‘THE EVOLUTION OF COMMERCE. 655 
ot climate, the fertile soil, its varied occupations and manufactures, 
and a widely distributed population have created an enormous inland 
commerce and given that trade and wealth which other countries find 
in commerce and exchange with their colonies. Our population, wealth, 
internal commerce, exports and imports have increased at a more rapid 
rate than those of any other nation in a similar period. This is not 
due in any great degree to immigration, for our population has increased 
in no greater ratio since this immigration commenced than before, and 
experts believe that it would have been as large and more homogeneous 
without immigration. We had at one time a large foreign commerce, 
and our merchants were the first to establish direct trade with China 
and the East Indies; the Stars and Stripes were seen floating on 
every sea and flying in every harbor, and for years we were the second 
maritime nation of the world. 
The commerce of the world passed from wooden sailing ships to 
side-wheel steamers, to iron and then to steel propellers; England was 
a worker in iron and machinery of every kind; we were not. The civil 
war came and hastened the day which was sure to come. Our shipping 
faded away faster than it had arisen, while that of Great Britain in- 
creased as rapidly as ours decreased. This was not owing to a decrease 
of our foreign trade, for during the last twenty years our exports and 
imports have increased more than twice as rapidly as those of Great 
Britain.* Eighty-seven per cent of these exports and imports are 
carried in British ships, consigned to English houses which have been 
established in every large port in the world, and the proceeds are 
usually remitted to the London banker. 
Fortunately, our flag never disappeared from our inland waters and 
from our coasting trade, for foreigners are excluded from the coasting 
trade, even where the ports are 15,000 miles apart by water. 
The substitution of steamers for sailing ships and of steel for wooden 
propellers, which took place from ten to twenty years ago on the ocean, 
is now going rapidly on upon our lakes. Where in 1886 there were but 
6 steel propellers, now there are 68, and of 2,225 vessels on the north- 
ern lakes, 1,155 are steamers, 902 are sailing vessels. The action of Con- 
gress in providing for the construction and equipment of war vessels by 
competition has led our ship-builders within the last eight years to 
establish ship-yards and machine shops where the largest ships can be 
built, and we are now building as large and fast vessels of war as Eng- 
land. Our ship-builders claim that they can construct ships equal in 
varrying capacity, speed, and strength to those of Great Britain, and 
at no greater cost, though they can not be run so cheaply because our 
sailors are better housed, fed, and paid than those of other nations. 
“The exports of the United States have increased 112 per cent, the exports and 
imports 92 per cent; the exports of Great Britain 35 per cent, her exports and im- 
ports 37 per cent. 
