MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES. 



maintained as well for the purposes of order at home as for the 

 defence of the frontiers, may be diminished in proportion to such 

 facilities. 



Instead of maintaining garrisons and posts at points of the 

 country within short distances of each other, it will be sufficient 

 to maintain them at such points that they can, at need, be trans- 

 ported "with promptitude to any other point that may be desired. 

 In case of invasion, or any foreign attack on the frontier, by good 

 internal communications, the troops quartered throughout the 

 interior can be rapidly transferred and concentrated upon the 

 point attacked. 



If, however, such improvements in the art of transport facili- 

 tate the means of maintaining order at home and of defence 

 against a foreign enemy, on the one hand, they also happily, 

 on the other, greatly diminish the probability of a necessity for 

 such expedients. " The natural effect of commerce," says Mon- 

 tesquieu, " is to tend to and consolidate peace." Two nations who 

 trade with each other soon become respectively dependent. If 

 one have an interest to buy, the other has an interest to sell, and 

 a multitude of ties, commercial and social, spring out of their 

 mutual wants. 



26. Nothing facilitates and developes commercial relations so 

 effectually as cheap and rapid means of intercommunication. 

 "When, therefore, all nations shall be found more intimately con- 

 nected with each other by these means, they will inevitably multiply 

 their exchanges, and general commerce will undergo great 

 extension, mutual interest will awaken moral sympathies, and 

 will lead to political alliances. After having for ages approached 

 each other only for war, peoples will henceforth visit each other 

 for purposes of amity and intelligence, and old antipathies, 

 national and political, which have so long divided and ruined 

 neighbouring states, will speedily vanish. 



But if, in spite of this general tendency towards pacific progress 

 and peace, war should occasionally break out, the improved 

 means of intercommunication will aid in bringing it to a prompt 

 close. A single battle will decide the fate of a country, and the 

 longest war will be probably circumscribed within a few months. 



27. The advantages of good means of communication in the diffu- 

 sion of knowledge, and the increase of civilisation by intellectual 

 means, are not less considerable. While the means of intercom- 

 munication are slow, difficult, 'and costly, great cities have a 

 tendency to monopolise intelligence, civilisation, and refinement. 

 There genius and talent are naturally attracted, while the rural 

 districts are left in a comparatively rude and almost barbarous 

 state. "With easy and rapid means of locomotion, however, the 



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