larger than in Mexico, and susceptible of increase. Guatemala and Honduras could use more cotton and woollen goods, drugs, and groceries, while Costa Rica purchases from the United States cotton goods, hardware, galvanized iron articles and earthenware, based on competitive German prices. Merchandise for Honduras, from New York and Liverpool as well as from San Francisco, enters for the most part from the Pacific side through the port of Amapala. Goods are brought from Atlantic ports via Cape Horn and across the Panamá isthmus, the freight from Liverpool and Hamburg being a little less than from New York. The imports of Honduras are largely from the United States, and consist of cotton cloths and machinery from the east, and flour lumber and wine from the west coast.

Nicaragua has two ports of entry on the Pacific, Corinto and San Juan del Norte. Nearly all the exports, consisting of hides, tuna, and indiarubber, go to the United States. Nicaragua imports mostly from the United States flour, kerosene, iron articles, meats, groceries, vegetables, and beer wines and liquors. Not only may we expect a large increase in our Asiatic trade, but the commerce of the Central and South American republics may be cultivated with profit. We might furnish a much larger proportion of their imports with profit to them and to us. Says Mr Stuyvesant Fish, "The 36,000,000 of people living in the ten South American republics buy goods from other countries to the value of $376,000,000 annually, of which we sell them only $33,000,000. The five Central American states, with a population of 3,500,000, take foreign goods to the amount of $23,000,000 annually, of which we sell them only $5,320,000. Mexico, our neighbor, with rail connection at several places on our border, with a population of 13,000,000, buys abroad to the extent of $42,000,000, but we sell its people only $21,000,000. The West Indies, not including Cuba or Porto Rico, buy $45,000,000 worth of goods in foreign countries, of which we provide $15,000,000. The startling fact is that we buy yearly from the South American countries $67,000,000 more than they buy of us; in other words, they sell us their products and with our money make purchases in Europe."

While the people of the United States buy more from Mexico than Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain

combined, Mexico buys less from the United States than from these countries, whose merchants have held the trade so long that it is difficult to wrest it from them. They know the people, speak their language, and live among them; they study their wants, know the kind of goods to offer and in what size packages. They know how to sell so as to make a profit, and how to collect without offending. The United States obtain from Mexico coffee, tobacco, indiarubber, guns, textile grasses, fruits, hides, and dyewoods, furnishing in return agricultural implements, and mining and other machinery. Goods should be specially manufactured for Mexico, in the United States as in Europe, and put up in attractive packages of the proper size, with brilliant labels to catch the eye.

The republics of America should stand in with one another, in trade as in political matters. Were the American republic in China there would be no dismemberment of that empire by the powers of Europe; and were there no United. States in America those same European powers would soon have their evil eye on the weak and factious parts now dominated by the mixed Spanish and Indian populations, even as the French Napoleon and the Austrian Maximilian once. had their eye on Mexico.

CHAPTER XXI

A GLANCE BACKWARD

QUITE a contrast between Pacific commerce of the present day and traffic here fifty or a hundred years ago; but not greater than will be the difference between the present and a hundred years hence. A glance backward sometimes is as beneficial as a glance forward, for in comparing the present with the past are we best enabled to form some reasonable idea of what we may expect in the future.

The primary motive attending all discovery was trade, but trade like proselyting is of different kinds. The first comers to America were no more particular about giving fair values to the natives of America than are the continental governments to-day in their dealings with Asia and Africa; a few trinkets, glass beads and the like, a little religion consisting of talk and mummery, and all the gold within reach was the price, which if not freely given was taken by force. Hand in hand went forth robbery and religion then as now; let any one show if he can the fundamental difference in the European conquest of America and the European conquest of China.

Trade comes to mankind like respiration, unconsciously. We value less our own than another's belongings; and so the Indian would give ten otter skins for a red handkerchief, ten of which were not worth one otter skin. Traders and shipmasters used to regard it wrong in the unsophisticated savage to steal from them, but civilization never seemed to consider it wrong to steal from savages; and at the present day, in lieu of the savage pure and simple, as the naked wild man in primeval forest is becoming scarce, civilized or half civilized nations will do for European lootings if the lands are broad and the government weak.

