MHSIERALS OF THE PACIFIC LITTORAL. 4:15 



supply of hands will enable China to produce a large surplus of coal 

 for exportation as soon as railway communication has enabled her to 

 oveotake the supply of her own coast. When the day of equal 

 opportunity arrives, China will be as favourably situated as Australia 

 for access to Californian markets, and Australia will only have a 

 slightly better position with reference to the markets of Pacific South 

 America 



The low value of iron ore precludes the possibility of exporting it 

 to great distances, and brings about the anomaly that even countries 

 possessing immense deposits of it must rest content for a time to 

 purciiase and import from abroad the greater portion of their require- 

 ments in the more valuable form of manufactured iron and steel. 



The possibility of any country ever becoming a great manufac- 

 turer of iron and steel goods depends upon the mutual accessibility of 

 unlimited coal and iron ores to one another. These conditions are 

 almost, though not quite, fulfilled in Australia. As for China, the 

 important factor of the supply of the iron ore is by no means certain. 

 It is true that she has hitherto mainly supplied herself, at least as 

 far as the interior is concerned, and the fact that she has even 

 exported iron ore in considerable quantities to Japan, in spite of the 

 low value of the article and the gi'eat ex'pense of land carriage, argues 

 that she is endowed with large supplies. But, when she takes to 

 manufacturing her own railway and ship-building steel, there is no 

 information available to the outside world to show whether her 

 I'esources are equal to the task. If they are, all that can be said is 

 that the opportunities of a country with iOO.OOO.OOO inhabitants 

 immensely outclass those of a countiy with 4,000,000. If they are 

 not, then Australia will have an opportunity of supplying China with 

 her own surplus production as soon as she can muster hands enough 

 to produce a surplus over her own requirements. 



There is little chance of either Australia or China exporting 

 manufactured iron or steel to America or Europe, unless in the far 

 distant future some almost unimaginable alteration in conditions 

 should enable either immensely to undersell the manufacturing 

 countries of to-day, but whichever of them can produce cheaper will 

 send its surplus to the other. 



At present there is little interchange of copper or copper ores 

 across the Pacific. A few years ago a considerable amount of rough 

 copper went from Australia to America to be electrolytically refined, 

 but this is coming to an end. The great bulk of the copper produced 

 in Australia goes direct to Europe in the form of blister or fine metal, 

 and the remainder is high-grade ore. The large output of Mexico finds 

 its outlet mainly by the Atlantic or into the United States. That 

 of Peru will probably go in the future chiefly to San Francisco. That 

 of Chile finds its way to Europe or the western States of North 

 America, without affecting the commerce of the Pacific. Japan for 

 the most part consumes her own production, with a small surplus for 

 export, to China. China consumes all her own and a good deal of 

 imported copper. 



When Australia, Japan, and China, or one or other of them, 

 manufacture their own iron and steel, the industries depending on- 

 copper will follow the same course. 



