PREFACE. 



FOURTEEN years have passed since the first edition of 

 this book was published, and in revising it for this new 

 edition I found at my disposal an immense mass of new 

 materials, statistical and descriptive, and a great num- 

 ber of new works dealing with the different subjects 

 that are treated in this book. I have thus had an 

 excellent opportunity to verify how far the previsions 

 that I had formulated when I first wrote this book 

 have been confirmed by the subsequent economical 

 evolution of the different nations. 



This verification permits me to affirm that the 

 economical tendencies that I had ventured to fore- 

 shadow then have only become more and more definite 

 since. Everywhere we see the same decentralisation 

 of industries going on, new nations continually 

 entering the ranks of those which manufacture for the 

 world market. Each of these new-comers endeavours 

 to develop, and succeeds in developing, on its own 

 territory the principal industries, and thus frees itself 

 from being exploited by other nations, more advanced 

 in their technical evolution. All nations have made a 

 remarkable progress in this direction, as will be seen 

 from the new data that are given in this book. 



On the other hand, one sees, with all the great 

 industrial nations, the growing tendency and need of 



