Vol. XVI, No. 9 WASHINGTON September, 1905 



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COMMERCIAL PRIZE OF THE ORIENT 



By Hon. O. P. Austin, 



Chief of the Bureau of Statistics and Secretary of the 

 National Geographic Society 



MY general purpose in this dis- 

 cussion of the commerce of 

 the Orient is to call attention 

 to the extraordinary physical difficul- 

 ties which have attended efforts of the 

 Occident to cultivate commerce between 

 these two great sections of the world 

 and the difficulties which still exist in the 

 Orient itself, but which are likely to be 

 overcome in the near future. Trans- 

 portation is to commerce what the breath 

 of life is to the body. Without trans- 

 portation there can be no commerce. 

 The obstacles to land transportation, 

 which nature had interposed between 

 the Occident and the Orient, in the form 

 of mountain and desert, rendered that 

 commerce extremely small until the ap- 

 plication of the compass to ocean navi- 

 gation enabled man to find an all- water 

 route from the Occident to the Orient. 



This was again improved when man 

 learned to apply steam power to trans- 

 portation upon the ocean, and again 

 when he shortened the route between 

 Europe and Asia by the construction 

 of the Suez Canal ; but steamships upon 

 the ocean are of little value without 



facilities for transporting the products 

 of the interior to the water's edge. 

 These facilities are now supplied in 

 certain parts of the world, especially 

 Europe and the United States, by rail- 

 ways, but they have only recently be- 

 gun to make their appearance in the 

 Orient. As a consequence, the devel- 

 opment of commercial possibilities and 

 commercial power in that section has 

 been delayed, and it is my purpose, in 

 this discussion, to show the progress 

 now being made in developing in the 

 Orient these transportation facilities 

 which have already made commerce 

 great and successful in other parts of 

 the world, and which promise to make it 

 equally important in that great section 

 of the world whose industrious people 

 number more than half the population 

 of the globe. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE COMMERCE 

 OF THE ORIENT BEGAN THOU- 

 SANDS OF YEARS AGO 



The commercial prize of the Orient 

 has commanded the attention of the 

 Occident for more than 4,000 years. 



*An address to the National Geographic Society, March 30, 1905 



