The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-12-07

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had establishments in their cities-whole
treets appropriated to them. The Mahom-
edans having established themselves in India,
their co.religionists, in Syria and Egypt and
Arabia, carried on the trade to that coun.
try; and with their factors the italian mer-
chants formed close business relations. To
them they sold the products of Europe and
took in exchange those Of the East.
The manufactured articles they sold in
Egypt and Syria were mostly from their
own country. Their return cargoes were
sold all over EUROPE at enormous profits, so
that there was constant stream of cash
flowing into their home Golfers. While
their system of trade enriched. it did not
enervate their people, because its whole
tendency was to stimulate their enterprise,
industry and invention. Their importations
from Egypt and Syria far exceeded their
own wants, so they had class of large
vessels, called galleons, which they would
load at Venice, and send to their entrepots
on the Mediterranean. They also sent their
goods, with their own manufactures, to the
great fairs then he'd periodically in Europe,
as at Bruges and Anvers, in Flanders, and
Augsburg, in Germany, great markets for
India goods, and at these fairs, the Italians,
and especially the Venetians, were the rec
Ognized merchant princes of the world.
The simple fact OF making city or town
an entrepOt for the sale of their goods, en-
rlched its inhabitants, and enabled them to
surround themselves with elegance and mag
nifcence. During the whole of the four
teeDth century, the Venetians enjoyed al
most the monopoly of this rich commerce.
Their example and success excited emu.
lation, and inspired the rising nations of
Europe with commercial ambition.
In all ages the leading commercial nation
will have the most surplus cash, and will
become the banker of the world. 1t is the
nation of commercial disadvantages that
borrows from the nation of commercial ad.
vantages portion OF the profits of the for
mer, and pays interest therefor. From the
end of the twelfth to the beginning of the
sixteenth century, the rate of interest in
Europe averaged from ten to twenty per
cent. and the Italians were the principal
money lenders. From this source, also,
they accumulated immense wealth.
No people on the face of the earth have
ever been so generally wealthy as were the
Italians during this period. Every class Of
society was prosperous. Never, in any other
period of the worlds history, have journey.
man mechanics been so well' paid for their
labor, and mechanical and artistic skill
so highly honored. Even the titled nobility
esteemed it an honor to learn trades and
excel in their workmanship. The cities of
Italy furnish, in the decaying residences and
palaces of the citizens of that period, a de-
gree of widely difused opulence not since
attained by the people Of any country. The
galleries OF Italy are now filled with the
works Of art of that age, which have had
no equals since the days of classic Greece.
The prodigious number OF these works of
art by great masters, attest the former high
cultivation and OpuleDce of the Italians
the result of commercial monopoly.
While the general condition of the labor
ing classes of Europe in the 18th century,
was that OF extreme poverty and degra-
dation, the peasantry of Italy were
only rentees of land, lived in villages
surrounded by their highly cultivated
fields, and then enjoyed not only the COM
forts but the luxuries of the age. They oc-
cupied commodious and elegant dwellings,
and according to the testimony of Sismondi,
lived in better style than the bourgeois or
middle classes, OF moderate fortunes, in the
| most prosperous countries of Europe in this
| century.
They could (szys Sismondi, to
whom we are indebted for many of
these details) raise their children in the
full assurance that labor would furnish them
an abundant subsistence, and that if they
did not wish to train them to agriculture,
they could always find remunerative EN-.
ploymeur in other pursuits, in the trades OF
the cities or 10 the service of the State" !"
A degree Of energy and activity never sur:
passed in any other age or country, and
scarcely squalled even in this, was then a
characteristic of all classes of people in the
Italian Republics.