EUROPE--THE BALTIC AND NORTH SEA STATES
These states, like Great Britain and Germany, belong to Germanic Europe,
and their situation around the North and Baltic Seas makes their
commercial interests much the same. From the stand-point of commerce
Holland might be regarded as an integral part of Germany, inasmuch as a
large part of the foreign commerce of Germany must reach the sea by
crossing that state.
=Sweden and Norway.=--Sweden and Norway occupy the region best known as
the Scandinavian peninsula. The western side faces the warm, moist winds
of the Atlantic, but the surface is too rugged to be productive. The
lands suitable for farming, on the other hand, are on the east side,
where, owing to the high latitude, the winters are extremely cold.
The plateau lands are in the latitude of the great pine-forest belt that
extends across the two continents. The forests of the Scandinavian
peninsula are near the most densely peopled part of Europe, and they are
also readily accessible. Moreover, the rugged surface offers unlimited
water-power. As a result Norway and Sweden practically control the
lumber-market of Europe, and their lumber products form one of the most
important exports of the kingdom. Norway pine competes with California
redwood in Australia. The "naval stores," tar and pitch, compete with
those of Georgia and the Carolinas. The wood-pulp from this region is
the chief supply of the paper-makers of Europe. Next to Russia, Sweden
has the largest lumber-trade in Europe. The Mediterranean states are the
chief buyers.
The mineral products are a considerable source of income. Building stone
is shipped to the nearby lowland countries. The famous Swedish
manganese-iron ores, essential in steel manufacture, are shipped to the
United States and Europe. For this purpose they compete with the ores of
Spain and Cuba. The mines of the Gellivare iron district are probably
the only iron-mines of consequence within the frigid zone. The ore is
sent to German and British smelteries.
The fisheries are the most important of Europe, and this fact has had a
great influence on the history of the people. Centuries ago the people
living about the _vigs_ or fjords of the west coast were compelled to
depend almost wholly on the fisheries for their food-supplies. As a
result they became the most famous sailors of the world. They
established settlements in Iceland and Greenland; they also planted a
colony in North America 500 years before the voyage of Columbus.
Herring, salmon, and cod are the principal catch of the fisheries, and
about four-fifths of the product is cured and exported to the Catholic
European states and to South America.
South of Kristiania farming is the principal industry. Much of the land
is suitable for wheat-growing, but the productive area is so small that
a considerable amount of bread-stuffs must be imported from the United
States. On account of the high latitude the winters are too long and
severe for any but the hardiest grains. Dairy products are commercially
the most important output of the farms, and they find a ready market in
the popular centres of Europe--London, Hamburg, Paris, and Berlin.
The lumber, furniture, matches, fish, ores, and dairy products sold
abroad do not pay for the bread-stuffs, coal, petroleum, clothing, and
machinery. In part, this is made up by the carrying trade of Norwegian
vessels; the rest of the deficit is more than met by the money which the
throngs of tourists spend during the summer months.
The United States buys from these countries fish and ores to the amount
of about three million dollars a year; it sells them cotton, petroleum,
bread-stuffs, and machinery to the amount of about twelve million
dollars.
_Stockholm_, the capital of Sweden, is the chief financial and
distributing centre of the Scandinavian trade. Its railway system
reaches about every area of production. Although having a good harbor of
its own, it must depend on _Trondhjem_ (Drontheim) for winter traffic,
because the Baltic ports are closed by ice three or four months of the
year. _Kristiania_, the capital of Norway, is the export market of the
fish and lumber products.
_Göteborg_, owing to recently completed railway and canal connections,
is becoming an important port of trade. It is convenient to other
European ports, and it is rarely closed by ice. _Bergen_, _Trondhjem_,
and _Hammerfest_ derive a heavy income from their fisheries and likewise
from the tourists who visit the coast during midsummer. The last-named
port, although farther north than any town in the world, has an open
harbor during the winter.
=Denmark.=--Denmark is essentially an agricultural state, and almost every
square mile of available land is under cultivation. Even the sand-dunes
have been reclaimed and converted into pasturage. The yield of wheat is
greater per acre than in any other country, but as only a small area is
sown, wheat and flour are imported.
About half the area of the state is used in growing fodder for horses
and cattle. The dairy products, especially butter, are unrivalled
elsewhere in Europe. The dairy business is largely controlled by a
cooperative association of dairymen and farmers. Pastures, fodder,
cattle, sheds, creameries, and all the processes involved are subject to
a most rigid sanitary inspection.
_Copenhagen_, the capital, is the financial centre of the kingdom.
