Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/439

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 423

government, must come in the near future, if the race problem is to be settled. And, lastly, the negro youth must have the opportunity to learn the technical skill of modern industry. W. E. BURGUARDT Du Bois, in International Journal of Ethics. April, 1904. E. B. W.

Commercial Leadership and Trade Morality. Americans in their grati- fication at the commercial prosperity of the nation, should not relinquish a careful scrutiny of the great field of international enterprise. For never yet in the world's history has industrial supremacy taken up a very permanent abode even with the most prosperous of nations. Nineveh, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, the Arabs, all in turn dominated commerce. The Crusades, looked at from one point of view, were struggles for markets and trading-routes. The cities of Italy early achieved dis- tinction, but gradually the Portuguese wrested their commercial pre-eminence from them, and enjoyed for a time a leadership which the enervating effects of their own success compelled them to pass on to the Spaniards and the Dutch. With the rise of Holland manufactures and commerce entered upon closer relations. Mere trading gave way to vigorous industrial, agricultural, and financial enterprises. But Holland could not maintain her place against such formidable rivals as Eng- land and France. The former, favored by political and social conditions, as well as by situation, forged ahead, and, thwarting the designs of Napoleon, achieved under a consistent free-trade policy a most remarkable supremacy. Today her mercantile marine is nearly equal to that of the whole of the rest of the world.

The rise of the United States and of Germany has been due to their own vigor rather than to the weakness of England. The commercial strength of America is commonly stated to lie in its coal and mineral deposits, and the organization of its industry. But a changing environment, the novelty of a new continent, has doubtless afforded the secret of much of our progress. Will zeal and interest in an unending series of such material conquests continue ever fresh and strong, or will the day come when we shall be glad to turn over to China the work of brute production? An industrial China means an unlimited market for American wheat, and the thorough cultivation of our arid West. The question of the " open door " in China is only a phase of the broader question of government control of com- merce. As long ago as the Napoleonic wars it was decided that trade was not to be acquired by conquest of neighboring nations equal in civilization to the con- queror, and it is hard to believe that, in the event of the partition of China, the mediaeval policy of exclusive colonial trading privileges would be re-enacted. The increase of our trade with Great Britain in spite of the American Revolution goes to show that trade follows the flag so long as it is compelled to, but that political relations are not at all essential to commercial relations.

It is plain from this sketch of the world's commerce that in modern times it is becoming more and more difficult for trade to be forced into certain channels by trade regulation. The mediaeval colonial empires were practically founded in order to rob weak peoples under the guise of trade. Modern colonies cannot be controlled on this basis. The complexity of modern commerce will enforce a new morality, and if this new morality prohibits the policy of the closed door, and if mere aimless display of empire is not a sufficient ground for conquest, why, then the only rational excuse for the maintenance of colonies will be in order to moralize and police them, and thus to gain trade advantages which will benefit the power in control, while they will not be denied to other countries. W. G. LANGWORTHy TAYLOR, in Journal of Political Economy, March 1904.

E. B. W.

Hugo de Vries's Theory of Mutations. It has often seemed as if the immense mass of facts which Darwin collected and arranged with so much care and skill was provisionally looked upon as sufficient. The voluminous literature of biological science shows that the number of biologists who have preferred patient experimentation to theoretical speculation is very limited. Yet for those who came after Darwin the task should have been to test, by new experiments, the two great groups of facts on which descent and selection are founded, viz., the phe-