Major Cities of Commerce

ANCIENT Babylon was called in the Bible “a city of traders.” (Ezekiel 17:4, 12) That term would also have been appropriate for ancient Tyre, which today is identified with Sur, a seaport on the Mediterranean Sea between Beirut (Lebanon) and Haifa (Israel).

According to one source, Tyre was “a major Phoenician seaport from about 2000 BC onwards.” By the time the Israelites conquered the Promised Land in about 1467 B.C.E., Tyre was a major sea power. Its mariners and commercial fleet of ships became famous for their voyages to faraway places.​—1 Kings 10:11, 22.

A Mightier Fleet

“Rule, Britannia, rule the waves,” wrote 18th-​century Scottish poet James Thomson of the fleet that helped make the British Empire one of the greatest commercial giants ever to exist. “Sea power guaranteed the inviolability of Britain from invasion, the security of her imperial possessions, and the peaceful development of her world-​wide trading interests.”​—The Cambridge Historical Encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland.

As Britain’s empire expanded, its trade took on global proportions. Between 1625 and 1783, its imports increased by some 400 percent and exports by over 300 percent. By 1870, British factories were producing over a third of the world’s manufactured goods. With the pound sterling clearly dominating international trade, London became the unrivaled financial center of the world.

Today London means different things to different people. Music lovers think of Covent Garden opera or the Royal Festival Hall, sports fans of Wembley and Wimbledon, theatergoers of the West End. Followers of fashion think either of Savile Row or Carnaby Street, history students of the Tower of London and the British Museum, whereas lovers of pageantry​—not to speak of gossip and scandal—​may think of the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace.

Paradoxically, none of these tourist attractions are located in the actual city of London. London proper, called simply the City, serves as the commercial hub of a metropolitan area composed of dozens of suburbs. Within “the Square Mile” of London is to be found the Bank of England, affectionately known as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. It was incorporated by an act of Parliament in 1694 and is one of the world’s oldest central banks. These powerful institutions act as bankers to government, regulate the activity of commercial banks, and by controlling money supply and credit, often strongly influence government economic policy. Also found in the City are the Stock Exchange and the nearby Lloyd’s of London, the international insurance underwriters.

Called Swinging London in the 1960’s because of its carefree life-​style, the City has nevertheless had its share of sorrow during nearly 2,000 years of existence. In 1665 the Great Plague​—an epidemic of bubonic plague—​killed some 100,000 persons, and a year later the Great Fire almost obliterated the City. More recently, raids by German bombers during World War II killed 30,000 of London’s citizens and destroyed or damaged 80 percent of its houses.

Overtaken by a Youngster

Compared to London, the city of New York, founded in 1624 by Dutch settlers and named New Amsterdam, is just a youngster. But today it is one of the world’s largest and busiest seaports; an industrial, trade, and financial center; and the home of many of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions. As a commercial center, it outshines both Amsterdam and London. As if symbolic of this ascendancy, the twin towers of the New York World Trade Center, shaken in 1993 by a terrorist bomb, still proudly thrust their heads 110 floors into the sky.

Like the nation of which it is the largest city, New York is a melting pot of nationalities. Since 1886 the Statue of Liberty in its harbor has beckoned immigrants to a world that promises freedom and equal opportunity.

Some of New York’s streets are more than just names. For example, Broadway is symbolic of theatrical entertainment, setting standards and starting trends that reach out to influence the entire world. And what about Wall Street? In 1792 a group of 24 brokers met there under a buttonwood tree to discuss setting up the New York Stock Exchange. Officially formed in 1817, the Stock Exchange, now the world’s largest marketplace for securities, is today commonly known as just Wall Street.

Broadway offers exciting entertainment, but it cannot beat Wall Street for real drama. In October 1987, when Wall Street took its deepest, fastest plunge in history, all the other top 22 stock markets throughout the world dropped accordingly. A “sense of imminent foreboding” prevailed​—so wrote a reporter—​nurtured by news of “alarming price breaks in all the early-​opening markets: Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Paris, Zurich.”

A shaky Wall Street, a shaky World Trade Center​—what does this forebode for world commerce?

“Wall-​to-​Wall People”

Hong Kong is so densely populated that it was once aptly described as “wall-​to-​wall people.” The Mong Kok district has 362,000 people to the square mile [140,000 per sq km]! Much land has been reclaimed from the sea, and yet about 1 percent of the population still lives literally on the water! Known locally as Tanka, they dwell on junks or boats, as did their fishermen ancestors, who came from northern China and set up a tiny fishing village there in the second millennium B.C.E.

