Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/801

* INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 711 ■developmoiit of the two regions, by the earlier progress ol eivilization and the arts among the people of the Orient. Hence a large part of the history of coninicrce is the history of trade with the East. The first ti'ade routes wei'e overland from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, whence the goods were carried by Plioenician and later by CTreek traders to all parts of the Mediter- ranean Sea. In view of the heavy costs of trans- port, the goods which were so tiaded W'ere of the richer sort — spices, silk, embroideries, fine linens, and the finer manufactures of the metals — sword- blades, gold and silver utensils, and precious stones. To the dillicMilly of transporting the goods was added the dilliculty of protecting them, which again forliade the commerce with bulkier commodities, whose size would be an embarrass- ment. Protected l)y the jiower of Imperial Rome, this commerce extended as far as India and China, while Egj'pt was the gianary of the Imperial city, whence it drew its supplies of grain. But with the break-up of the Koman power commerce declined. Constantinople, indeed, maintained its relations with the East, and at a later period the .rabs, who controlled the Southern Mediterranean from Egypt to Spain, and had a firm footing in Sicily, carried on a considerable trade. But the Roman civilization on the Rhine, in Britain, and in Gaul, which had brought those countries into close connection with the Oriental world, had been destroyed, while Gotlis and Lombards subjected Italy to a ruder civiliyation than it had heretofore known. It was, however, in the Italian Peninsula that commerce first arose in the Middle Ages. Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence took up the trade be- tween the East and the West, which in classic times had been in the hands of Greeks and Phoeni- cians. They claimed rights of trading at Con- stantinople among the .rabs. These pretensions were sip]iort(d by the naval ])ower of the State, which protected the ships of its merchants. They carried the produce of the East and of Italy through the Strait of Gibraltar to Flanders and the Hanseatic towns. At the outset of this new development of maritime commerce it was har- assed by pirates, but the strong hand of Venice put down this nefarious practice in the Mediter- ranean Sen. ns the Hanseatic League crushed the Danish sea-robbers. But these maraiiders of the sea could not be utterly suppressed, and they made maritime ven- tures extremely hazardous to a late day. Hence, just as the Eastern merchants sovight the protec- tion of the caravan, so the Western merchants sought the protection of the flotilla. Hence the habit of sending off expeditions of merchantmen under the protection of men-of-war. which made of foreign trade a matter of State concern rather than of private enterprises. Only those who could secure such protection could atTord to en- gage in these enterprises. In the first instance, as in Venice, these were the grandees, who were themselves the political power; but in later in- stances such privileges were conferred upon the great commercial companies, on wOinm was con- ferred also a monopoly of trade. With the advent of the Turks in ."Vsia Minor and the final conquest of Constantinople, the old paths to the East were closed and the supremacy of the Italian States was doomed. New- paths were sought to the East — Vasco da Gama INTERPELLATION. discovered the passage to India around the Cape of Good Hope, and in a like quest Columbus revealed to luirope the Western Hemisphere. Portugal, Spain, Holland, England, in turn, suc- ceeded to the commercial leadership. Cctmmerce with these distant lands was not made free to all, but given over to the great commercial com- panies, of which the East India companies of Great Britain and Holland were the most con- spicuous for their enduring results, the Missis- sippi Company in France and the South Sea Cora- ])any in England most famous for their spectacu- lar failure. While the European nations willingly lent the aid of the Government to conunerce in distant lands, they were far from encouraging inter- course with their neighbors. In 1G2G Louis XIII. of Fiance prohibited all commerce with England. Before long commerce was again re- newed, but hostile taritT legislation w-as the order of the day, in spite of commercial treaties concluded in 1032. In 1619 the Commonwealth, in retaliation for high-handed [iroccedings in France, prohibited the importation of French wines, wool, and silk, though this prohibition was again removed by a treaty of 1054. In 1078 there was again a prohil)ition of importation of French wines and brandv. and for a quarter of a century ill feeling prevailed, which finally found expression in 1703 in a treaty witii Por-- tugal, which gave the wines of that country a decided preference over tlio.se of France. This illustration of the relations of the countries in a single century is characteristic of the time. Such prohibition of trade was dictated by the mercantile policy before described, which at an earlier stage had sought its ends by the even cruder methods of forbidding, under severe pen- alties, the exportation of bullion, and had even sought by a high rating of foreign coins to attract them to the Kingdom. Of the various restrictions upon and encour- agements to foreign trade, which little more than a century ago were so generally in vogue, pro- hibitive imjiort duties, export duties, and export bounties, one only is of far-reacliing significance to-day — duties upon imports. For the various questions to which they gave rise in their modem aspects, see CouMKncE; Cu.stom.s Di'ties; Free Tbade; Pkotection: Tariff; JIeroantii.ism. Bim.iocRAPHY. Smith. Wealth of (itions, especially Book iv. ; Jlill, Principles of Political Econonuj. Book iii., eh. 17, 18; Bastable, The Thcorii of Jntcrnutiotial Trade (•2d ed., London, 1897); Cairnes, Some Leading Principlea in Political Economy, Ifewly Expounded (1874). INTERNODE (Lat. internodium, space be- tween knots, from inter, between -f- nodun. knot). In botany, the portion of stem between two suc- cessive nodes (joints). It is the internodes which give length to the stem and stretch the nodes apart. The leaves and branches are borne at the nodes. See Stem. INTEROCEANIC SHIP CANAL. Sec Canal: XrcARAtuA Canal; PAXA>tA Canai,. INTEROCEANIC SHIP RAILWAY. See Ship Railway. INTERPELLATION. A method of Euro- pean legislative procedure, whereby members of the legislature interrogate the Ministers in re- gard to the policy and measures of the Govern- ment. Its primary purpose is to force the