Commercial Prize of the Orient 41 3 



Can that condition be overcome by the 

 application of those agencies which have 

 caused the greater and more rapid de- 

 velopment in other parts of the world ? 

 The answer to these questions is not 

 difficult. The world's commerce has 

 developed in conjunction with and as a 

 result of the development of facilities 

 of transportation and communication. 

 Without steam power for transporta- 

 tion and electricity for communication 



the world had but a single century ago 

 less than two billions of international 

 commerce. Now, with the steamship 

 and railways and telegraphs, it has 

 over 22 billions. Of this growth of 

 over 20 billions in the last century but 

 little more than two billions occurred 

 in the Orient and about 18 billions 

 in other parts of the world. What is 

 the cause of this great disparity of 

 growth? A glance at a map of the 



world, showing the facilities for trans- 

 portation and intercommunication in its 

 various great sections, will, in some de- 

 gree at least, answer this question. 

 Where it is, of course, practicable for 

 the progressive, commercial people of 

 the Occident to send their steamships to 

 the doors of the Orient in pursuit of the 

 commercial prize of that part of the 

 world, the Orient itself cannot send its 

 products from the great interior to the 



ocean ports without railroads ; and here 

 is at least a partial answer to the ques- 

 tion. That section of the world which 

 we are considering as the Orient, while 

 it has more than one-half of the popu- 

 lation and one-third of the land area of 

 the world, has but about one- tenth of 

 the world's railways and less than one- 

 tenth of its telegraph lines. Can there 

 be any doubt that this is at least one of 

 the great causes of the fact that it has 



