414 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 



The greatest of all tin producers, the Straits, does little business 

 ill the Paciric beyond a comparatively small export to China. 



Bolivia, the tin-producer next in importance to the Straits, gets 

 its product out of the Pacific by the shortest available route, chiefly 

 to England and Germany. 



With the exception of about 10 per cent, to the United States, 

 Australia sends the whole of her product to Europe in the form of 

 ingots or " black ore," and only uses the Pacific coast as the shortest 

 way out. The prospect of Australia becoming a manufacturer of tin 

 goods depends, as in the case of coppei', upon the future course of the 

 iron and steel industry. 



The facts and figures cited lead me to conclude that, apart from 

 outside disturbance, the industrial future of the Pacific littoral will 

 fall to be divided among Australia, China, and Japan. Australia and 

 China will take their share by virtue of the natural resources with 

 which they have been endowed. Japan will share, partly for the same 

 reason, but still more because of the energy of her people aiid her 

 advantageous geographical situation. In the last-named respect she 

 presents a remarkable analogy to Great Britain, in the easy command 

 of foreign raw material and in facilities for the distribution of manu- 

 factured goods among the markets. 



The present state of China is one of transition. Hitherto the 

 Chinese have " honoured their father and their mother" to such a 

 degree that the observance, by a process of reasoning in which the 

 Western fails to follow the working of the Eastern mind, has degener- 

 ated into what we call ancestor worship. Their peculiar system of 

 logic has convinced them that one who seeks to know more than his 

 father knew dishonours that father. Hence, they have, for centuries 

 past, stood still, or even retrograded, for there is always the chance 

 of omitting to learn, or of forgetting, something that one's father 

 knew — while other nations leai'ned new lessons and left them far 

 beiiiud. In short, their ancestor worship is a virtue run to seed. 



Much has been said and written about the cerebral difference 

 between East and West. It is tnie enough that the East and West 

 do not always reason along the same lines. The difference is even 

 more marked than that which distinguishes the mental processes of 

 the Celtic and Saxon races, but it is a difference in degree rather than 

 in kind, and increased communication between races invariably leads 

 to mutual understanding. 



It may be pointed out that it is barely the life of a generation of 

 men since Japan seemed every whit as unlikely to forsake her policy 

 of isolation as China seems to-day, or seemed a few years ago. But 

 now, as we know, Japan has learned nearly all that the West has to 

 teach, and lias in many instances even bettered her instruction. It is 

 imquestionable that what Japan has done China can do, whenever she 

 chooses to adopt a progressive policy. No miprejudiced observer 

 would contend that the Chinese individual is mentally the inferior of 

 the Japanese. 



Under the conditions of modern civilisation it is impossible for 

 eveiy man to " go on the land," and " on his proper patch of soil to 

 grow his own plantation." If he did, he would relapse into barbarism 

 or still more likely perish for want of the thousand and one require- 

 ments which civilisation has made as necessarv to him as food itself. 



