The value of the merchandise forming in ternational trade was in the latest normal year, 1913, about $20,000,000,000 or one-half of the usual statement of $40,000,Q00,000, which is obtained by counting the merchandise when exported from the various countries of the world and counting it again when it becomes an import in some other country. If we as sume that the cost of transportation is about 5 per cent of the value of the merchandise transported we shall find that the world is paying $1,000,000,000 a year for mere car riage of the merchandise which it exchanges between the countries or continents, while the profits, legitimate or otherwise, of the millions of ((middlemen" who handle the products in the passage from producer to the consumer thousands of miles from the place of produc tion, are of course several times as much as the mere cost of transportation. Yet the peo ple of the world ungrumblingly pay these bil lions of dollars every year for the sake of obtaining food, clothing, manufacturing ma terial and manufactures accumulated from any and every part of the globe.
Trade between the climatic belts is very large irrespective of continental relationship. The tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world lie between the 30th parallel of north latitude which runs through New Orleans, Cairo and Shanghai and the 30th parallel of south latitude which falls a little north of Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Sydney, Aus tralia. This tropical and sub-tropical belt around the world lying between the 30th parallel of north latitude and the 30th parallel of south latitude has one-half of the land area of the globe and half the world's population and it sells to the temperate zones at the north and south about $3,500,000,000 worth of its annual pro ducts.
Attention is especially called to the fact that only about one-half of the international trade of the world crosses the oceans. The other half is merely exchanges of merchandise be tween countries lying alongside each other or at least within the same continent. For ex ample, the trade between the United States and the other countries of North America is, in nor mal years, one-third as much as that with all the other grand divisions of the world and the total interchanges of merchandise among the countries of North America are one-half as much as their trade with the other continents. In Europe, the interchanges among the coun tries forming that continent are actually greater than their trade with all the other grand di visions of the world. The aggregate of the imports of all the countries of Europe in 1913 was $14,000,000,000 and of this large total only $6,000,000,000 worth was drawn from other grand divisions, the remaining $8,000,000,000 being trade between the countries forming that continent; and of the $11,000,000,000 of ex ports of all the European countries, only $4,000,000,000 passed or out of that grand division, Europe, the remainder being exchanges between the countries of Europe and therefore intra-continental. The share of the
aggregate trade of the European countries which occurs with other continents is about 40 per cent, in the case of Asia about 50 per cent, North America 66 per cent, South Amer ica, Africa and Oceania 90 per cent. North America sells to the other grand divisions $2,250,000,000 worth of her products annually, and buys from the other continents $1,750, 000,000 worth. South American exports to the other grand divisions are over $1,000,000,000 a year and her purchases from them range about $750,000,000, and in exceptional years as much as $1,000,000,000. Asia sends $1,250, 000,000 worth of merchandise to the other grand divisions, and takes from them $1,000, 000,000 worth of their products. Slightly more than one-half of the entire interna tional trade of the world is intercontinental or exchanges between the continents or grand i divisions, the remainder is intra-continental or exchanges between the countries of the con tinent in which the merchandise originates.
What are the principal articles which form the exchanges between the great geographic and climatic divisions of the world? Food, manufacturing material and manufactures. Man must have food, he must have manufac tures and therefore he must have manufacturing materials. The countries having a dense popu lation produce less food than their own people require and must import the remainder. The countries having a sparse population produce more food than their own people require and can export the surplus. The country having the surplus is willing to sell its surplus to the country having the shortage, if the latter has something with which to pay for it, and it usually happens that the country which must buy food has a surplus of manufactures to sell, and as the new and less densely populated countries are not manufacturers, they are will ing to take manufactures in exchange for their surplus food. If it is not convenient to make the exchange by the direct process, the purchas ing country pays for the foodstuff in cash and the selling country takes the cash and buys its manufactures from a more convenient market. The manufacturing countries must also have manufacturing materials, and these they draw largely from the tropical and sub-tropical world, and as the tropical people are not manu facturers, they gladly accept manufactures in exchange for their natural products. They have also certain foodstuffs peculiar to the tropics, such as rice, sugar, coffee, cocoa, spices, fruits and nuts, which the temperate zone countries want and pay for in manufactures and in certain lcinds of food which the tropics can not con veniently produce, especially flour and meat. In studying these natural exchanges and inter changes of commerce between climatic as well as continental sections, we therefore develop the study of commercial geography.