More than half the carrying trade of the state centres at _Rotterdam_. By the improvement of the river estuaries and canals this city has become one of the best ports of Europe, and the tonnage of goods handled at the docks is enormously increasing. _Vlissingen_ (Flushing) and the _Hook_ are railway terminals that handle much of the local freights consigned to London. _Delft_ is famous the world over for the beautiful porcelain made at its potteries. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION How has the topography of each of these states affected its commerce? How is their commerce affected by latitude and climate? How has the cultivation of the sugar-beet affected the cane-sugar industry in the British West Indies? From the Statesman's Year-Book make a list of the leading exports and imports of each country. From the Abstract of Statistics find the trade of the United States with each of these countries. FOR COLLATERAL READING AND REFERENCE Adams's New Empire--pp. 153-159. Gibbins's History of Commerce--Book III, Chapters I and VIII. CHAPTER XXVII EUROPE--THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES AND SWITZERLAND The Mediterranean states are peopled mainly by races whose social and economic development was moulded largely by the Roman occupation of the Mediterranean basin for a period of more than one thousand years. The occupations of the people have been shaped to a great extent by the slope of the land and by the mountain-ranges that long isolated them from the Germanic peoples north of the Alps. =France.=--The position of France with respect to industrial development is fortunate. The North Sea coast faces the ports of Great Britain; the Atlantic ports are easily accessible to American centres of commerce; the Mediterranean ports command a very large part of the trade of that sea. The easily travelled overland routes between the Mediterranean and North Seas in very early times gave the country a commercial prominence that ever since has been retained. Even before the time of Caesar it was a famous trading-ground for Mediterranean merchants, and the conquest of the country was not so much for the spoils of war as for the extension of Roman commercial influence. The greater part of France is an agricultural region, and nowhere is the soil cultivated with greater skill. Although the state is not quite as large as Texas, there are more farms than in all the United States, their small size making thorough cultivation a necessity. Much of the land is too valuable for wheat-farming, and so the eastern manufacturing districts depend upon the Russian wheat-farms for their supply. Northwestern France, however, has a surplus of wheat, and this is sold to Great Britain. [Illustration: FRANCE] The sugar-beet is the most profitable crop, and its cultivation is aided indirectly by the government, which gives a bounty on all exported sugar. The area of sugar-beet cultivation will probably increase to its limit for this reason.