hed a certain supremacy in commerce. The growth of
her colonial possessions since the Revolution and the drastic and
successful character of her maritime policy had enabled her to
outstrip Holland. In 1729 by far the greater part of the Swedish iron
exported from Gothenburg went to England for shipbuilding
purposes.[83] At the close of the seventeenth century Gregory King
placed England, Holland, and France at the head of the industrial
nations with regard to the productivity of their labour.[84] Italy
and Germany were little behind in the exercise of manufacturing arts,
though the naval superiority and foreign possessions of the
above-named nations gave them the commercial superiority. By 1760
England had strengthened her position as regards foreign commerce, and
her woollen industry was the largest and most highly-developed
industry in the world. But so far as the arts of manufacture
themselves were concerned there was no such superiority in England as
to justify the expectation of the position she held at the opening of
the nineteenth century. In many branches of the textile arts,
especially in silk spinning and in dyeing, in pottery, printing, and
other manufactures, more inventive genius and more skill were shown on
the Continent, and there seemed _a priori_ no reason why England
should outstrip so signally her competitors.

The chief factors in determining the order of the development of
modern industrial methods in the several countries may be classified
as natural, political, economic.

NATURAL. (1) _The structure and position of the several
countries._--The insular character of Great Britain, her natural
facilities for procuring raw materials of manufacture and supplies of
foreign food to enable her population to specialise in manufacture,
the number and variety of easily accessible markets for her
manufactures, gave her an immense advantage. Add to this a temperate
climate, excellent internal communication by river (or canal), and an
absence of mountain barriers between the several districts. These
advantages were of greater relative importance before steam transport,
but they played a large part in facilitating the establishment of
effective steam transport in England. Extent of sea-board and good
harbourage have in no small measure directed the course of modern
industry, giving to England, Holland, France, Italy an advantage which
the levelling tendency of modern machinery has not yet been able to
counter