COMMERCE AND COAL
=315. Statistical survey of development since 1800.=—In entering the
nineteenth century the student approaches the period in which commerce
has achieved the most notable progress. Great as former advances may
have seemed to the people in whose time they occurred, these sink
almost to insignificance when compared with the growth of commerce
since 1800. A recent estimate by a German author pictures the progress
of the export and import trade of the commercial countries of the
world as follows, in milliards of marks (roughly, units of 250 million
dollars): 1700, 0.5; 1750, 1.0; 1800, 6; 1850, 17; 1899, 76. Some of
the striking features of recent growth are shown in the following
table. It is necessary, however, to warn the student that these
figures, especially those for the earlier part of the century, can be
regarded only as approximations to the truth. It may not be out of
place, further, to advise the student to turn to the end of the chapter
for suggestions as to the best way of studying the figures.
=316. Great growth of foreign commerce.=—Assuming, for purposes of
discussion, a fair degree of accuracy in the figures, some conclusions
from them may be pointed out. The commerce of the world increased in
this century at the astonishing rate of 1,359 per cent. We have before
encountered instances of remarkable commercial expansion, in particular
countries, but we must bear in mind that the figures here are supposed
to include the whole world, the backward as well as the progressive
countries, the many millions in the interior of great continents
who scarcely trade at all, and the Chinese, perhaps in themselves a
quarter of the world’s population, who trade still to but a slight
extent. Clearly the growth of commerce in some countries must have been
enormous to raise the total figures to the point at which we find them.
FOREIGN COMMERCE AND PRODUCTION OF THE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD
=========+=================+========+=============+===========
Year | Aggregate | Per | Coal | Pig Iron
| Commerce | Capita | Production |Production
| Thousand |Commerce| Million | Million
|Million Dollars |Dollars | Tons | Tons
---------+-----------------+--------+-------------+-----------
1800 | 1.4 | 2.31 | 11.6 | 0.8
1820 | 1.6 | 2.13 | 17.2 | 1.0
1830 | 1.9 | 2.34 | 25.1 | 1.8
1840 | 2.7 | 2.93 | 44.8 | 2.7
1850 | 4.0 | 3.76 | 81.4 | 4.7
1860 | 7.2 | 6.01 | 142.3 | 7.2
1870 | 10.6 | 8.14 | 213.4 | 11.9
1880 | 14.7 | 10.26 | 340 | 18.0
1890 | 17.5 | 11.80 | 466 | 27.2
1900 | 20.1 | 13.02 | 800 | 40.4
1910 | 33.6 | 20.81 | 1,141 | 65.8
1913 | 40.4 | 24.47 | 1,443 | 77.4
=========+=================+========+=============+===========
=317. Increase in the relative importance of commerce.=—Not less
striking than this growth in absolute quantity, as measured in current
values, is the growth compared with the estimated increase of the
world’s population. The value _per capita_ (“by head”) of a country’s
commerce is secured by dividing the total amount of trade by the number
of inhabitants; it shows the average share of each person in commerce,
and furnishes, therefore, some index of the relative importance of
commerce in different times and places. Now, even if this value _per
capita_ had remained the same we should regard the absolute increase
in commerce as a very important fact. Commerce, however, has actually
increased much faster than population; the share of the average human
being in the world’s trade has grown over tenfold. Let the student
reflect on the difference it would make to him whether he had $2 or $20
for spending money in a given time, and consider the extra articles
he could buy with the larger sum; he will then be better able to
appreciate the broadening and deepening of the commercial current in
recent times.
=318. The world now passing through a commercial revolution.=—The
student is now in a position to understand the significance of the
statement of an English writer, that “the commerce of the world may
almost be said to be the creation of the past seventy-five years.”
We are living in the midst of a vast, though silent, revolution.
Reference to the figures will show that the process of change quickened
strikingly in the latter half of the century, and at its close we still
do not dare to say when the movement will slacken. The change which
we find so marked in commerce affects equally other sides of human
life. An American author, Adams, writing in 1871, could say with truth
that “the discoveries of Guttenberg and Columbus have produced more
startling and more clearly defined results upon the destinies of the
human race within the last twenty-five years than in any other equal
period of time during the four previous centuries.” Have the results
been less startling in the quarter-century that followed? Another
American economist, Wells, said about 1890, “When the historian of the
future writes the history of the nineteenth century he will doubtless
assign to the period embraced by the life of the generation terminating
in 1885 a place of importance, considered in its relations to the
interests of humanity, second to but very few, and perhaps to none,
of the many similar epochs in time in any of the centuries that have
preceded it.” Is the generation terminated in 1915 willing to admit
that it takes a less important place in history than its predecessor?
