this condition were our manufacturers, who demanded a tariff of retaliation, and now the farmers complain that they are suffering from a denial of the same protection. Indeed, we are to-day the witnesses of an eager race in the parliaments of many countries to raise the duties on importations from their neighboring states until the wall is so high that nothing can pass. Is this to be the grand coronation of the labor and civilization of the nineteenth century,--the century of steam, electricity, the piercing of the St. Gothard, the Suez and Panama canals? No! Such a condition cannot endure. Let me express the hope that the time will come when, from the excess of the evil, good will result; that the people will realize that such a condition leads to general poverty, while liberty of exchange is the surest foundation of general prosperity.” With these great natural and artificial obstacles to contend with, Switzerland is nevertheless a commercial and manufacturing state. Its industries are prosperous and show a constantly-increasing vitality and importance, and its citizens are growing rich and famous in the commerce of Europe. Its silks, ribbons, embroideries, braided straws, watches, and cheese go to every quarter of the globe. There is no state in Europe in which there is so great a general trade per head of population. The commerce of Italy, with a population nearly ten times greater, is only about double that of Switzerland; and the difference between Austrian and Swiss commerce is even still more remarkable. The silk industry is the oldest in Switzerland, being already established at Zurich and Basel in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Ticino is the only Canton where there are filatures for reeling the cocoon into silk. Italy, China, and Japan are the great sources of supply of raw materials to the silk manufacturers,--the former supplying nearly four-fifths of all the organzines; of the raw silk, the supply comes largely from Yokohama. Cotton began to be manufactured in Switzerland in the fifteenth century, and power-loom weaving was introduced in 1830. Twisting, spinning and white-goods weaving, and cotton printing are of very considerable importance. Embroidered goods have attained a great development, and furnish a heavy export trade from eastern Switzerland, especially in the Cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell. Little of this beautiful work is now done by hand, machinery having reached marvellous perfection. Aniline colors, the wonderful dyes which the skill of modern chemists has evolved from bituminous tar, and the manufacture of flavoring extracts, from the products of coal-tar and petroleum, constitute a thriving export business at Basel. Watchmaking is essentially a Swiss industry, and has been the most important industry in Geneva since 1587, and by a combination with jewellers, making a union between mechanical industry and art, has given Geneva a world-wide reputation.[76] Watchmaking is done entirely