736 REPOKT— 1888. 



western coasts of America; will benefit merchants by diminishing distances and 

 reducing insurance charges ; and possibly divert the course of some of the trade 

 between the East and the West ; but it will produce no such changes as those 

 which have followed the construction of the Suez Canal. 



The increasing practice of the present day is for each maritime country to 

 import and carry the Indian and other commodities it requires, and we must be 

 prepared for a time when England will no longer be the emporium of Eastern 

 commerce for Europe, or possess so large a proportion as she now does of the 

 carrying trade. So great, however, is the genius of the English people for 

 commercial enterprise, and so imbued are they with the spirit of adventure, that we 

 may reasonably hope loss of trade in one direction will be compensated by the 

 discovery of new fields of commercial activity. The problem of sea-carriage has 

 virtually been solved by the construction of the large ocean steamers which run 

 direct from port to port without regard to winds or currents ; and the only likely 

 improvement in this direction is an increase of speed which may possibly rise to as 

 much as thirty knots an hour. The tendency at present is to shorten sea-routes by 

 maritime canals; to construct canals for bringing ocean-going ships to inland 

 centres of industry ; and to utilise water carriage, wherever it may be practicable, 

 in preference to carriage by land. For a correct determination of the lines which 

 these shortened trade routes and great maritime canals should follow, a sound 

 knowledge of geography and of the physical condition of the earth is necessary ; 

 and instruction in this direction should form an important feature in any educational 

 course of commercial geography. The great problem of the future is the inland 

 carrying trade, and one of the immediate commercial questions of the day is — who 

 is to supply the interiors of the great continents of Asia and Africa, and other 

 large areas not open to direct sea traffic? Whether future generations will see 



' The heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 

 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales,' 



or some form of electric carnage on land, may be matter for speculation ; but it is 

 not altogether impossible to foresee the lines which inland trade must follow, and 

 the places which must become centres of the distributing trade, or to map out the 

 districts which must, under ordinary conditions, be dependent upon such centres 

 for their supply of imported commodities. The question of supplying European 

 goods to one portion of Central Asia has been partially solved by the remarkable 

 voyage of Mr. Wiggins last year, and by the formation of the company of the 

 * Phoenix Merchant Adventurers.' Mr. Wiggins started from Newcastle-on-Tyne 

 for Yeniseisk, the first large town on the Yenesei, some 2,000 miles from the mouth 

 of that river and within a few hundred versts of the Chinese frontier. On the 9th 

 October, 1887, he cast anchor and landed his cargo in the heart of Siberia. The 

 exploit is one of which any man might well be proud, but in Mr. Wiggins's case there 

 is the additional merit that success was the result of conviction, arrived at by a 

 strict method of induction, that the Gulf Stream passed through the Straits into the 

 Kara Sea, and that its action, combined with that of the immense volume of water 

 brought down by the Obi and Yenisei, would free the sea from ice and render it 

 navigable for a portion of each year. The attempts of England to open up com- 

 mercial relations with the interior of Africa have too often been marked by want, 

 if not open contempt, of geographical knowledge, and by a great deficiency of 

 foresight ; but the competition with Germany is forcing this country to pay 

 increased attention to African commerce, and the formation of such companies as 

 the British East African Company, the African Lakes Company, and the Royal 

 Niger Company is a happy omen for the future. 



Another branch of the subject to which attention may be briefly directed is the 

 fact that it is becoming increasingly evident that manufactures cannot profitably 

 be carried on at a distance from the source of the raw material and the destination 

 of the products. In India, for instance, where the first mill for the manufacture of 

 cotton yarn and cloth was set up in 1854, there are now over 100 cotton and jute 

 mills with 22,000 looms and 2,000,000 spindles ; and similar changes are taking 

 place elsewhere. 



