Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/224

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 OMMERCE, in its general, is the international in , or what constitutes the foreign  of all  as distinct from their domestic , and it will be convenient in this place to treat it chiefly under this aspect The same causes which give rise to of in a limited field call it into operation over more extended territories, and the same effects which flow from it in the smaller flow from it in the larger sphere. There are the same phenomena in either case, but in proportion as extends beyond the narrow boundaries of a  or a, the greater are the obstacles it has to encounter, not only in physical distance, and the practicable  of, but in , in gauging the capacity and course of , in the  of making wrong adventures, in the rivalry and , the s and s of s; and consequently the more liable it becomes to complications, partly native and partly foreign to itself, by which its advantages have been obscured and its progress has been impeded.

of implies not only a, but a development of where most abundant and accessible. As long as live in scattered and isolated, each supplying its own wants directly by its own , there can be little or no commerce; and as long as there is no commerce every local habitation of  must depend on its , however poor, unvaried, or difficult to utilize. and may be said to be of twin birth, since the existence of the one cannot be conceived without the other; and as they grow up from the simplest, they act and react on each other, giving always wider scope to their mutual operation, and preparing a certain density of  in central places, or s, where the  meet and ificers find it their interest to settle, whether in the  where  converge in their  from one region to another, or at the confluence of  , or in secure  of , commanding an extensive , or some  passage, and thus laying the foundation of  and , to become, it may be, as they have become in many instances, the seats of  and. The direct result of these primitive, as they may be called, of  and  of the products of  was to extend among  a material and  comity, apart from all  or  relations, from which sprung, as on a solid base or framework, the fair but often frail fabric of , , , , , —all that gives grace and dignity to. The special of commerce, in the material part of the, is to  places, s, , all local conveniences of  or , and superior  of various , as that of the  is to  the talent, handiness, and aptitude of individuals. The formative and developing power of this function of commerce is much more conspicuous in the phenomena of and in contemporary results than may at first sight appear. It were easy, judging from local qualities alone, to explain why the of the  should be on the  where  now is; how rival  arose along the western  of, on the, the , and the ; why  should have become the great centre of the ; why , from a small beginning in  from the adjacent , should have become a great emporium of en and cognate ; why there should be a  on the , a  on the , and a rapidly rising  on the ; why the  should maintain, after many centuries of change and amidst many rivals, its pristine supremacy, and yet the western  of  be much more brilliant commercially than the eastern. But the same principle may be no less a guide to our understanding why the earliest we have of  should be on the, the , the , and the  and s of ; how , the ancient grandeur of which has been discovered in its modern ruins, should have been built in the middle of a ; how the cradle of  and  commerce should be so indelibly couched along the s and round the numerous  of the ; how international , seeking an outlet from its dreary  of overland , , and , should have found it for a time by the  to the  and the , only to be diverted by a bold  round  of , and should now be returning under  to the shorter route again. The tendency of commerce to connect one with another, to open, to seize on every physical advantage of  between them, to create new centres of  and  on the lines of , and by the union, not only of   and capacities, but of almost boundlessly diversified  thus effected, to increase the production and circulation of , is too obvious to require illustration. This is what has been called by &ldquo;the territorial ,&rdquo; but the term scarcely reaches a full expression of the effect of commerce. There is not only a territorial extension of the in the sense of being spread over a larger area and a greatly more numerous, but the , the natural agents of  themselves, as found in various  and places, are brought into the general  as they could be by no other means, and made to yield in due harmony with each other all their special and relative superiorities. A consideration of this action of international in is sufficient to dispel many false views that have at various times been propounded with much authority such as that commerce, being an  of value for value, can add nothing to ; or that the  of one party to an exchange is the loss of the other party; or that the only  of commerce consists of the balance accruing in the ; and similar crudities of conception. The substratum of the whole system of international is that, after bearing the cost of, are of more value in one place than in another. are often so abundant, or capable of being produced so abundantly in some places, as to be superfluities, and absolutely valueless in such places, and yet are of much value in other places. As this relation is mutual, there is nothing inconsistent in an of  of more value in one place than in another with a gain of value on both sides of the ; and this becomes all the more apparent when, in addition to the  of the  or  employed in the, there is taken into account the gain arising to the communities in their , and in the s of their.

of must have been coeval with. However self depending on their own  may have been in the social state, they must soon have had some  to  with each 