MINERALS 253 



within the British Isles themselves which started Great Britain 

 on its career of industrial supremacy. 



A nation without these advantages can either fight to take 

 them from someone else, as Italy did in Ethiopia, or it can 

 develop activities best suited to the abilities of their people and 

 their natural resources. Sweden and Norway do this and ex" 

 change their normal products for the resources they lack. 



From the point of view of international relations there are 

 two types of essential minerals. The first is the minerals which 

 are needed for peacetime industries. Such industries need coal, 

 iron, proper dyes for cloth, silver for photograph film, and so 

 on. War industries, on the other hand, depend on two basic 

 minerals, coal and iron. In addition to these, as weapons have 

 been developed and as war has become a matter of destroying 

 civilisations by starvation and bombs, practically every other 

 mineral has become in some way essential in wartime. As a 

 result there has been an increasing attempt on the part of gov 

 ernments to assure an adequate supply of practically all min' 

 erals. The excuse is that they are necessary in case of war. 

 As the nations of the world scramble for these minerals, to be 

 used in case of war, they create those very wars against which 

 they are trying to build up their defenses. 



One of the first things any nation does is to develop its 

 mineral resources so that they will be available in time of war. 

 Thus tariff policies in the United States protecting certain 

 mineral developments are excused on the basis that even though 

 such mines are inefficient and the products cost more than 

 they should, such mines would be very valuable in time of 

 war. The tariff and defense policy acts as a stimulus to min' 

 eral production, usually with minerals which it would be un' 

 economic to produce otherwise. Fortunately for the United 

 States, there are few essential minerals which she does not 

 possess in abundance, so that the uneconomic development 

 of minerals for defense has not become much of a problem. 