=319. Share of modern countries in the commerce of the world.=—It is
unnecessary, I hope, to say more to impress upon the student the fact
that a period of great change in the world’s history, which began half
a century ago, still continues; and that the coming generation will
be called upon to carry on this change, and guide it for the welfare
of humanity in the future. Leaving, therefore, general discussion and
speculation, and returning to the concrete and well-defined facts that
form the subject of our study, I insert in this place, as likely to be
of use for reference later and of interest now (though not deserving
painstaking study as yet), a table showing the share of different
countries in commerce about 1900.
RECENT TRADE OF LEADING COMMERCIAL COUNTRIES
(_Approximate annual averages in millions of dollars, special trade_)
====================+================+================+==============
| 1891-1900 | 1901-1910 | 1912
+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------------
| | | | |Percentage of
|Imports|Exports |Imports|Exports |total general
| | | | |trade of world
--------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------------
United Kingdom | 1725 | 1190 | 2525 | 1700 | 16.6
Germany | 1140 | 880 | 1800 | 1470 | 12.9
United States | 780 | 1050 | 1185 | 1655 | 9.9
France | 835 | 710 | 1065 | 995 | 9.0
Holland[1] | 660 | 550 | 1020 | 835 | 6.9
Belgium[1] | 362 | 309 | 578 | 453 | 4.2
Austria-Hungary | 302 | 337 | 464 | 459 | 3.3
Russia[1] | 276 | 339 | 386 | 503 | 3.5
Spain[1] | 177 | 172 | 201 | 185 | 1.1
Italy | 255 | 219 | 480 | 343 | 3.1
====================+=======+========+=======+========+==============
A similar statement, showing the relative rank about 1850, would
present only one very striking change; France held at that time the
place second to that of the British Empire, and Germany came after the
United States.
=320. Possible explanations of recent commercial development.=—One
topic of prime importance demands our attention as we enter on the
study in detail of the commerce whose growth has been sketched above.
What were the causes of this great commercial development? When we
know them we shall truly understand the commercial history of the past
century, and shall be prepared to face the problems of the present and
the future.
The topic will be discussed under the heads which have been employed
previously in similar discussions. The advances have been achieved
either by a gain in the power of man to control nature and natural
forces (technical progress); or by the more efficient cooperation
of men in business (industrial and commercial organization), or in
politics (political organization, domestic and foreign policy).
=321. Prime importance of technical factors, especially the use of
coal.=—Hard as it is to disentangle these different factors, all of
which have contributed much to the recent progress of the world, there
need still be no question which has been of the leading importance
during the nineteenth century. This century has been the great era of
material invention, of scientific discovery, and of the increase in
power of man over nature. Technical progress, therefore, is the first
subject to be studied.
Again, there need be no question as to which feature of technical
progress holds first place. Electrical appliances? Machinery? The
steam-engine? Applied chemistry? All those things, with the vast
benefits which they confer on humanity, rest now on practically one
basis: coal. Vegetable matter of past geological ages, that has become
fossilized, has undergone mysterious chemical changes and has shrunk
to one tenth of its former bulk, furnishes now, after hundreds or
thousands of centuries, the means by which we maintain and develop our
material civilization and our great commerce.
=322. Power in coal.=—Coal offers men what all men seek, power. There
is “spring” enough in it, when properly applied, to raise a million
times its own weight a foot high. A man who sends a horse and cart to
fetch a ton of coal, occupying four hours on the way, secures a power
in the coal theoretically 2,800 times that expended in bringing it; and
can probably get from it an amount of useful force exceeding by 100
times or more that of the horse employed in carting. A few decades ago
(1865), when the output of coal was far less than it is now, an English
economist calculated that forests of an area two and a half times as
large as that of the United Kingdom would be required to furnish even
a theoretical equivalent of the annual coal produce; practically, of
course, the use of wood for an equivalent is out of the question. It
was estimated, somewhat later (before 1880), that if the whole area of
England were good land, devoted solely to raising forage, it would
not support a horse-power equal to that obtained from the English coal
mines; and that an area perhaps ten times as large would be required
for the mere food supply of human beings of equivalent force.
=323. Dependence of modern industry on coal.=—It would be a great
mistake to consider coal necessary now only in its most common
application, that of generating steam for engines. The chemical
industry depends largely, though not entirely, on the heat obtained
from coal, to break down its raw materials and build up its finished
products. Metallurgical industries would shrink almost to infinitesimal
proportions if they were denied the use of coal. It has been estimated
that the manufacture of a ton of pig iron requires the use of two tons
of coal or more; while an equal quantity of steel requires six to eight
tons. Still, the use of coal for the steam-engine is undoubtedly its
most important application; and we can gain some conception of the
place that coal has taken in the world’s economy by considering the
growth of steam power.
