fter many efforts, was opened under treaty to an
intercourse with foreign nations which was soon to attain surprising
dimensions. These various causes supported the activity of commerce in
the first four decades; but the great movement which made the 19th
century so remarkable was chiefly disclosed in practical results from
about 1840. The outstanding characteristics of the 19th century were the
many remarkable inventions which so widened the field of commerce by the
discovery of new and improved methods of production, the highly
organized division of labour which tended to the same end, and, above
all, the powerful forces of steam navigation, railways and telegraphs.

Commerce has thus acquired a security and extension, in all its most
essential conditions, of which it was void in any previous age. It can
hardly ever again exhibit that wandering course from route to route, and
from one solitary centre to another, which is so characteristic of its
ancient history, because it is established in every quarter of the
globe, and all the seas and ways are open to it on terms fair and equal
to every nation. Wherever there is population, industry, resource, art
and skill, there will be international trade. Commerce will have many
centres, and one may relatively rise or relatively fall; but such decay
and ruin as have smitten many once proud seats of wealth into dust
cannot again occur without such cataclysms of war, violence and disorder
as the growing civilization and reason of mankind, and the power of law,
right and common interest forbid us to anticipate. But the present
magnitude of commerce devolves serious work on all who are engaged in
it. If in the older times it was thought that a foreign merchant
required to be not only a good man of business, but even a statesman, it
is evident that all the higher faculties of the mercantile profession
must still more be called into request when imports and exports are
reckoned by hundreds instead of fives or tens of millions, when the
markets are so much larger and more numerous, the competition so much
more keen and varied, the problems to be solved in every course of
transaction so much more complex, the whole range of affairs to be
overseen so immensely widened. It is not a company of merchants, having
a monopoly, and doing whatever they please, whether right or wrong, that
now hold the commerce of the world in their hands, but large communities
of free merchants in all parts of