COMMERCE 



1511 



COMMERCE 



In the reign of Servius Tullius a new assembly 

 was created, the Comitia Centuriata, in which 

 the vote was taken by units containing 100 

 or more persons, and which were called cen- 

 turies. This assembly, which was made up of 

 both patricians and plebeians, gradually took 

 over the powers of the earlier body. The 



third assembly, the Comitia Tributa, the as- 

 sembly by tribes, was the democratic body of 

 Rome. It met in the Forum, and in the course 

 of time gained a position of supreme impor- 

 tance. According to the best authority, the 

 Comitia Tributa was composed entirely of 

 plebeians. See PATRICIAN; PLEBEIAN. 



OMMERCE, kom'erce, a word mean- 

 ing literally an exchange of commodities, but 

 in common use restricted to an exchange be- 

 tween nations, as opposed to trade, which is 

 local. Commerce is one of the first develop- 

 ments of civilization; barbaric communities or 

 nations are almost necessarily self-supporting; 

 they must find at home everything necessary 

 to support life. It has been, from the earliest 

 times, one of the factors which have preserved 

 friendly international relations, for a nation's 

 surplus products, which represent its accumu- 

 lation of wealth, can be sold only to other 

 nations with which it is at peace. 



The first method of trade and commerce was 

 barter, or the exchange of one commodity for 

 another. This was soon made simpler by. the 

 use of money (which see), and with the further 

 development of industry and civilization ex- 

 changes became so common that some men 

 devoted themselves entirely to conducting 

 them. This class became known as the mer- 

 chants, the persons who dealt in merx (the 

 Latin word for wares and merchandise). The 

 first merchants who traveled from one region 

 to another to dispose of their wares were the 

 Arabs, who journeyed overland by caravan 

 (which see), but the greatest merchants of an- 

 tiquity were the Phoenicians and the Cartha- 

 ginians. 



Commerce between Europe and the Far East 

 was greatly stimulated by the Crusades, but 

 international trade did not become general 

 until the sixteenth century. The discovery of 

 America was due primarily to the desire to 

 find a short route to India, and in turn stimu- 

 lated further discovery and exploration of 

 new fields of commerce. Each European 



country began to guard with greater care the 

 colonies it had established and tried to re- 

 strict their trade with other nations than the 

 mother country. It will be remembered that 

 England endeavored to force the American col- 

 onies to trade only with Britain. The wars 

 of the eighteenth century and the Napoleonic 

 era destroyed nearly all commerce, but the 

 discoveries and inventions of the nineteenth 

 century began a new age. The steamboat, the 

 railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, even the 

 wireless telegraph, have all played their part in 

 trade development. 



PRINCIPAL PORTS OF THE WORLD 

 The twelve cities which possessed the greatest 

 foreign commerce before the War of the Nations. 



Once commerce was restricted to commodi- 

 ties of great value in small bulk, such as pre- 

 cious stones. To-day cheaper methods of 

 transportation make it possible to ship not only 

 precious articles, but bulky raw materials, for 

 long distances. Not only that, but it is now 

 possible to transport perishable commodities 

 by refrigeration, or cold storage (which see), to 