=324. Importance of coal, estimated in steam horse-power.=—A
horse-power, the technical unit adopted for measuring the working
capacity of an engine, is for practical purposes equal to the force
that can be got from several (perhaps three) horses, or from a number
of men variously estimated at ten to twenty-four. Now in round numbers
the steam horse-power of the world was a million and a half in 1840,
and had increased, at the end of the century, to _fifty_ times that
amount. A simple operation in arithmetic will show the amount of work,
in human equivalent, now done by steam. Taking, for example, a modern
country, Germany, we find engaged in industry and transportation
slightly over ten million people, while we find engaged beside them
another population of mechanical iron slaves (steam-engines), variously
estimated as equivalent to one hundred to two hundred and fifty million
people. These slaves cost for food (coal), attendance, doctor’s bills
(repairs), and burial expenses (including the cost of replacing them
once in twenty-five years), only about $2.50 a year apiece. Admit some
exaggeration in the figures, and still the contrast with the cost of
human labor is most striking.
=325. Technical history of the steam-engine.=—The steam-engine has been
in practical use in Europe since about 1700. The earliest engines,
however, seem ludicrously crude now, and could be used only for
pumping water. Progress was slow until the last part of the eighteenth
century, when James Watt introduced improvements (separate condenser,
double-acting piston, use of cut-off, etc.), which greatly increased
the efficiency of the engine, and caused a gradual extension of its use
from mining to manufactures. The introduction of the non-condensing,
high-pressure engine about 1800 prepared the way for the use of steam
on railroads. The compound engine, in which the steam passes through
two or more cylinders before it is allowed to escape, was invented
about the same time, though it was not brought into general use until
about 1850. Since then improvements in details of the engine and in the
form of boilers have enhanced still further the efficiency of steam
power, until it now produces about two thirds of the work possible
under ideal conditions. Practical engineers expect now no rapid
progress or startling changes. Some measure of the progress achieved
is furnished by the fact that Watt’s engines required ten pounds of
coal an hour for each horse-power, the engines of the next generation
required five, while the best modern engines require but one and a
half, or, in rare cases, one.
The previous paragraph referred to the reciprocating engine in which
the piston moves constantly forward and back. Since rotary motion is
the form in which the power is commonly transmitted and applied, it
would be desirable to get the motion in this form originally, and
many attempts have been made to make rotary engines. Success has
been attained in the case of the steam turbine, in which jets of
steam strike against the blades of a turbine wheel, and cause it to
revolve. Originally applied by Dr. De Laval of Sweden to operate the
centrifugal cream separator which he had devised, it has come into
common use for the generation of electricity and for the propulsion of
ships. While the steam turbine has proved its efficiency for special
purposes it is less adaptable than the old form of reciprocating
engine, and still leaves to that the larger part of the field.
=326. The internal combustion engine.=—In the ordinary power plant
there are two units, the boiler in which steam is generated, and the
engine in which the steam is put to work. An internal combustion
engine is designed to burn the fuel in the engine itself. This is
practicable when the fuel is a gas or a liquid whose vapor will
unite with the oxygen of the air to form an explosive mixture. The
internal combustion engine offers several advantages over the steam
power plant: it uses more effectively the heat that is generated, it
is less bulky, it is more easily tended. In spite of characteristic
disadvantages, particularly the need of an auxiliary starter, and
restricted flexibility as regards speed and power, the internal
combustion engine has proved indispensable. In large units it serves
the steel mills, which put the waste gases from their blast furnaces
to work, and in its application to the automobile it has effected a
revolution in transportation and travel. Although in the manufactures
of the United States in 1914 the internal combustion engine still
accounted for less than 5% of the total horsepower, the aggregate
horsepower of the gasoline engines of automobiles has since that time
considerably exceeded the total horsepower from all sources employed in
manufacturing industry.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS
1. Do not attempt to remember _any_ of the figures in sect. 316,
unless possibly the first two of the last line.
Prepare a graphic chart in the following way. Lay off the time
periods on the horizontal line at the bottom of your paper, and on
the perpendicular, near the right-hand margin, lay off the figures
of the last line of the table. This will insure space in the chart
for all the lines. Divide the perpendicular into, say, forty units.
Each unit may then be made to represent: 1,000 million dollars of
value; $1 per capita; 40 million tons of coal; 2 million tons of
iron. Indicate the figures for 1913 on the perpendicular (commerce
40, per capita commerce 24, coal 36, iron 39); and perform the same
operation for the figures on perpendiculars above each of the other
dates. Use for each item a characteristic mark, (cross, circle,
triangle, square), which will enable you to distinguish it from the
others. Then unite the marks of each kind by a curved or crooked line.
