The English in the East Indies, the French in the Antilles, theDutch in Java and Sumatra, have recently afforded actual proof ofthe possibility of increasing these productions in an extraordinarymanner.has increased her imports of cotton from England,especially, the East Indies fourfold, and the English papersconfidently maintain that Great Britain (especially if she succeedsin getting possession of the old commercial route to the EastIndies) could procure all her requirements of colonial products inthe course of a few years from India.This anticipation will notappear exaggerated if we take into consideration the immense extentof the English East Indian territory, its fertility, and the cheapwages paid in those countries.
While England in this manner gains advantage from the EastIndies, the progress in cultivation of the Dutch in the islandswill increase; in consequence of the dissolution of the TurkishEmpire a great portion of Africa and the west and middle of Asiawill become productive; the Texans will extend North Americancultivation over the whole of Mexico; orderly governments willsettle down in South America and promote the yield of the immenseproductive capacity of these tropical countries.
If thus the countries of the torrid zone produce enormouslygreater quantities of colonial goods than heretofore, they willsupply themselves with the means of taking from the countries ofthe temperate zone much larger quantities of manufactured goods;and from the larger sale of manufactured goods the manufacturerswill be enabled to consume larger quantities of colonial goods.Inconsequence of this increased production, and increase of the meansof exchange, the commercial intercourse between the agriculturistsof the torrid zone and the manufacturers of the temperate zone,i.e.the great commerce of the world, will increase in future in afar larger proportion than it has done in the course of the lastcentury.
This present increase, and that yet to be anticipated, of thenow great commerce of the world, has its origin partly in the greatprogress of the manufacturing powers of production, partly in theperfection of the means of transport by water and by land, partlyin political events and developments.
Through machinery and new inventions the imperfectmanufacturing industry of the East has been destroyed for thebenefit of the European manufacturing power, and the latter enabledto supply the countries of the torrid zone with large quantities offabrics at the cheapest prices; and thus to give them motives foraugmenting their own powers of labour and production.
In consequence of the great improvements in means of transport,the countries of the torrid zone have been brought infinitelynearer to the countries of the temperate zone; their mutualcommercial intercourse has infinitely increased through diminutionof risk, of time employed and of freights, and through greaterregularity; and it will increase infinitely more as soon as steamnavigation has become general, and the systems of railways extendthemselves to the interior of Asia, Africa, and South America.
Through the secession of South America from Spain and Portugal,and through the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, a mass of themost fertile territories of the earth have been liberated, whichnow await with longing desire for the civilised nations of theearth to lead them in peaceful concord along the path of thesecurity of law and order, of civilisation and prosperity; andwhich require nothing more than that manufactured goods should bebrought to them, and their own productions taken in exchange.
One may see that there is sufficient room here for allcountries of Europe and North America which are fitted to developa manufacturing power of their own, to bring their manufacturingproduction into full activity, to augment their own consumption ofthe products of tropical countries, and to extend in the sameproportion their direct commercial intercourse with the latter.
NOTES:
1.Esprit des Lois, Book xx.chap.xii.
