282 CONCLUSION 



Canada is at present the chief cheese-exporting country in 

 the empire, but the production of New Zealand is very consider- 

 able and is increasing, while in all probability South Africa will 

 in a few years time be in a position to export supplies and thus 

 render the empire more than self-supporting in this respect. 



The case of wheat is more complicated. The United 

 Kingdom does not at present produce more than one-fifth of 

 the wheat she consumes ; the empire, however, as a whole 

 produces 95 per cent, of the amount required by the empire, 

 but much of this is sold to other countries. 



We come next to fibres, and we find that in the case of 

 wool the empire produces more than 40 per cent, of the whole 

 world's consumption, while of jute and phormium tenax she 

 possesses a monopoly. 



With regard to rubber, although we still import a certain 

 amount of wild rubber from Brazil, what is called plantation 

 rubber is practically an empire monopoly, Malaya and Ceylon 

 supplying the bulk of the world's needs, though these are 

 ' merely the big brothers of the tropical family under the 

 British flag which has gone in for rubber. From Papua and 

 North Queensland to British Guiana and Tobago, the world 

 is encircled by a rubber band of British make.' 



Two other virtual monopolies of the empire are diamonds 

 and ostrich feathers, both products of South Africa. 



In the second class, that is, those commodities in which 

 at present we are not self-supporting, we must place, among 

 minerals, aluminium, antimony, copper, iron, and lead. With 

 regard to antimony it appears that it might be possible to 

 make the empire self-supporting, and with regard to iron, 

 although at present the amount of pig-iron produced in. the 

 empire is only sufficient to satisfy her requirements to the 

 extent of 58 per cent., yet the amount of iron ore known to 

 exist in empire countries is enormous, and ' more than enough 

 to satisfy the demand for many years to come ' ; while with 

 regard to lead, the mines of Burma are expected to make up 

 our deficiencies. 



