2O Inaugural Lecture 1889 



not at a constant or stationary level, until in the course of 

 years the countries, which we now look on as merely growing 

 grain and raising stock, shall have also raised a population 

 on the ground to eat the bread and meat and to wear the wool 

 and leather which it produces. In proportion, as this condition 

 approaches fulfilment, there will be less food to spare for old 

 countries whose populations have outrun their means of 

 subsistence, and the present abnormal and indeed monstrous 

 over population of countries like our own will be reduced 

 by natural causes. 



The same effects have been produced in other branches 

 of production. Thus in mining industries, the means which 

 have so largely increased the area of food production have 

 increased the area of metal production in perhaps even a 

 greater ratio. The consequence is that the prices of all metals 

 have fallen to a fraction of what they were a quarter of a century 

 ago. Here again what is wanted to raise the prices is popula- 

 tion to start industries to use the products of the mines. 



In whatever direction we look the introduction of steam 

 carriage on sea and especially on the land, along with the 

 spread of the electric telegraph for the instantaneous com- 

 munication of information, has produced a revolution in the 

 affairs of the world such as those who have not seen it could 

 not have conceived. The freedom and facility of communica- 

 tion over every part of the globe have afforded an opportunity 

 of expansion to the population which a hundred years ago 

 could not have been afforded even by the annexation of another 

 planet. 



SUPPLEMENT ADDED 1918. * 



Civilisation and Extermination. It will naturally occur to 

 the critical reader that only one side of the account between 

 civilisation and the world has been stated; and it is not quite 

 certain whether he will call it the credit or the debit side. In 

 the text attention is directed almost exclusively to the advantage 

 of improved methods of transportation in assisting and for- 

 1 See Contents, p. x. 



