APPENDIX A LXV 



All other resources of our continent, and, for that matter of 

 the globe, may be exhausted before civilization is much older, and, 

 in some cases, before two or three generations have passed. The 

 annual production of anthracite coal in the United States, it has 

 been claimed, has already passed its maximum and the output will 

 from now on continue to decline to a vanishing point in the not far 

 distant future. It is also claimed that the coal supply of Great 

 Britain will be exhausted in three hundred and fifty years. No esti- 

 mate can be given of the duration of the supply in our maritime 

 provinces, but it is maintained by some that coals and lignites in 

 Western Canada are sufficient in quantities to supply its needs 

 for many centuries to come. If that is so, and there is abundance 

 evidence to support the claim, the fuel supply of the West is one 

 of the richest of our resources. 



They are, however, not inexhaustible, and, let me repeat, none 

 of the natural resources of the globe, except the energy of the sun- 

 light, are, humanly speaking, inexhaustible. Mankind has, there- 

 fore, been for the last century spendthrift, prodigal, living waste- 

 fully on its capital, instead of carefully conserving it to the utmost. 

 It has acted as if it had the purse of Fortunatus, giving no thought 

 to the future and swayed only by the needs and the illusions of the 

 hour. It has not yet begun to recognize that its resources are not 

 inexhaustible, but it experienced a shock when it faced the diminished 

 food supply of the last three years, and it is, in consequence, more 

 inclined to-day to give serious attention to problems which it would 

 not consider when under the influence of some of its cherished 

 illusions. It has not wholly emerged from these, but they distort 

 its outlook less and it is anxious, and rightly so, as to how in the new 

 order of things the merciless trade competition between the Teutonic 

 nations and the other nations, that is to come, is to be met. This 

 is, indeed, all material and, therefore, from the purely intellectual 

 point of view, gross, but such materialism determines the course of 

 history as it did when Rome overthrew Carthage, Corinth and Rhodes, 

 as certain historians maintain, not from a lust of power, but from 

 a desire to destroy her keenest competitors in the then trade of the 

 world. 



The enormous sacrifices that this war has entailed and will en 

 tail until it closes can never be equated by way of compensation 

 with any product or result of it. Whatever else befalls, liberty and 

 the right to happiness will be maintained, but these arc fundamental, 

 for life without them is unthinkable, and we do not rank them as 

 compensations. Amongst the very few results, however, which ma>' 

 have ultimately a markedly beneficial effect is the altered point of 



