128 BENEFICIAL INFLUENCES OF COMMERCE. changed, it exercises an important influence on production, by increasing the facilities for disposing of the produce of manufacturing industry, which without its aid would lie dormant and stagnate. It is commerce that gives vitality to industrial enterprise, and now that its principles are better understood, and the restraints on its action are, for the most part, removed, we may confidently anticipate its continued and accelerated progress. We cannot better conclude this section than in the words of Mr. M'Culloch :-" It would be difficult to exaggerate the advance that has been made in commerce and in most sorts of industry, and the improvement in the condition of society, that has taken place during the last seven years. A considerable portion of this advance is no doubt due to the discovery of the Californian and Australian gold-fields. But that was an incident which might have been turned to an equally good account by France, Spain, or any other country. And if it has been peculiarly advantageous to us and to the Americans, it is because our transatlantic rivals and ourselves were in a situation to profit by it; because our free and untrammelled energies were ready to be directed towards any channel, how remote soever, which held out the promise of adequate reward. The moral influence of the new state of things is no less powerful and important than its economical influence. The extension of commerce will do more than anything else to diffuse the blessings of civilization, to bind together the universal society of nations, by sharpening, and at the same time gratifying, their mutual wants and desires, and to maintain that tranquillity so indispensable to its full development."* * "Commercial Dictionary," 1856. |