In the mid-19th century, the British came and immediately recognized Hong Kong’s strategic and commercially promising location. Its excellent harbor was accessible from both east and west, and it was located on the main trade routes between Europe and the Far East. As a result of the two Opium Wars (1839-42 and 1856-60), China was forced to cede Hong Kong Island and parts of Kowloon Peninsula to the British, and these thus became a British colony. In 1898 the entire area, plus the New Territories to the north, was leased to Britain for 99 years. In 1997, when the lease expires, Hong Kong will return to China.

As becomes a city that National Geographic calls “the world’s third largest financial center and its eleventh largest trading economy,” Hong Kong is preoccupied with making and spending money. “May you be blessed with prosperity” is the usual greeting during Lunar New Year celebrations. And evidently many of its citizens have been so blessed, leading the magazine to claim that “Hong Kong consumes more cognac, per capita, and boasts more Rolls-​Royces, per acre, than any other place on earth.”

This prosperity could hardly have been foreseen during World War II, when commerce in Hong Kong was drastically impaired, food was scarce, and so many residents fled to inland China that the population dropped by over half. After the war, the city began a climb that has made it an Asian economic superpower. Its products sell well on the world market because relatively cheap labor and raw materials keep costs down. In 1992 its exports had soared to almost 45 times what they had been in 1971.

What will be the commercial, political, and social repercussions when Hong Kong returns to China in 1997? Some citizens and businesses are uneasy and have moved elsewhere. Others have stayed, but they may well have already stashed their money away in a place where they feel it may be more secure.

“A World-​Wide Deposit Vault”

During the 17th century, Switzerland adopted a policy of political neutrality, a policy it has not always successfully maintained. Nevertheless, money deposited there is considered to be relatively safe. The Swiss banking system also offers complete confidentiality. Thus people who want to keep their fortunes hidden​—for whatever reason—​are enabled to remain virtually anonymous.

At the center of these money matters is Zurich. With a metropolitan population in excess of 830,000, it is Switzerland’s largest city. Its strategic location on European trade routes has served it well for centuries, and today it stands in the forefront of modern world finance. In fact, Professor Herbert Kubly calls Zurich’s principal avenue “the banking centre of Continental Europe and a world-​wide deposit vault.”

Zurich has also made its mark in religious developments. A Catholic priest named Huldrych Zwingli preached a series of sermons there in 1519 that led to a controversy with the city’s Catholic bishop. Subsequent debates were held in 1523, and Zwingli emerged victorious. As the Swiss Protestant Reformation gathered force, other major Swiss cities sided with Zwingli and became bastions of his form of Protestantism.

A more recent “son” of Zurich was Albert Einstein, viewed as one of history’s greatest scientific intellects. Although born in Germany, Einstein studied physics and mathematics in Zurich. A thesis he published in 1905 even won him a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Zurich. His achievements are in keeping with Switzerland’s long tradition of scientific excellence, to which Zurich has richly contributed. Its Federal Institute of Technology has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other scientific school in the world.

But for all its wealth, for all its religious and scientific heritage, Zurich is not problem free. The European painted a less-​than-​pretty picture of the city last May. It noted that although “the city’s infamous Needle Park, once an international magnet for junkies” has been closed, the drug scene has simply moved to an area known as Kreis 5. This area, the report says, “represents the kind of thing that Switzerland is desperate to hide​—unemployment, homelessness, alcoholism, an attitude of resignation, housing problems and, most of all, drug abuse.”

Paradoxically, the problem of drug abuse links Zurich with New York and Hong Kong. Probably over 80 percent of the heroin smuggled into New York City comes from the Golden Triangle area of northern Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, where secret Hong Kong societies known as triads are heavily involved in drug trafficking.a Thus, many of the dollars earned by Hong Kong triads through heroin sales to New York addicts likely end up stashed away in Zurich bank accounts.

The major cities of commerce, aptly represented by London, Zurich, Hong Kong, and New York City, have much in common with ancient Tyre. Prospering at the expense of others, Tyre’s commercial success nurtured conceit and pride and eventually led to disaster.

Will today’s commercial centers fare any better? Is their foundation more sound? The evidence is that they will fare no better than the cities to be discussed in our next installment.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 10]

Hong Kong