Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-03-13
THE GOLDEN GIRDLE.
FREEDOM OFExCHANGE MEANS PROS
PERlTY AND PROGRESS.

The History of the World Shows That
Commerce Has Been the Great Civilizer
and Educator-"It Catches All the Inn
proyements in Its Flight"
However wide or however narrow
the purview is taken, Cowper's familiar
line, Trade is the golden girdle of the
globe" forces its truth into prominence.
Whether the mental scope includes the
wider range of the nations of antiquity
or is concentrated upon a congested dis
trict of Ireland, the result is the same
that isolation means stagnation, and
stagnation means poverty, while free
dom of intercourse and exchange means
prosperity, progress and well being.
Why in tho past did, at various periods
of the worlds history, Constantinople,
Venice and Antwerp become the hives of
industry, happiness, culture and wealth,
and the home of the industrial and civil
lizing arts? The answer is Commerce,
for
Art thrves most
Where commerce has enriched the busy coast.
1t catches all the improvements in its flight,
Spreads foreign wonders in its country's sight,
Imports what others have invented well,
And stirs its own TO match them or excel.
Or, to go further back, Why has
Ph9nicia left so enduring a mark upon
tho ages and Rome (the Rome of the
Caesars and not of the popes) so little
one? The answer is again, Commerce"
The one nations merchantmen sailed
into all the ports of the known world,
establishing there its colonies of indus
tries; the other strobe the world like
colossal vampire, sucking tribute only
from subjected nations, and it withered
like scroll, leaving little behind save
the ruins of its i'll gained luxury to mark
its epoch.
Even a superfuous abundance of gold
beyond the dreams of avarice is but
dross without the outlet of trade and
free exchange of commodities to turn
that gold into nations lifeblood.
Witness Peru in the days of PizarrO; or,
still more to the point, what would have
been the benefit to Australia if it could
not have exchanged the resulting prod
uct of its gold fields for commodities?
If it could only have exchanged its gold
en- nuggets for minted coin, where would
have been its benefit? But being able to
receive for It's gold rails for the building
of railroads, sheet iron for its buildings,
live stock for its boundless and luxuriant
pastures and arables, in the place of con-
gestion there have followed the great
wave and circle of development, ever
widening, ever fructifying, ever pulsing
forward to new developments, new
wealth and new life.
Each climate needs what other climes produce,
And offers something to the general use;
No land but listens to the common call,
And in return receives supplies from all.
To pursue the subject into another
channels: What is the cause of the
marked difference of conditions of the
swarming millions of China, existing
upon the margin of loathsome starva-
ton tempered by the safety valve of
periodical famines, and the peasantry of
Belgium and France, the operatives of
England and the still more favored
tillers of the boundless prairies of our
own land? 1t is commerce and inter-
change of trade-the western nations,
with greater or less variations of indus
trial liberty, filling the world with mu-
tual benefits, the eastern nations stag
mating in corrupting and enfeebling
isolation, only yet partially overcome,
and that at the cannon's mouth. Who
can close their eyes to the effects of these
diverse systems or fail to see that in the
further and freer development of inter-
national trade lies the hope of the world?
We may think the idea utopian, but the
human race will only reach its goal
when leach shall see his own in all mems
good. American Industries.