The people of Manchester are very wisely forming a Society
for increasing and diffusing the knowledge of Commercial Geography, i.e., the knowledge of all the attainable facts con- cerning the different wants of different nations—those, at least, which have any means of paying for them,—and the best modes of supply. The Bishop of Salford, who proposed the chief re- solution on Wednesday, at the meeting held at the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, under the presidency of the Mayor, said very justly that English producers were apt to be satisfied with the vaguest ideas of what the wants of the less known markets were, and had very little notion of studying them with any care and nicety. The British traders often fancied that every- body was in want of calicoes, and everybody, too, of calicoes of the most popular English kind, and took no pains at all to find out whether there were not other wants much more urgent, and whether even where foreign countries do like English goods, they like best precisely such types of them as are most favoured here. In short, traders hardly ever study carefully enough .either the regions in which they may hope to obtain new or cheaper supplies, or the wants of those whom they hope to have as new customers; and the new Society of Commercial Geography is to do all in its power to increase and render more exact, the knowledge on which the operations of our merchants must chiefly depend. The idea is a good one, and it is not put forward too soon. English commerce, like English common-sense, is a little blunt. It is too apt to ignore essential distinctions.
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