68 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



Australia similarly has twenty-four million pounds' 

 worth of exports which we could not take, consisting, 

 as to fifteen million pounds, of wool beyond our 

 requirements, and, as to the balance of nine millions, 

 of a trade with South Africa, New Zealand and countries 

 of the East which it is necessary and desirable to 

 maintain. 



Again, of the New Zealand exports to foreign 

 countries valued at four million pounds, a million pounds' 

 worth is wool over our requirements, another million 

 pounds is represented by gold, half a million by coal, 

 and half a million by miscellaneous commodities none of 

 which we require, leaving only a million pounds' worth 

 of the foreign trade of New Zealand which could be 

 diverted to the United Kingdom. 



Of the seventy-four million pounds' worth of exports 

 which the three Dominions now send to foreign countries, 

 therefore, only thirty-six million pounds consists of 

 agricultural, animal, forest and mineral products which 

 this country requires and are divertible to the United 

 Kingdom. 



The transfer of this amount of trade, however, would 

 swell quite inconsiderably the amount of exports which 

 the three Dominions must send to the United Kingdom 

 if they are to supply all her needs. It would increase 

 their exports to her from eighty-two million pounds to 

 Ii8 million pounds, while her necessary imports amount 

 to 450 million pounds. It is therefore hardly to a 

 divergence of the present foreign trade of the three 

 Dominions that the United Kingdom must look for the 

 satisfaction of her needs, but rather to the creation of a 

 vast new production on their part. 



A prerequisite to production on such a scale is the 

 possession of sufficient cultivable land, and therefore we 

 must turn our investigation in the first place to inquiring 

 into the extent of the Dominions' land resources. This 



