The answers of the nations were all that could be desired, and largely
beyond any anticipation. Their government appropriations will exceed
an aggregate of two millions in our currency. Great Britain, with
Australia and Canada, gives for the expenses of her share of the
display $250,000 in gold; France, $120,000; Germany, _$171,000_;
Austria, $75,000; Italy, $38,000 from the government direct, and the
same sum from the Chamber of Commerce, which is better, as indicating
enlightenment and energy among her business-men; Spain, amid all her
distractions, $150,000; Japan, an unknown quantity in the calculations
of 1851, no less than $600,000; Sweden, $125,000; Norway, $44,000;
Ecuador, $10,000; the Argentine Confederation, $60,000; and many
others make ample provision not yet brought to figures, among them
Egypt, China, Brazil, Chili, Venezuela, and that strange political
cousin of ours at the antipodes, begotten and sturdily nurtured by the
Knickerbockers, the Orange Free State. In all, we may reckon at forty
the governments which have made the affair a matter of public concern,
and have ranked with the ordinary and regular cares of administration
the interest of their people in being adequately represented at
Philadelphia. Many other states will be represented by considerable
displays sent at private expense. It results that we shall have
twenty-one acres under roof of the best products of the outer
world--more than the entire area of the London exposition of 1851. A
Muscovite journal, the _Golos_, expresses a wide popular sentiment in
declaring that our exposition "will have immense political importance
in the way of international relations." The people suspect they have
found what they have long needed--a great commercial, industrial and
political 'change to aid in regulating and equalizing the market of
ideas and making a common fund of that article of trade, circulating
freely and interchangeable everywhere at sight. Practically, the
territory of the United States is an island like Great Britain.