_Exchange limited by powers._—With all its advantages, there are certain obstacles in the way of its extension, always more or less effective in limiting its range. A community can have few exchanges among individuals if all are busied in the same or similar trades. A farming community has little need of buying and selling among the farmers. A horse trade or an exchange of one brute for another may supply all necessities. In larger communities similar limitations are found where abilities are similar, or where habits in education, government or religion are very uniform. In such cases opportunities for exchange are limited, and commerce itself grows slowly. The story of pioneer settlements is uniformly one of slow and uncertain commerce for want of the variety in wants and abilities which makes the very foundation of exchange. Sometimes “day’s work for day’s work” is the limit of exchange throughout a whole region or country. In the world at large limitations often arise from hostile feelings between nations, and as yet the highest freedom of exchange between people under different governments has seldom been reached. The United States affords the brightest example of people with varied characteristics developed through the stimulating effect of ready exchange. _Commerce over-estimated._—So rapid has been the advancement of systems of exchange within the last half century that men are prone to over-estimate the importance of commerce and its interests. The amount of wealth in motion exaggerates the importance of wealth itself, so that multitudes overlook the foundation in productive industry, and become mere bettors upon the market, attempting to catch a part of the moving wealth as it passes. Any speculation in mere commercial transactions may become a very serious obstacle to legitimate industry by its effect upon both the industry itself and the incentives to industry among the people. This danger is increased by the greatly extended interest in exchange among the rural population. Scarcely a farmer in our country is beyond the effect of any extensive commerce throughout the world. The crops of South America and of the Russian plains are now as important to a farmer of Dakota as his own, since all must find a common market in the manufacturing countries of Europe. Speculation on the Chicago Board of Trade is likely to be as interesting to a farmer in Nebraska as to members of the Board. He is even tempted to try his hand at speculation, either directly through a commission house or indirectly through the marketing of his grain. In either case he is caught by the dangerous motion of modern commerce. The chief remedy for these tendencies must be found in a wider acquaintance with the facts of commercial life and a clearer perception of what is genuine commerce.