Segak. — The Struggle for Foreign Trade. 527 



and vigour of her population ; by the extent and nature of 

 her territory, and especially by her highly advanced agriculture 

 and her physical, social, and mental resources." Germany has 

 large supplies of both coal and iron, and certainly the quality 

 of her people is second to none. She is surrounded by some 

 of the wealthiest nations of Europe, and can exchange products 

 with them by rail without breaking of bulk and frequent hand- 

 ling. The progress in European railway-communication and 

 the tunnelling of the mountains have given Germany an 

 advantage in markets in which she was formerly handicapped. 

 It was, then, inevitable that Germany should have utilised 

 these advantages to obtain food for her people, and become a 

 predominantly manufacturing nation earlier than she would 

 nave done had her advantages for such a career been less pro- 

 nounced. Her foreign trade has to struggle against her own 

 restrictive policy. She taxes imported food, and imports 

 cannot be restricted without restricting exports. But the 

 influence of the German tariff pales before that of the growth 

 of population. German foreign trade flourishes in spite of the 

 policy of German statesmen, and the author of the victory is 

 the German mother. The declining birth-rate has affected 

 Germany less than most countries, while she feels with most 

 others the operation of the diminished death-rate, due to 

 improved sanitation, the progress of medical science, and the 

 improvement in the general knowledge of the laws of health. 



As the great increase in population has produced in the 

 past such a rapid increase in German foreign trade, so it is sure 

 to produce the same effect in the future. Even an exceptional 

 fall in the German birth-rate would not materially affect the 

 progress of German commerce for many years to come. The 

 high birth-rate of the last fifteen years is only now about to in- 

 crease the effective labour force of the country. Even if there 

 were to be no increase in the annual number of births, though 

 this would involve a rapidly falling birth-rate, the population 

 would continue to increase rapidly, for the present annual num- 

 ber of births is sufficient to raise the population to some 

 110,000,000. The increase in the labour force of Germany dur- 

 ing the next twenty years will be enormous. It will be largely 

 directed to manufacture, and it will want food and raw material 

 — very much food and still more raw material ; for it should 

 be noted that in the case of an increasing population that already 

 requires more of these commodities than its land produces, 

 not only is food and raw material required for the consumption 

 of the accessions to its population, but still more raw material 

 on which to bestow the labour of manufacturing, which is to 

 purchase the former. An excess of raw materials must be im- 



