The English economist, James E. Thorold Rogers, has included in his *Story of Holland, N. Y., Putnam, 1889, several chapters on topics of economic importance. A better, though larger and more expensive work, is Blok’s **History of the people of the Netherlands. N. Y., Putnam, 5 vol., 1898-1912. I have attempted to cover the colonial and commercial history of the Dutch in their most important dependency in The Dutch in Java, N. Y., Macmillan, 1904. CHAPTER XXI ENGLAND: SURVEY OF COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT =227. Survey of England’s position and resources about 1500.=—The importance which English commerce assumed in this period and has since maintained, justifies us in pausing at the start to consider the conditions prevailing at the beginning of the period, about 1500. England and Wales together had an area much smaller than that of most of the important continental states, about equal to the area of Illinois, and less than that of New England. Ireland was a sort of colonial possession, counting for little; Scotland remained till about 1700 an independent kingdom, and continued to be relatively unimportant after the union. England (a term which will be used roughly for other parts of the United Kingdom as they were included) had from nature one endowment of supreme advantage, separation by the Channel from the Continent, which made unnecessary for defense the government of a military absolutism, and allowed an early development of popular freedom. From the economic standpoint, however, the climate favored grazing rather than tillage, and the mineral resources, aside from tin, were still of comparatively little use. England was a poor as well as a small country in 1500, needing to rely upon the energy of the people and upon their cooperation among themselves and with the government to win a place among the leading countries. =228. England’s chief advantage; her advanced organization.=—Progress had been made, however, in various lines of which the importance was to appear as time went on. Serfdom had disappeared from the country districts, and production was stimulated by a fair reward for work well done. On the basis of their flourishing sheep industry the English had built up a cloth manufacture which had outgrown the narrow restrictions of the old gild system, and won the inestimable advantage of an organization like that of modern times; the industry was not so much ruled by antiquated custom or by the laws of politicians, as guided by specialists who had invested their capital in manufacture or trade, and who linked their fortunes with progress and extension.