io8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



growth of the United States, and notwithstanding perhaps some rela- 

 tive changes of a minor character amongst themselves. 



The foreign nations then with which the British Empire is likely 

 lo be concerned in the near future are Eussia, Germany and the United 

 States; and other Powers, even France, must more and more occupy a 

 second place, although France, for the moment, partly in consequence 

 of its relations with Eussia, occupies a special place. 



Special Position of British Empire. 



Another idea which follows from a consideration of the same facts 

 is the necessity laid upon the British Empire to consolidate and organ- 

 ize itself in view of the large additions of subject races made to it in the 

 last century, and especially in the last twenty years of the century. In a 

 paper which I read before the Eoyal Colonial Institute two years ago, an 

 attempt was made to show that the burden imposed on the white races 

 cf the Empire by these recent acquisitions was not excessive as far as 

 the prospect of internal tumults was concerned. Eelatively to some 

 other Powers, especially France, we have also been gaining inter- 

 tionally in strength and resources. But whether we had gained inter- 

 nationally on the whole, looking at the growth of powers like Eussia, 

 the United States and Germany, and their greater activity in world- 

 politics, was a different question. The problem thus stated remains. It 

 would be foreign to the scope of an address like this, which must avoid 

 actual politics, to examine how far light has been thrown on it by the 

 South African war. No one can question at least that the organization 

 of the Empire must be governed by considerations which the interna- 

 tional statistics suggest, and that no step can be taken safely and 

 properly unless our public men fully appreciate the ideas of interna- 

 tional strength and resources as well as other considerations which 

 are germane to the subject. 



Europe and Foreign Food Supplies. 



Another idea to which attention may be drawn appears to be the 

 increasing dependence of European nations upon supplies of food and 

 raw material obtained from abroad. We are familiar with a conception 

 of this kind as regards the United Kingdom. For years past we have 

 drawn increasing supplies from abroad, not merely in proportion to the 

 growth of population, but in larger proportion. The position here 

 obviously is that, with the industries of agi'iculture and the extraction 

 of raw material (except as regards the one article, coal) practically 

 incapable of expansion, and with a population which not only increases 

 in numbers, but which becomes year by year increasingly richer per 

 head, the consuming power of the population increases with enormous 



