Harper's International Commerce Series EDITED BY FRANCIS W. HIRST LONDON AND NEW YORK & BROTHERS 45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1902 HE 3506 .C88 bharper's International Commerce Series Cloth, 3s. 6d. per volume, with Map. THE UNITED KINGDOM AND ITS TRADE By HAROLD COX JAPAN AND ITS TRADE By J. MORRIS BRITISH INDIA AND ITS TRADE By H. J. TOZER THE UNITED STATES AND ITS TRADE GERMANY AND ITS TRADE HOLLAND AND ITS TRADE By F. A. CHAMBERS Other Volumes to follow Exch Harper's International Commerce Series thicago Unversity 5-21-28 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. THE object of this series is double. In the first place it is to supply in a compact form to managers, clerks, and agents of commercial firms in all parts of the globe accurate information about the commerce, resources, and needs of the principal countries of the world; the second, and equally important, purpose of the series is to supply to teachers and students in technical schools, colleges, and commercial Universities throughout the British Empire and the United States of America what we may perhaps call guide-books to the wealth of modern nations. No intelligent observer of commercial progress in Germany during the last decade can have failed to mark an equally rapid and simultaneous progress in the descriptive literature of industry and commerce. Every University seems to have entered into the competition, and in Germany, at any rate, a teacher of practical economics is seldom at a loss for a book; he is more likely to be embarrassed by profusion than by scarcity. In America the production of monographs upon commercial subjects has been enormous, but these monographs, whatever their scientific meritsand they often exhibit a most laborious research-are not often suited to the uses of commercial instruction. Still less are they likely to deserve or win a place on the miserable bookshelf which too often satisfies the demands of a great mercantile house. It is no doubt a mistake for the manufacturer of books to preach to the manufacturer of things; but the best writers on economic questions are those who combine with practical instincts a broad and scientific grasp of commerce and a power of exposition. Such writers do not lecture a business man on the conduct of his business. But is it not also a mistake for the captains of industry to shut themselves up in their offices, assume pontifical airs, and refuse to |