THE EVOLUTION OF COMMERCE. 659 
farmer greater profit than the grain lands of England yield to the 
farmer there. The land commerce created by steam probably exceeds 
to-day the commerce carried on the water. 
The cost of moving freight by railroads varies greatly in different 
parts of the United States and in different countries. The highest cost 
west of the Rocky Mountains is two and a quarter times more than in 
some.of our Middle States. The average freight receipts per ton per 
mile in this country is $0.922, which is less than those of any other 
country, although the Belgian and Russian rates are not much higher. 
In England the rates are from 50 to 70 per cent higher than in Amer- 
ica, and in the other countries of Europe higher than in England. 
In England and America the railroads are operated by private com- 
panies in competition. 
In France railroads are operated by private companies regulated by 
law, the country being divided among different lines of road. Lines 
are constructed by private companies and run at rates fixed by the 
Government. 
In Belgium and Germany the principal roads are owned and oper- 
ated by the Government. 
Our system has yielded the best results to the people. 
The commerce which was in olden times transported only 20 or 25 
miles a day is now moved 500 miles a day by water and 800 miles by 
land. Correspondence, then carried no faster than freight, is now 
borne by telegraph to the farthest ends of the world. 
All these changes have taken place within a single generation; for 
our fathers could not travel any faster than Alexander or Cesar. Steam- 
ships, railroads, and telegraphs within that time have transformed all 
commercial transactions and the methods of commercial business, For- 
merly eight months were required to execute an order in India or China 
and obtain the return; now one day is sufficient. These commercial 
changes caused a revolution in the modes of business, and were the main 
factors which produced the monetary disturbances of 1873, the eftects of 
which we yet feel, so long has it taken the world to adjust itself to its 
new relations. 
The future of commerce.—The commerce of the world originated in 
Asia; it was carried to Africa and thence to Europe, and from Europe 
to America. This movement can go no farther westward, for on the 
other side of the Pacific is China, which has successfully resisted every 
attempt of the Enropean to encroach upon her domains, and India with 
its teeming population of 250,000,000; so that America, the last of the 
continents to be inhabited, now receives the wealth of India and Asia 
pouring into it from the west, and the manufactures and population of 
Kurope from the east. Here the east and west, different from each 
other in mental power and civilization, will meet, each alone incomplete, 
each essential to the fullest and most symmetrical development of the 
