REDISTRIBUTION OF MANKIND DICKSON, 561 



uted over an increased number of centers. The distinction between 

 agricultural and industrial regions will tend to become less and less 

 clearly marked, and will eventually almost disappear in many parts 

 of the world. 



The effect of this upon the third element is of first-rate importance. 

 It is clear that as the process of equalization goes on the relative 

 amount of long-distance transport will diminish, for each district 

 will tend more and more to produce its own supply of staple food and 

 carry on its own principal manufactures. This result will naturally 

 be most marked in what we may call the " east-and-west " transport, 

 for as climatic controls primarily follow the parallels of latitude, the 

 great quantitative trade, the flow of foodstuffs and manufactured <ir- 

 ticles to and fro between peoples of like habits and modes of life, 

 runs primarily east and west. Thus the transcontinental functions 

 of the great North American and Eurasian railways, the east-and- 

 west systems of the inland waterways of the two continents, and the 

 connecting links furnished by the great ocean ferries must become 

 of relatively less importance. 



The various stages may be represented, perhaps, in some such man- 

 ner as this. If / is the cost of producing a thing locally at a place A 

 by intensive cultivation or what corresponds to it, if E is the cost of 

 producing the same thing at a distant place B, and T the cost of 

 transporting it to A, then at K. we may at some point of time have a 

 more or less close approximation to 



We have seen that in this country, for example, / has been greater 

 than E-\-T for wheat ever since, say, the introduction of railways in 

 North America, that the excess tends steadily to diminish, and that 

 however much it may be possible to reduce T either by devising 

 cheaper modes of transport or by shortening the distance through 

 which wheat is transported, E-\-T must become greater than /, and 

 it will pay us to grow all or most of our own wheat. Conversely, in 

 the seventies of last century / was greater than E-\-T in North 

 America and Germany for such things as steel rails and rolling stock, 

 which we in this country were cultivating " extensively " at the time 

 on more accessible coal fields, with more skilled labor and better or- 

 ganization than could be found elsewhere. In many cases the posi- 

 tions are now, as we know, reversed, but geographically / must win 

 all round in the long run. 



In the case of transport between points in different latitudes, the 

 conditions are, of course, altogether dissimilar, for in this case com- 

 modities consist of foodstuffs, or raw materials, or manufactured 

 articles, which may be termed luxuries, in the sense that their use is 

 scarcely known until cheap transport makes them easily accessible, 

 44863°— SM 1913 36 



