TRADE 267 



writing was the analysis of syllables into letters : 

 this once accomplished, it was possible to express 

 the sound of each letter by an arrangement of 

 dots and dashes such as is used in the Ogham 

 alphabet of ancient Ireland and in the Morse 

 system of modern telegraphy. 







By trade, or the exchanging ot articles, men 

 are able to obtain things which they cannot 

 produce or make for themselves or seize from 

 others. It has been attended by abuses which 

 have increased the tale of human misery. Slavery 

 has followed in its train, and the ruin of backward 

 races by spirituous liquors. But with a magnetic 

 attraction it is drawing together the different 

 races of mankind and is developing a practical 

 idea of human brotherhood in money-making if 

 not in sympathy. Less strong a bond than reli- 

 gion, it is infinitely more extensive. At first it 

 enclosed the village within its meshes of mutual 

 inter-dependance, uniting the cultivators with the 

 artisans upon whose industry they relied for their 

 implements, their furniture and their clothing. 

 From the village its tentacles spread to the 

 nation, to groups of nations, and finally have 

 embraced the whole world. Under its influence 

 civilized lands have been covered with a network 

 of railway lines and telegraph wires, along which 

 streams of travellers, letters and messages are 

 incessantly hurrying, regardless of the boundaries 

 which artificially separate communities of man- 

 kind. The financial reservoirs of cash and credit, 

 from which trade draws the streams of its activity, 

 have been internationalized, and the obligations 

 of different peoples are so closely interlaced that 

 an injury to the resources of one is felt by all. 

 Financially, it may then be urged, war is a 



