International Trade Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 Excerpt: ... useful. Physically, he may be a poor animal; his eyes weak, his head bald, his shoulders bent; yet mentally a giant, who, like Atlas, upholds the economic equilibrium of the world; and women in far lands give thanks for the plenteousness of food to their own strange, invisible god, knowing not that whether they shall starve or live in plenty lies in the hands of the quiet, silent man, sitting moveless and alone in a distant city. This is the element of poetry in modern commerce, a tone at variance, as has been said, with that of the dying age. It is the poetry of order, not that of uncertainty; the poetry of science, not that of behavior; the harmony of universals, not that of personal taste. Its charm lies in its logical perfection, not in vaporing hopes. This Commerce is a giant clockwork process, compared to which the old sea-traffic is as crude as the Columbus clock to our present timepieces. It is an evolution that gives promise of far greater complexity, of becoming a system of members so delicate that not one invoice shall go astray but the loss shall be known and appreciated by the whole organism. Compare this era with the dying age of sea-traffic; the era of publicity, knowledge and logic, with the age of secrecy, mystery and romance, when the loss of a great ship was a vague calamity that only years could verify. It is an evolution of childhood into manhood, of boyish dreams into manly ambitions. The romance of commerce is still with us, but it is easily overlooked. Our eyes are too close to the page--we see the lines of type, but cannot read the story, and for that reason modern trade seems dry and unromantic. It is but natural to suppose that at no distant day the steamship, as we now know it, will be a reminiscence, a quaint and curious form, ...