Commercially it is one of the most important ports of Europe. Various
shipments consigned to Baltic ports are landed at this city; here the
cargoes break bulk and are again trans-shipped to their destination. In
order to facilitate this forwarding business, the Crown has made
Copenhagen a free port. Steamship lines connect it with New York,
British ports, and the East Indies.
A great deal of farming and dairy machinery is manufactured; coal,
cotton goods, and structural machinery are imported from the United
States. Little, however, is exported to that country, almost all the
dairy products being sold to Great Britain and other populous centres of
western Europe. _Aalborg_ and _Aarhuus_ are dairy-markets.
Greenland and Iceland are colonies of Denmark, and the fishing industry
of the kingdom is carried on mainly along the shores of these islands.
The furs, seal-skins, seal-oil, and eider-down of Greenland are a
government monopoly. The mineral cryolite occurs at Ivigtut and is mined
by soda-making establishments in the United States. Iceland produces
sheep, cattle, and fish; these are shipped from _Reikiavik_. The Faroe
Islands produce but little save wool, feathers, and birds' eggs.
=Belgium.=--Probably in no other country of Europe has nature done so
little and man so much to make a great state as in Belgium. The lowland
region has been made so fertile by artificial means that it yields more
wheat per acre than any other country except Denmark. The Ardennes
highland in the southeast is naturally unproductive, but it has become
one of the great manufacturing centres of Europe. Less than one-twelfth
of the area of the state is unproductive.
The coast, more than twoscore miles in extent, has not a single harbor
for large vessels, and the two navigable rivers, the Scheldt and Meuse,
flow into another state before reaching the sea.
[Illustration: HOLLAND AND BELGIUM]
The low sand-barrens next the coast have been reclaimed by means of a
grass that holds in place the sand that formerly shifted with each
movement of the wind. This region is now cultivated pasture-land that
produces the finest of horses, cattle, and dairy products. The dairy
products go mainly to London. The Flemish horses, like those of the
sand-barrens of Germany and France, are purchased in the large cities,
where heavy draught-horses are required. Many of them are sold to the
express companies of the United States.
Bordering the sand-barrens is a belt of land that produces grain and the
sugar-beet. Flax is an important product, and its cultivation has had
much to do with both the history and the political organization of the
state. Before the advent of the cotton industry, woollen and linen were
practically the only fibres used in cloth-making. Belgium was then the
chief flax-growing and cloth-making country, and all western Europe
depended upon the Flemish looms for cloth. This industry, therefore,
gave the country not only commercial prominence, but was largely
responsible for its political independence as well. Flax is still an
important product, and the linen textiles made in the state are without
a superior. Much of the flax is grown in the valley of the River Lys.
One of the most productive coal-fields of Europe stretches across
Belgium, and a few miles south of it are the iron-ore deposits that
extend also into Luxemburg and Germany. In addition to these, the
zinc-mines about Moresnet are among the richest in the world. Belgium
is, therefore, one of the great metal-working centres of Europe. A small
portion of the coal is exported to France, but most of it is required in
the manufactures.
_Liège_, _Seraing_, and _Verviers_ are the great centres of the metal
industry. They were built at the eastern extremity of the coal-field,
within easy reach of the iron ores. Firearms, railroad steel, and
tool-making machinery are the chief products of the region, and because
of the favorable situation, these products easily compete with the
manufactures of Germany and France.
_Ghent_ is the chief focal point for the flax product, which is
converted into the finest of linen cloth and art fabrics. Much of the
weaving and spinning machinery employed in Europe is made in this city.
_Mechlin_ and the villages near by are famous the world over for
hand-worked laces.
Expensive porcelains, art tiles, glassware, and cheap crockery are made
in the line of kilns that reaches almost from one end of the coal-field
to the other; these products, moreover, are extensively exported.
The railways are owned and operated by the state. They are managed so
judiciously, moreover, that the rates of carriage are lower than in most
European states. The Scheldt is navigable for large ocean steamers to
_Antwerp_, and this city is the great Belgian port for ocean traffic.
The city owes its importance to its position. One branch of the Scheldt
leads toward the Rhine; the other is connected by a canal with the
rivers of France; the main stem of the river points toward London. It is
therefore the meeting of three ways. It is the terminal of the
steamships of American, and of various other lines. It is also the depot
of the Kongo trade. Ship-canals deep enough for coasters and freighters
connect _Ghent_, _Bruges_, and _Brussels_ with tide-water. These are
about to be converted to deep-water ship-canals.
