COMMERCE.

"Commerce is King," remarked Thomas Carlyle, and if the aphorism was true in his day, how much more truthful and pertinent is it at the present time! To it England owes her wealth, power, dominion and influence, and by means of it America bids fair to outstrip all history in the achievement of commercial success and importance.

The close and steadfast pressing of our material interests during the past twenty years; the wonderful inventive genius of our people, so richly productive in labor and time-saving devices and processes of manufacture, and their aggressive, inquisitive and enterprising spirit have combined to place this nation in the front ranks, if not in the lead, of the great civilized powers of the world. The political expansion of the United States is only a visible and symbolical representation of the growth in commerce, manufacture, art, education and general progress. With our varied climates extending now from the tropics to the frozen north, our vast seaboard, expansive lakes, broad, rolling rivers, exhaustless mineral and agricultural wealth, no argument is necessary to establish beyond peradventure the manifest destiny of this nation.

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