64 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



Although we say that Austraha. Canada and New 

 Zealand could serve as extensions of the land of the 

 United Kingdom, the capacity of new territories to 

 support much population is always doubted ; and there- 

 fore, although Canada and Australia are each about the 

 size of Europe and New Zealand as large as the United 

 Kingdom, we must inquire if their power to support 

 human life is equally great. It has been said that 

 Australia is arid and Canada frost-bound. Superficial 

 area alone is not conclusive evidence of a country's 

 ability to support population, and it must always be 

 ascertained as a fact how much of a country is available 

 for the manufacture of food. Norway, for instance, with 

 an area equalling that of Great Britain and Ireland, is 

 incapable owing to its rocky surface and cold climate 

 of maintaining as many people as are contained in 

 London. Moreover, seeing that of the people of the 

 United Kingdom a half are supported from without 

 in food, and all are supplied thence with most of the 

 raw commodities for manufacture — cotton, wool, timber, 

 leather, and the like — we must ascertain whether these 

 three Dominions, in addition to maintaining their own 

 populations, would be capable of providing these things 

 for such a large number of people. 



The amount of commodities which the three 

 Dominions would be required to supply to the United 

 Kingdom if they are to form with her a self-satisfying 

 entity can be expressed in money terms. Until the 

 war the United Kingdom imported for her own use 

 annually 500 miUion pounds' worth of commodities, of 

 which Canada, Australia and New Zealand contributed 

 only eighty-two million pounds' worth. Could these 

 Dominions multiply their exports to us six or seven 

 times ? This was formerly doubted, and with the in- 

 formation then available it was impossible to say what 

 the capacity of those Dominions was. Accordingly the 



