62 FOREIGN TRADING THEN AND NOW 



thin colonies, some independent, not much more 

 than filling the mere outer fringe of the vast 

 continent : South America for the trader scarcely 

 even existed ; nor did Australia, nor New Zealand, 

 nor South Africa. The map of Europe was very 

 different then from the map of Europe now. 

 What are now very powerful nations had then 

 no national existence, and all the continent was 

 so riddled by long-continued war, and so trodden 

 down under the heel of the conqueror, that it 

 still contained little of the means of manufacture, 

 little sign of manufacture, little inclination for 

 manufacture. Great Britain alone continued in 

 a position to carry on undisturbed the manu- 

 facture of goods, and it so happened that just 

 then invention enabled her to manufacture them 

 in great quantities. In addition to this. Great 

 Britain had become, not only the great manu- 

 facturing country, but also mistress of the seas. 

 The materials she required, the goods she sent 

 out in exchange for them, were carried to and 

 fro mostly in her own ships ; and in those days 

 British ships were manned wholly and invariably 

 by British crews. These were sailing ships, one 

 and all; there were no ocean tramps at that 

 time. It seems, to us who live now, almost 

 another world rather than a phase of this : Great 

 Britain the world's mill, the world's mart, the 

 world's carrier : the rest of the nations barely 

 recovering from their wounds ; the land with 

 only just the means of conveying goods at a 

 snail's pace from town to town ; the sea with 

 nothing living upon it, except ships with sails 



