ew England plateau requires an
enormous amount of fuel for its manufacturing enterprises; but
practically no coal is found within its borders; hence the manufacturers
must either command the coal to be shipped from other regions or give up
their employment. The people of Canada require a certain amount of
cotton cloth; but the cotton plant will not grow in a cold climate, so
they must either exchange some of their own commodities for cotton, or
else go without it. The inhabitants of Great Britain produce only a
small part of the food-stuffs they consume; therefore they are
constantly exchanging their manufactured products for the food-stuffs
that of necessity must be produced in other parts of the world.

The dwellers of the New England plateau might grow the bread-stuffs they
require, and in times past they did so. At that time, however, a barrel
of flour was worth twelve dollars. But the wheat of the prairie regions
can be grown, manufactured into flour, transported a thousand miles, and
sold at a profit for less than five dollars a barrel. Therefore it is
evidently more economical to buy flour in Minnesota than to grow the
wheat and make it into flour in Massachusetts.

All these problems, and they exist without number, show that man may
overcome most of the obstacles that surround him. So we find civilized
man living in almost every part of the world. Tropical regions are not
too scorching, nor are arctic fastnesses too cold for him. In other
words, because of commerce and transportation, he can and usually does
master the conditions of his environment; his intelligence enables him
to do so, and his ability to do so is the result of the intelligent use
of experience and education.

CHAPTER II

HOW COMMERCE CIVILIZED MANKIND

The history of western civilization is so closely connected with the
development of the great routes of travel and the growth of commerce
that one cannot possibly separate them. Commerce cannot exist without
the intercourse of peoples, and peoples cannot be in mutual
communication unless each learns from the other.

=Feudalism.=--When the Roman Empire fell civilization in western Europe
was not on a high plane; indeed, the feudalism that followed was not
much above barbarism. The people were living in a manner that was not
very much unlike the communal system under which the serfs of Russia
lived only a few years ago. Each centre of population was a sort of
military camp governed