Choose a characteristic form of line (dotted, wavy, or colored) for
each item. If the chart be made on a large scale and with sufficient
neatness, later tables of statistics (development of railroads, trade
of particular countries, etc.), can be entered upon it.
With regard to each one of the items: when was the increase (measured
by the slope of the line) greatest? When least? What relation is
apparent in the increase of different items? Many of the questions
suggested by a study of the figures will be treated in later sections.
2. Prepare a small chart of the figures, giving the estimated value
of commerce 1700-1899; note the enormous gains made in the nineteenth
century.
3. Development of printing, especially of periodical publications, in
recent years. [Encyc., preferably the new International or Supplement
to the Britannica, under Printing, Newspaper, etc. Cf. Scribner’s
Magazine, 1897, vol. 22, p. 447 ff., on the modern newspaper business;
Taylor in Depew, One hundred years, chap. 25, Williams in same, chap.
26.]
4. Divide the perpendicular on the right-hand side of your chart into
spaces, indicating the shares of the chief countries in commerce.
5. Make out a list of three changes coming under each one of the three
heads discussed. Example: technical progress, wireless telegraphy;
business organization, trusts; political, international arbitration,
reciprocity.
6. Early history of the coal trade. [R. L. Galloway, The rise of the
coal trade, Contemporary Review, 1892, 62: 569-578.]
7. Industrial and commercial importance of coal. [Edward Atkinson,
Coal is king, Century Magazine, 1897-98, 55: 828-830.]
8. Effect of a stoppage of the coal supply. [Stephen Jeans, The coal
crisis and the paralysis of British industry, Nineteenth Century,
1893, 34: 791-801.]
9. How does the increase in steam horse-power compare with the
increase in the output of coal? With the growth of commerce?
10. Earliest history of the steam-engine (to about 1700). [Thurston,
chap. 1, sect. 1.]
11. Earliest applications of the steam-engine. [Thurston, chap. 1,
sect. 2.]
12. Development of the engine before Watt. [Thurston, chap. 2.]
13. Development by Watt and his contemporaries. [Thurston, chap. 3.]
14. Recent improvements. [Thurston, chap. 6; Iles, chap. 5.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliographical aids become broader in the recent period. The great
literature scattered through periodicals, in which articles of
lasting value are often to be found, is made accessible by Poole’s
Index and its continuations; books in print, if not too technical for
the general public, will be found in the A. L. A. (American Library
Association) Catalogue, which supplies full titles and prices.
Various cyclopedias and dictionaries of commerce have been published
in the nineteenth century; they are useful repositories of
information, especially of statistics. Among them the following, in
English, may be mentioned: McCulloch, **Dictionary, various editions;
Waterston, Cyclopædia, 1847; Macgregor, *Commercial statistics,
1850; Homans, Cyclopædia, 1858. Statistics are brought up to date in
various year-books and periodicals; the **Statesman’s Year-Book is an
indispensable annual, and will meet all ordinary demands of teacher
and class.
The student of the history of commerce is often forced to turn to
narrative political histories for information. Among the general
histories of Europe in the nineteenth century may be mentioned Charles
D. Hazen, *Modern Europe, N. Y., Holt, 1920; C. M. Andrews, *Modern
Europe; N. Y., Putnam, 1899; Seignobos, **Pol. hist.
Much has been written, of course, on the progress of the century in
various technical lines. Ure’s Dictionary, various editions, describes
the advances of the first part of the century; and the student will
probably find one of the modern encyclopedias (Britannica, with
Supplement; International) the most satisfactory source of information
on recent progress. No attempt can be made in this or the following
chapters to cover the great field of technical literature. Jevons’
**Coal question should, however, be mentioned as still of great
interest and value. Nicolls, * Story; Edward A. Martin, *Story of a
piece of coal, N. Y., Appleton 1896; or R. Meldola, *Coal and what we
get from it, N. Y., Young, 1897 can be assigned for reading by the
class. Edwin C. Eckel, Coal, iron and war, N. Y., Holt, 1920, is an
interesting and suggestive study in the physical bases of national
industry. On the steam-engine, Robert H. Thurston’s History, N. Y.,
Appleton, 1902 will probably be found most useful. The biographies
by Samuel Smiles are a valuable history of technical progress,
interesting and trustworthy. Of more recent books, designed for
popular reading, George Iles, Flame, electricity and the camera, N.
Y., Doubleday, 1900 contains attractive accounts of many features of
technical progress.