OF INDUSTRIES. 25 



combining scientific knowledge with the know- 

 ledge of a handicraft such is, we affirm, the 

 present tendency of civilised nations. 



The prodigious growth of industries in Great 

 Britain, and the simultaneous development of the 

 international traffic which now permits the trans- 

 port of raw materials and articles of food on a 

 gigantic scale, have created the impression that 

 a few nations of West Europe were destined to 

 become the manufacturers of the world. They 

 need only it was argued to supply the market 

 with manufactured goods, and they will draw 

 from all over the surface of the earth the food 

 they cannot grow themselves, as well as the raw 

 materials they need for their manufactures. The 

 steadily increasing speed of trans-oceanic com- 

 munications and the steadily increasing facili- 

 ties of shipping have contributed to enforce 

 the above impression. If we take the enthu- 

 siastic pictures of international traffic, drawn 

 in such a masterly way by Neumann Spallart 

 the statistician and almost the poet of the 

 world-trade we are inclined indeed to fall 

 into ecstasy before the results achieved. " Why 

 shall we grow corn, rear oxen and sheep, and 

 cultivate orchards, go through the painful 

 work of the labourer and the farmer, and 

 anxiously watch the sky in fear of a bad crop, 



