In particular the opening up of trade with the Southern Colonies had much to do with laying the foundation of the proud commercial position which Glasgow holds to-day. Merchants from the little town on the banks of the Clyde began to trade with these Colonies, bringing back in exchange for their wares tobacco and other products, including cotton. During the same period there was introduced from Holland the art of fine spinning, and on these two articles of Colonial produce—tobacco and cotton—were built up many fortunes. Later in the century the invention of the spinning jenny, the carding frame, and the power-loom, and the discovery by Watt of how to harness the power of steam to production all gave an impetus to the commercial growth of Scotland. With the application of the power of steam the foundation of Scotland’s pre-eminent position in the manufacture of iron and steel and in the building of ships was laid, for by the application of steam-power to pumping machinery and to haulage it was found possible to keep her coal pits free from water and to dig vertical shafts to the coal seams. Thus the eighteenth century, which had begun with the Scottish people in the direst poverty, ended with many of them in comparative comfort and with the standard of living for all definitely raised. Never since then, not even in the period of deep poverty which followed the close of the Napoleonic war nor in the “hungry ’forties,” have the whole people fallen back into the depths of misery in which they were sunk at the beginning and all through the seventeenth century and well into the “’twenties” of the eighteenth. At times since then progress seemed to be at a standstill; at times it seemed even to be on the down grade; but the impetus has always been recovered; the standard of living has been rising gradually, and although we are still far removed from the rude profusion which has caused the century in English history which followed the “Black Death” to be spoken of as “the golden age of labour,” the trend of our march is in the direction of a condition which, measured by the different standards of to-day, will approximate to that long past happy period. THE FACTORY SYSTEM.