Republican farmer., 1919-01-03
TRANSPORTATION
 CHIEF FACTOR IN WORLD COMMERCE
Growth from Two Billion of Century Ago to 50 Billion
 Is Thus Explained.
DIVISION OF LABOR
 IS ALSO IMPORTANT
Growth of Population of the World Takes Part of Cred
 it for Expansion.

it for Expansion.
 The chief causes of the growth of International Commerce from less than $2,oOO GOO, 900 in ISIS to approxi- mately $50 900, GOO, ,O0O in 1918 was the subject of a lecture delivered last week before the class in International Trade and Commercial Geography in the Educational Department of the National City Bank of New York Growth in population, cheapening in transportation, and a division of labor among groups of men the world over were, in the opinion of the lecturer, the chief causes of this growth.
 We can scarcely realize" he said, that man, who has only been able to build up a world trade of $20OO,- 000,000 a year in all the centuries of his life upon the globe, should have suddenly in one century increased it to $50,O8O GOO OOO. When Daniel Dod, a Virginia engine builder came in ISIS to New York, then a village of 60000 people, filled with the idea that he could build an engine which would drive a. vessel across the Atlantic and
 
 ship for him, they jointly laid one section of the foundation for the tre- mendous growth of world commerce. The other sections of the foundation upon which world commerce has grown are the railroads, the tele- graphs, the telephones, and the finan- ciaI and banking systems"
 l It was just one hundred years ago " nah" built in New York for the trans ! Atlantic experiment passed out of ! New York to Savannah, Ga, which port it left a few months later on it's successful venture across the ocean, to which the steamship was up to | that time unknown. By 1850 world international trade had grown to i S4, GOO, eco GOO, by 1900 it was $20, O00 = 600, 900, by 1913 $40,000, GOO GOO, and in the year just ending aggregated prob ably $50, coo, GOO 900 when measured in the inflated currency of the present period Meantime world railways had grown to 725,O00 miles. It is difficult to realize, said the speaker, that only one hundred years ago the world had no steamships crossing the ocean, not ! @ mile of railway or a. foot of tele- graph or ocean cable while. as for telephones, wireless telegraphy or fly ing machines, they are the product of the present generation.
 During the century of power trans portation, 1918 to 1918, the world steamships grew to about 30. 900 GOO net tons, with a value at the beginning of the recent war of about g., ,oAr GOO, 900, and the worlds railroads had grown to 720000 miles with a value of prob ably $7O, ,000, O00. With the rapid in crease in gold production in the last quarter century, the money of the world had grown from 0000, 900 900 in 1896 to about $15O00,0O0, 900 at the beginning of the European War. Then, with the necessity for ready l currency which faced each of the na- tions at war; came an enormous in- fiation, and the worlds money dn- cluding the uncovered paper'') is now | about S36 GOO, OO0, 900. The banking , power of the world, which was esti- . mated by accepted authorities at less l than 5000, 900, ,0OO in 184O, and $15OOO : 000,O00 in 1890, was probably $65. 0OOO, 000,0 in 1914, and has, of course
 enormously increased during the wal
 period, and banking power is an ex-
 tremely important factor in world trade and rapidly increasing in i'm
 pOrtance.
 7 The principal cause of these tre-
 mendous international exchanges which have grown with such unex- ! ampIed rapidity within the last cen I tury can be stated in single and very brief phrase---a division of la Dor the assignment to certain areas
 and their peoples of the production ot , certain articles for interchange in l world commerce. It was found thai : certain areas could produce wheat more successfully than certain other
 areas and this was true also witt ' reference to the other great require ments of man, corn, meats, sugar, tea coffee, cotton, wool silk, iron, copper
 tin, lumber, India rubber and manu- factures, and that the respective areas Z especially suited to the production ot 5 these individual articles could pro-
 duce them much more readily and
 cheaply than could other countries re.
 quiring them, especially if, by the de
 Velopment of cheap and plentiful transportation facilities, these articles could be readily moved from the place of production to the places where required. Cost of transporta. tion has been so reduced that a Brit. ish workman could in 1910 pay witt ! one days labor the cost of transport ing years supply of bread and meat 5 from the Mississippi Valley to h1s owr 5 door: and the application of power tc | farming had made it possible in 1911 l to produce a bushe1 of wheat with Il
 minutes of human labor against three hours of labor required to produce [ bushel one hundred years earlier. s