flag into the regions which America has annexed to herself, but the Law of Connections and Unions, which is a part of the Law of Nature and of Nations according to the American System.

I recur, therefore, to my first proposition and submit to your judgment whether the terms "colony," "dependence," and "empire," on the one hand, and the terms "free state," "just connection," and "union," on the other, are not the symbols of two great and fundamentally opposed systems of politics-the one European, and the other American; whether the American terms and the American System are not capable of being applied universally and beneficently, in the way pointed out above, throughout all places outside the present Union which are within the limits of its justiciary power; and whether, if they are capable of this application, it is not our duty, both logically and ethically, to use the American terms in describing the relations between us and our Insular brethren, applying at the same time the principles of the American System, and thus calling into existence a Greater American Union.

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN DEPENDEN

CIES AND THE GOVERNING COUNTRY.

BY O. P. AUSTIN,

CHIEF OF BUREAU OF STATISTICS, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR.

Commerce is in most cases the mainspring of the relationship between colonies and the governing country. Say what we may of benevolent assimilation and the government of colonies for the good of the governed, there can be no doubt that commerce has been and is the underlying motive in the acquisition and continued control of a large proportion of the world's area now known as colonies, dependencies, or protectorates. In a few cases, like our own Philippine Islands, the control of territory has been assumed as a necessary result of war waged for purposes other than territorial acquisition; but the expectation of commercial advantages, present or prospective, may be properly assigned as a leading cause for the control which a half-dozen temperate-zone nations now exercise over 25 million square miles of non-contiguous territory occupied by 500 million people, a territory lying largely within the Tropics and a people largely of habits different from those of the governing country.

This last mentioned fact, that the area controlled as colonies, dependencies, or protectorates has in most cases a climate different from that of the governing country and a people of different habits of life, suggests the primary cause of the commercial, and perhaps the political relationship which now exists. The temperate zone has found itself in need of the products of the Tropics, and at the same time the vitality resulting from climatic conditions has given to its people the vigor with which to originate and apply forms of government and methods of development not induced by the climatic conditions of the Tropics. These two conditions working together the instinctive need of temperate zone man for tropical products, and the ability to govern and develop,―have resulted

in extending his control over a very large proportion of the tropical world. While in a few cases this control has extended to certain sections of the temperate zone, a large proportion of the area known as colonies, dependencies, or protectorates lies in the tropical world, and the interchange of articles of commerce between the governing country in the temperate zone and the governed country in the Tropics is a natural one and a natural result of the climatic relation of the two sections and peoples.

Practically all of the tropical area of the world, except that of continental America, is governed from the temperate zone, thousands of miles distant from the section over which the government is applied, and with the single exception of Canada, New Zealand, and a narrow fringe of South Australia, no temperate zone area of consequence is governed as a colony, dependency, or protectorate. These natural conditions and the interchange which comes naturally between the two climatic sections of the world-the temperate zone and the Tropics-makes commerce between the colonies located in the Tropics and the governing countries located in the temperate zone the prime element of, and factor in the relationship existing between them, and a principal cause which, perhaps unconsciously in many cases, led to the establishment of such relationship. Nations seldom take up as a mere act of philanthropy the government and development of peoples distant from them and belonging to peoples widely different from their own, while the control of noncontiguous and distant territory is a source of weakness, at least in time of war. As a result, we must look to commerce and commercial possibilities as the most important of the underlying motives which have resulted in the government of two-fifths of the world's land area containing 500 million people by countries located in other parts of the world and having in most cases a population and climatic conditions widely different from those of the governing country.

For the transportation and development of commerce international and otherwise, there have been constructed in the world's colonies nearly 100,000 miles of railroad

at a cost of several billions of dollars, much of which has been supplied from the governing country, though in most cases these investments and their final return are guaranteed by the local governments in the colonies; and this contribution of billions of dollars to transportation and consequent development of commerce in the colonies is another evidence of the importance of commerce in the inter-relationship of the governed and governing people.

The foreign, or international commerce of the great area known as colonies, dependencies, or protectorates now aggregates about four billion dollars, or about one-sixth of the international commerce of the entire world. About 45% of this four billion dollars' worth of international trade of the colonies is conducted with the governing country. In the case of imports into the colonies, about 46% is drawn from the governing country, and in the case of exports from the colonies about 42% is sent to the governing country. While these percentages hold good with reference to the grand total of commerce as a whole, or of imports and exports separately considered, the share of trade with the various countries varies greatly when individual countries and individual systems of trade and tariff relationship are considered. It is to an examination of the conditions contributing to this control or lack of control of the commerce of the colony that this study is addressed. When it is considered that the colonies, dependencies and protectorates of the world number nearly 150 and that each has its own peculiar form of government and inter-relation, commercial and otherwise, with the governing country and with other colonies belonging to that country, it is obvious that a detailed discussion of these conditions one by one is quite out of the question in the limits of a paper of this character, and that they can only be considered by great groups and general principles as applied to groups of colonies and inter-relationship with the governing country.

Several important factors enter into the question of trade relationship between the colony and the governing country, and while that of tariff regulations may be most important in determining the share of the trade which accrues to the

governing country, there are other causes, such as facilities for transportation, close financial relationship, and the presence in the colony of trade representatives from the governing country.

The world's colonies, or dependencies of whatever name, may be divided into five principal groups, those controlled, respectively, by Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. Portugal and Italy have also certain colonial areas, but not yet sufficiently developed to require consideration at the present moment; and the great Kongo country in Africa, although in fact a dependency of Belgium, is not so, at the present moment in name, and therefore need not be considered in this discussion. In the case of the British colonies trade relationship with the mother country is chiefly a result of the presence in the colony of representatives of the industries and commerce of the governing country, coupled with plentiful transportation facilities and the strongly marked trade instinct which pertains to the English people. In the case of the French colonies the control of trade has been largely accomplished through the application in both the colony and the mother country of tariffs levied upon the products of other nations, but permitting free interchange of articles of commerce between the colonies and the mother country; and this system characterizes the trade relations between the United States and a large part of its noncontiguous territory. In the case of Netherlands, the share of the trade of the colonies enjoyed by the mother country has been maintained largely through rigid control of methods of production, trade and transportation in the colony and between the colony and the governing country. In the case of Germany the commerce of the areas controlled as colonies, protectorates or dependencies is as yet small and its relation to the governing country is determined largely through the transportation facilities which that country supplies and the regulation of traffic consequent upon the semi-military methods by which these undeveloped areas are now governed, and this general rule applies also to the trade relationship of Portugal and Italy with their colonies or other dependencies, and of Belgium in its relation to the Kongo country.