144 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap, viii 



the property in land altogether out of private hands. 

 Waiving that question, however, for the present, I main- 

 tain that it is a wrong to our own population, and a still 

 greater wrong to the next generation, to permit the 

 unlimited export of those mineral products which are 

 absolute necessaries of life, but which once destroyed we 

 can never reproduce. To do so is to sell and alienate for 

 ever a portion of our land itself, and should no more be 

 permitted to private individuals than the selling of the 

 land surface to a foreign State. 



Whether or not the period of the total exhaustion of 

 our coal-fields can be approximately estimated, it is clear 

 that the present vast and increasing rate of consumption 

 must be stopped. The numerous evils of the present 

 system I have briefly indicated — w^here are the benefits 

 which counterbalance them ? And the benefits, if they 

 exist, must be large and clear and positive indeed to 

 justify us in recklessly scattering over the whole world 

 the mineral products of our land. It is to their possession 

 that we attribute much of our wealth and power and 

 national prosperity, yet we are doing our best to deprive 

 future generations of any of the advantages we have 

 derived from them. 



It appears, then, to be clearly our duty to check the 

 further exhaustion of our coal supplies by at once putting 

 export duties on coal and iron in every form, very small 

 duties at first, so as not to produce too sudden a check 

 on the employment of labour, but gradually increasing 

 them till, by stimulating an increased production in other 

 countries, they may no longer be required. If other 

 nations should see the wisdom and justice of following our 

 example, each may in future develop and enjoy its own 

 mineral products, may help to supply what is necessary to 

 the welfare of those countries which do not possess these 

 natural gifts, and may still leave an ample supply to 

 their descendants. 



