act. The slow progress of Germany until recent years, and the
still slow progress of Russia, is attributable more to these physical
barriers of free communication, internal and external, than to any
other single cause that can be adduced. Inherent resources of the
soil, quality of land for agriculture, the proximity of large supplies
of coal and iron and other requisites of the production of machinery
and power rank as important determinants of progress. The machine
development of France in particular has been retarded by the slow
discovery of her natural areas of manufacture, the districts where
coal and iron lie near to one another in easily accessible supply. The
same remark applies to Germany and to the United States. At the close
of last century, when the iron trade of England was rapidly advancing,
the iron trade of France were quite insignificant, and during the
earlier years of the nineteenth century the progress was extremely
slight.[85]

(2) _Race and National Character._--Closely related to climate and
soil, these qualities of race are a powerful directing influence in
industry. Muscular strength and endurance, yielding in a temperate
climate an even continuity of vigorous effort; keen zest of material
comfort stimulating invention and enterprise; acquisitiveness, and the
love of external display; the moral capacities of industry, truth,
orderly co-operation; all these are leading factors determining the
ability and inclination of the several nations to adopt new industrial
methods. Moral qualities in English workmanship have indisputably
played a large part in securing her supremacy. "A British trade-mark
was accepted as a guarantee of excellence, while the products of other
countries were viewed with a suspicion justified by experience of
their comparative inferiority."[86] The more highly civilised nations
have thus gained by this civilisation, and have widened the distance
which separates them from the less civilised. England, France,
Germany, Holland, and the United States are in wealth and in
industrial methods far more widely removed from Spain and Russia than
was the case a hundred years ago.

(_b_) POLITICAL.--Statecraft has played an important part in
determining the order and pace of industrial progress. The possession
of numerous colonies and other political attachments in different
parts of the world, comprising a large variety of material resources,
gave to England, and in a less measure to Fr