THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 211 



The foreigner who would see a sample of the source of 

 British prosperity must not seek for it in a geological mu- 

 seum or among our subterranean rocks; let him rather stand 

 on the Surrey side of London Bridge from 8 to 10 A.M. 

 and contemplate the march of one of the battalions of our 

 metropolitan industrial army, as it pours forth in an un- 

 ceasing stream from the railway stations towards the City. 

 An analysis of the moral forces which produce the earnest 

 faces and rapid steps of these rank and file and officers of 

 commerce will reveal the true elements of British great- 

 ness, rather than any laboratory dissection of our coal or 

 ironstone. 



Fuel and steam-power have been urgently required by all 

 mankind. Englishmen supplied these wants. Their ur- 

 gency was primary and they were first supplied, even though 

 the bowels of the earth had to be penetrated in order to 

 obtain them. In the present exceptional and precocious 

 degree of exhaustion of our coal treasures, we have the 

 effect not the cause of British industrial success. 



If in a ruder age our greater industrial energy enabled 

 us to take the lead in supplying the ruder demands of our 

 fellow- creatures, why should not a higher culture of those 

 same abundant energies qualify us to maintain our position 

 and enable us to minister to the more refined and elaborate 

 wants of a higher civilization? There are other necessary 

 occupations quite as desirable as coal-digging, furnace- 

 feeding, and cotton- spinning. 



The approaching exhaustion of our coal supplies should 

 therefore serve us as a warning for preparation. Britain 

 will be forced to retire from the coal trade, and should ac- 

 cordingly prepare her sons for higher branches of business, 

 for those in which scientific knowledge and artistic train- 

 ing will replace mere muscular strength and mechanical 

 skill. "We have attained our present material prosperity 

 mainly by our excellence in the use of steam-power; let us 

 now struggle for supremacy in the practical application of 

 brain-power. 



We have time and opportunity for this. The exhaustion 

 of our coal supplies will go on at a continually retarding 

 pace we shall always be approaching the end", but shall 



