The age-herald., 1898-01-30
Influence Of Commerce on Politics.

course, that trade exigencie5 have had much to do with the recent seizures of Chinese territory by the continental Eu- ropean nations. True, this consideration does not appear on the surface of affairs.
 It is not avowed By William IL, who made the first move in the work of territorial appropriation, although that monarch, on many important occasions, has set forth his aspirations and purposes with a candor and a courage which are rare among great potentates. Indeed, the commercial idea has been kept studiously out of sight in the whole transaction. Prince Henry, the emperor's brother, who was to command the German fleet in Chinese waters, de- clared at the Kiel demonstration, before departing for China, that neither fame nor laurels' had any charms for him. As he expressed 1t, addressing the kaiser, the aim which drew him was to declare in foreign lands the gospel of your majesty's hallowed person, to preach 1t to every one that will hear it. and also to those who will not heIr it. This gospel I will have in- scribed on my banner, and I will inscribe 1t wherever I go.
 There was no intimation in this outburst that anything so sordid as desire to ex- tend the market for German goods figured in the thoughts of the men who melted or were conducting the Kioa-Chau seizure of Chinese territory. The pretext for the att tack on China was the murder of German missionaries by Chinese As stated by Lii Hung Chang, the leading parsonage in China, the murders were committed by
 bandits, who, as everybody knows, slay and rob without any regard to their vic
 tins race, color or previous condition of servitude. And, according to the same authority, China promptly offered ample reparation to Germany and indemnity to Q of ho mn IDf the German government was not placated, and Chinese territory was taken. Russia and France followed Germanys example with celerity and silence which portend- ed some sort of a pre-arranged plan. Pos sibly the outcome will be that there will
 be no confiice, at least in the immediate future, between these powers and England and Japan, which appeared to be left out of the agreement that the 'claims" of these two nations will be recognized" and that China will be divided up among the principal Old World countries The ulte- rior purpose of the despoiers, however, will be revealed when each erects it's own tariff barriers at the frontiers of the captured territory, and when the commercial treat ies of outside nations with China will lapse as Chinese authority disappears
 Other considerations besides that of ere ating a market for home products have, to be sure, influenced nations in making terri torial conquests in new and old lands The spirit of adventure has had much to do with the planting of colonies. In the older days religious sentiment-the desire to ex- tend the gospel among the heathen-had a large influence in this direction. power full incentive toward acquiring dominion always has been the vanity of monarchs and the desire of people to their coun- try spread over large space on the map. Webster, in the controversy aroused by Jackson's assault on the United States bank, spoke of the nation which, flor pur- poses of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory Is not to be compared, a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and un- broken strain of the martial airs of Eng land.' This idea of globe-circling domain has always appealed powerfully to the inn agination of Old World potentates and statesmen. All of them would like to have. as Spain and France had at one time and as England has had for more than a century past an empirel on which the sun never sets. Trade, however, an melting factor, figures in a greater or less degree in most of the territorial conquests of the great nations.
 Industrial and commercial exigencies have had dominant influence on the ca reer of the United States. They began to shape the countrys destinies long before it's national existence began. It was the aim of British statesmen to prevent Eng lands American colonies from producing anything except foods of the different sorts and the raw materials of manufactures. The surplus of the former was to be sent
 to England. All of the latter were to be shipped to England, where they were made into the different kinds of manufactures. Immense supplies of iron ore were known to exist in England's American colonies, rOlOniStS forbidden n it in manufacturing beyond the pig and bar iron stage. In these shapes it was to be exported to the mother country and fashioned into the various finished products which entered into general consumption. The colonists were allowed to make hats. but were not permitted to make any more than the actual needs of the colonies, the intention being to keep them as far pos sible, from competing with England.
 These restrictions quickly began to raise protests this side of the Atlantic The colonies could not see the justice of being compelled to ship their wool 5000 miles to get 1t manufactured into cloth, and then carry it back the same distance in order to use it. In the transit between the pro- ducer and the consumer, both producers and consumers being the same persons in many cases and neighbors in the rest of the instances the wool and it's finished pro- duct trayersed a distance equal to a quar- ter of the entire circuit of the globe, dis tdlce WHICH, IHeaSufeu Dy time, was SIX times great as 1t is now, the consumer having to bear. the ultimate cost of the transaction. The colonies produced large quantities of tobacco and rice. and all the world wanted to buy these articles, but the colonies were not allowed to ship them to any country except England, which sold them to the rest of the world. Nor could the colonies buy any of the products of other countries except through England That is, these, in general theory, were the laws. but the laws were frequently vioat- ed. and smuggling was extensively prac- ticed. The intention was to give monop- oly of the colonies industries and trade to British manufacturers and merchants.
 England's experience in the loss of her American colonies taught her a needed lesson. She has treated her dependencies more considerably in the present century in trade matters as in other things. Some of them, as Canada and Australia, frame their own tariffs. Spain and the other European nations, though, have made but little change in the treatment of their col onies in the past hundred years.
 Truly England was not as hard a task master as were the rest of the great Euro pean nations of a century ago and over. According to the ideas and practices of
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