures of Europe in exchange for their natural products. This is the division of labor among the world population, accomplished by commerce.
The earliest records of commerce between great groups of people relate to the exchanges between Egypt and Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago. The Egyptians were chiefly an agricul tural people, while those of the Mesopotamia Valley, although agricultural, had developed certain manufacturing industries, and drew other manufactures from India, and perhaps China, and also certain temperate zone prod ucts from the upper waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. So, there grew up limited trading between the two valleys, carried across the des ert by the caravans of the Arabs, chiefly the silks, precious stones, spices and gems of the Orient, exchanged for the c,otton and flax and cattle and food grains of Egypt. The Phceni cians, a Semitic race closely allied to the He brews, removed about this time from the Persian Gulf to the eastern end of the Mediter ranean, and slowly built up a carrying trade along its shores, their vessels first propelled by oars, but later by sails. Gradually, they ex tended their operations along the shores of the Mediterranean, passing through the Bosporus into the Black Sea, and also pushing westward along the northern shore of Africa, and even in a limited way along the western coast of Europe as far north as the British Isles and the Baltic. They built great cities, Tyre, Sidon
and Carthage, established manufacturing in dustries and became the great traders of the world during a very long period, bringing the temperate zone products of the Baltic Sea region and of northeastern Europe, wool, furs, grain, tin and copper and silver, and exchang ing them for the semi-tropical products of the Mediterranean countries and Euphrates Val ley and the manufactures of their own great cities. Of course it took hundreds of years to develop these cities and their manufacuring industries and build up the commerce with the great frontage stretching from the Baltic Sea along both sides of the Mediterranean and the western coast of Europe, and the Phcenicians were the great trading people of the world for tnore than 1,000 years.
Gradually, however, the Greeks, who from their homes nearby witnessed the successes of the Phcenicians, followed in their footsteps, Athens and Corinth became manufacturing and commercial cities, and Greek vessels and merchants entered upon the trade of the same area in which the Phcenicians had been so successful. The conquests of Alexander, which extended to Persia and India, also aided Greek commerce by the views which they disclosed of Oriental civilization and the increased use of money in commerce, just as the experiences of the Crusaders in the same area did for Western Europe many generations later. The Greeks, however, did not develop as successful commercial qualities as did the Phcenicians, and the period of their control of world commerce was much shorter. The Romans succeeded the Greeks, as they ex tended their political control over an area nearly as great as the present United States, and with a population nearly as big as our own at the present time, stretching from the Eu phrates valley on the east to northern Europe, and including both frontages of the Mediter ranean. They built up great fleets of commer cial vessels, developed roads and commercial routes throughout their colonies, and Rome be came the great centre of their enormous area The natural products of northern and western Europe and the manufactures and luxuries of the Orient supplied the demands of that great and luxurious city of more than 1,000,000 in habitants. The decline of the Roman power reduced this commerce very greatly, though that with 'the East was somewhat revived by the transfer by Constantine of the seat of govern ment to Byzantium, since called Constantinople.