Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/476

460 steeped in the water of a certain river. Returning from there, it is spun into superfine yarns by the best machinery and in the naturally adapted moist climate of Belfast. At that stage the product is again sent back to Belgium, where it is woven into gossamer-like cambrics, in low, damp cellars, and under conditions that would not be agreeable to the north of Ireland artisan, and the work of the Belgian hand-loom weaver must then be carried back to be bleached under the dripping skies of the Green Isle. England is, besides, herself the largest and readiest buyer of all improved articles of necessity and luxury, from whatever source arriving; and, while usually the first to open up new markets, in none does she lay claim to any exclusive privilege.

There is, indeed, ample room in the natural economy of production for the services of all nations, and none need stand idle. Co-operation, not hostility and jealousy, should be the watchword of modern industrial enterprise. We ought, in the interest of producer and consumer alike, to remove all fiscal shackles from our trade and manufactures. European governments, hampered with the expenses of an all-devouring militarism, may be unable to abandon any source of revenue, however demoralizing in its incidence or costly in its collection. They may also fear the effects upon their own stability of even a temporary disturbance of existing employments. But neither of these objections can be of any weight with a nation perplexed only with the disposal of its surplus revenues, and whose reposing might need fear no foreign attack. In the enormous extent of our partially developed territorial resources, and no less in our wealth of inventiveness, now but half utilized, there can be no scarcity of employment for capital and labor, nor can we find any such profitable investment for our hoarded millions as the release of our capitalists and artisans, by just indemnities and pensions, from the demoralizing servitude of state-supported industries. In the past we have misdirected their energies and squandered their resources, and we owe them some compensation. Let us all make a new start by working in alliance with Nature, and no longer in ignorant opposition to her. Let each industry freely settle where it may, in our territory or out of it, and within the lifetime of many already middle-aged we shall see progress in the wealth of our country, and in the growth and contentment of our population, far surpassing all our previous experience.

view into the conditions and international relations of the remote past is given by Dr. Lehmann, of Berlin, in a paper on "Ancient Metrology." His showing that the Egyptian system of weights and measures, instead of being the origin of that of Babylonia, presupposes the sexagesimal system of the latter, if confirmed, would indicate the existence of commercial intercourse between Babylonia and Egypt at a time of which we have at present no contemporaneous records.