258 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



short, he demands not only an open door for German trade but also 

 all kinds of special provisions operating to the benefit of German 

 trade in order that she may entrench herself safely behind an in- 

 vincible bulwark of commercial supremacy. 



READJUSTMENT OF MINERAL SUPPLIES. 



A commercial domination by any one nation is obviously unjust 

 and is as we have seen one of the most potent reasons for the recent 

 war. We can not escape from the fact that in the interrelation of 

 nations, certain countries are bound to play a' dominant part in the 

 production or in the manufacture of certain commodities. The Ger- 

 man control of potash and the Chilean output of nitrates are the 

 largest examples of so-called world monopolies of minerals. Never- 

 theless, in the last four years even these two most formidable com- 

 mercial bogies have been robbed of some of their terrors. 



Potash. — We have found to our surprise how possible it is for us 

 to get along without German potash. The possibility of decreased 

 consumption, various new sources as well as the increased possibility 

 of recovery from waste sources in blast furnace and cement plant 

 gases have shown that for a considerable period, at least, we are not 

 absolutely helpless without the German supply. But commerce, 

 which takes the place in the life of a nation that breathing does in 

 the life of an individual, must, in order to attain eventually the best 

 results, be like breathing, a natural process. 



In the present stage of the world's development the natural source 

 of supply for potash lies in the German deposits and from that 

 supply we have a right to expect our maintenance. It is a debt that 

 Germany owes to the democracy of nations and which she must pay 

 with equity and, if not voluntarily, then under protest. In this con- 

 nection it should be noted that the reserves of Alsace-Lorraine have 

 been computed as sufficient to furnish the world with potash for 300 

 years; have been considered to be about equivalent to those of the 

 Stassfurt deposits, while it appears likely that reserves of consider- 

 able magnitude may be develoj)ed in northeastern Spain. So much for 

 potash, which, though important by reason of its entire localization 

 within the confines of what was German territory, is not one of the 

 most essential of mineral commodities. 



The important mineral commodities. — The accompanying figures 

 show in diagrammatic form the relative control by the United States, 

 Great Britain, France, and Germany of the five most important 

 mineral commodities. The first column represents the percentage 

 of the world's output that is produced by these countries and by 

 their colonial possessions. The second column represents the pro- 

 duction control of raw material exercised by these four countries, 

 as expressed by their domestic production plus their imports. The 

 third column represents the consumption control of finished products 



