An illuminating
spectacle, were it possible, would be afforded by summoning him from
among the Shades to a place in the engine-room of an ocean greyhound.
The humblest trimmer would treat him with the indulgence of a child;
while an oiler, a greasy nimbus about his head and in his hand, as
sceptre, a long-snouted can, would indeed appear to him a demigod and
ruler of forces beyond his ken.
It has ever been the world's dictum that empire and commerce go hand
in hand. In the past the one was impossible without the other. Rome
gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean nations, and it
was only by an unwise distribution of it that she became emasculated
and lost both power and trade. With a just system of economics it is
highly probable that for centuries she could have held back the
welling tide of the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose the
institutions of the conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and
with it empire. In the present, empire and commerce have become
interdependent.
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