Long before ever a white man saw the Pacific, before the

times of Polo and Mandeville, of Balboa and Magellan, trade was brisk all around this great ocean. There was commerce in ships between China and Japan, between China and the Philippines, between all the Asiatic isles and mainland shores, besides an inland commerce along the river courses and mountain paths, of the magnitude of which we can have little conception at the present day. Nor was this shore and inland traffic confined to Asia. On the American side it was the same; not so extensive, perhaps, but richer, more important, and more extensive than we ever shall know. Proof lies in what the conquerors saw, and in the writings of native historians. The balsas of the Peruvians were not so venturesome as the junks of the Japanese, whose wrecks have been found on the American shore as far south as California, but they plied the coast far and near, and visited such islands as were within their reach. It was so with the Aztecs in Mexico, and even with the wilder tribes of the north; they were all eager to interchange commodities, and besides the coast commerce their dealings extended far into the interior.

The Manila trade to Acapulco was confined by Spain within the narrowest limits, not unlike that of the registered ships from Cádiz to the West Indies. The crown furnished the ships, and paid the officers and crews. "The tunnage" says Richard Walter "is divided into a certain number of bales, all of the same size. These are distributed among the convents at Manila, but principally to the Jesuits, as a donation, to support their missions for the propagation of the catholic faith; and the convents have hereby a right to embark such a quantity of goods on board the Manila ship as the tunnage of their bales amounts to. Or if they chuse not to be concerned in trade themselves, they have the power of selling this privilege to others. Nor is it uncommon when the merchant to whom they sell their share is unprovided of a stock, for the convents to lend him considerable sums of money on bottomry."

It is strange that men as avaricious as the sovereigns of Spain, or their ministers, should not have seen how this system worked against them. The Chinese silks were sold throughout America, as well as in Spain, cheaper than the silks of Spain, to the utter ruin eventually of the silk manufacturers of Valencia. In like manner European linens were

largely thrown out of the American markets by these cheap Chinese silks, and the cottons from the Coromandel coast, thus rendering Mexico and Peru less dependent on Spain for their staple commodities than this grandmother of colonies liked them to be; and all for the enrichment of the Jesuits, and of the merchants and officials directly interested in the trade. In fact, efforts were occasionally made to have this system abolished, but in every instance the Jesuits proved too powerful for their antagonists.

The round trip occupied the greater part of the year, sailing from Manila in July, and reaching Acapulco in December or January; and sailing from Acapulco in March and arriving at Manila in June. Sometimes two ships sailed in company, and there were always reserve vessels at either end of the route in case of accidents. Some of these ships were quite large; one of them it is stated carried a crew of 1,200 men. Usually, however, they were from 800 to 2,000 tons burden, and carried crews of from 350 to 600 men, and forty or fifty guns. Being king's ships, the captain was called general, and carried the royal standard of Spain at the main top-gallant mast.

Although the value of the annual cargo was limited by royal edict to $600,000 in value, it usually so far exceeded this sum as to bring the returns up to $3,000,000. Suppose the goods to have been sold at Acapulco at three times their cost at Manila, which is not an unreasonable supposition when we consider the high duties, royalties, freight, commissions, and profits, the value of the cargo out from Manila would then be $1,000,000, which is not far from correct.

On clearing the islands the eastward bound ships sail northward to latitude 30°, or beyond, where they meet the westerly monsoon, which carries them straight to the coast of California. The return cargo, aside from the silver for which the Manila goods were sold, amounts to little,-some cochineal, American sweetmeats, European millinery for the women of Manila, and Spanish wines, the last mostly for the use of the priests for alleged sacramental purposes. On leaving port, the vessel bound from Acapulco for Manila steers southward to latitude 14° or 13°, and thence straight for the Ladrones. Thus as before remarked these Spaniards seem to have sailed entirely around the Hawaiian islands every year for 150 years without seeing them.