The foreign commerce of Belgium is much like that of other European
states. Wheat, meat, maize, cotton, and petroleum are imported mainly
from the United States; iron ore is purchased from Luxemburg and
Germany, and various raw materials are brought from France. In exchange
there are exported fine machinery, linen fabrics, porcelains, fire-arms,
glassware, and beet-sugar. From the Kongo state, at the head of which is
the King of the Belgians, are obtained rubber and ivory. The rubber is
sold mainly to the United States.
_Brussels_ is the capital and financial centre. On account of the state
control of the railways, it is also the directive centre of all the
industries pertaining to commerce and transportation.
=Holland.=--The names Holland and Netherlands mean "lowland," and the
state itself has a lower surface than any other country of Europe.
Nearly half the area is at high-tide level or else below it. A large
part, mainly the region about the Zuider[71] Sea, has been reclaimed
from the sea.
In the reclamation of these lands stone dikes are built to enclose a
given area, and from the basin thus constructed the water is pumped. The
reclaimed lands, or "polders," include not only the sea-bottom, but the
coast marshes as well; even the rivers are bordered with levees in order
to prevent overflows. Windmills are the machinery by which the water is
pumped from the polders into the sea. In no other part of the world is
wind-power so extensively used. Almost every acre of the polders is
under cultivation, and these lands grow a very large part of the
vegetables and flowers consumed in the great cities of England, France,
and Belgium.
The coast sand-barrens have been converted into pasture-lands that
produce draught-horses, beef cattle, and dairy cattle. The horses find a
ready market in the United States and the large European cities; the
dairy cattle not needed at home are exported, the United States being a
heavy purchaser. The beef cattle are grown mainly for the markets of
London. Dutch butter is used far beyond the boundaries of the state, and
Edam cheese reaches nearly every large city of Europe and America.
The sugar-beet is extensively cultivated, in spite of the great trade
resulting from the cane-sugar industry of the East Indies. It is more
profitable to import wheat from the United States and rye from Russia in
order to use the land for the sugar-beet.
Practically no timber suitable for lumber manufacture exists, and
building material therefore must be imported. Pine is purchased from
Russia, Scandinavia, and the United States. Stone is purchased wherever
it may be obtained as return freight, or as ballast. The coast fisheries
yield oysters, herrings, and "anchovies," which are not anchovies, but
sprats.
For want of coal and iron there are few manufactures, and the garden and
dairy products are about the only export articles. There is an
abundance of clay, and of this brick for road-making, tiles for building
purposes, and porcelains are made. But little of the raw sugar is
refined; most of it is sold to foreign refiners, and the United States
is one of the chief customers.
Holland is a great commercial country, and for more than five hundred
years the Dutch flag has been found in almost every large port of the
world. Much of the commerce is derived from the tobacco, sugar, and
coffee plantations of the Dutch East Indies.
A very large part of the commerce, however, is neither import or export
trade, but a "transit" commerce. Thus, American coal-oil is transferred
from the great ocean tank-steamers to smaller tank-boats, and is then
carried across the state into Germany, France, and Belgium, through the
numerous canals.
This trade applies also to many of the products of the German industries
which will not bear a heavy freight tariff, such as coal, ores, etc. It
reaches the Rhine and Rhone river-basins and extends even to the Danube.
Both Switzerland and Austria-Hungary send much of their exports through
Holland. All trade at the various ports and through the canals is free,
it being the policy to encourage and not to obstruct commerce.
_Amsterdam_, the constitutional capital, is one of the great financial
and banking centres of Europe. The completion of the Nord Holland canal
makes the docks and basins accessible to the largest steamships.
Diamond-cutting is one of the unique industries of the city. Since the
discovery of the African mines its former trade in diamonds has been
largely absorbed by London.
More than half the carrying trade of the state centres at _Rotterdam_.
By the improvement of the river estuaries and canals this city has
become one of the best ports of Europe, and the tonnage of goods
handled at the docks is enormously increasing. _Vlissingen_ (Flushing)
and the _Hook_ are railway terminals that handle much of the local
freights consigned to London. _Delft_ is famous the world over for the
beautiful porcelain made at its potteries.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
How has the topography of each of these states affected its commerce?
How is their commerce affected by latitude and climate?
How has the cultivation of the sugar-beet affected the cane-sugar
industry in the British West Indies?
From the Statesman's Year-Book make a list of the leading exports and
imports of each country.
From the Abstract of Statistics find the trade of the United States with
each of these countries.
FOR COLLATERAL READING AND REFERENCE
Adams's New Empire--pp. 153-159.
Gibbins's History of Commerce--Book III, Chapters I and VIII.