The trade of the world . l-ance-wheel of the trade of the world. Every in-tricate piece of machinery has its steadying is no more intricate, more delicately adjustedmechanism than the trade of nations, and withoutsome influence which tends to diminish the violenceof fluctuations either naturally or artificially broughtabout, the immediate future would be full of uncer-tainties not only for the producer, but for the con-sumer as well. This has always seemed to me tobe the great and useful part played by this com-paratively tiny area of the earths surface, wherehuman activities have
The trade of the world . l-ance-wheel of the trade of the world. Every in-tricate piece of machinery has its steadying is no more intricate, more delicately adjustedmechanism than the trade of nations, and withoutsome influence which tends to diminish the violenceof fluctuations either naturally or artificially broughtabout, the immediate future would be full of uncer-tainties not only for the producer, but for the con-sumer as well. This has always seemed to me tobe the great and useful part played by this com-paratively tiny area of the earths surface, wherehuman activities have become so intensified as toadmit of no comparison with any other comprehend what goes on in this pulsating ant-hill, and the influence that emanates therefrom, onemust picture it to the minds eye and then listento the hum of well-ordered and productive Belgianindustry, which can be heard over the round world. Belgium has fewer than 12,000 square miles ofsurface, of which thirty-five per cent, is From a photograph, copyright, by Underwood & Underwood. Along the River Schelde, Antwerp, Belginm. BELGIUM, THE BALANCE-WHEEL 125 and seventeen per cent, is wooded. On the ap-proximately 6000 square miles remaining live andwork seven and a half million people, or about thesame number as live in the State of Pennsylvania,which is in size eight times the more densely oc-cupied area of Belgium. In the latter country asa whole there are 658 people to the square mile, or,deducting the cultivated fields and wooded areas,about 1300. So many are there in fact that thereis little chance for open spaces, no matter how con-gested the towns may become. With all the differ-ences which exist in race and idiom, it is virtuallya single settlement. In the fifteenth century eightrulers found material within its boundaries foreight distinct sovereignties. To-day only one ideagoverns all these people,—of whom fewer than fourper cent, are foreign bom,—and that is to achievethe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectcommerce, bookyear191
