648 TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION E. 



undertake. It would add relatively little to the cost of the census and it would 

 infinitely increase its value. 



The Need of Recognising the Geographical Factor in Imperial Problems. 



With such quantitative information geographically treated, and with a fuller 

 analysis of the major natural regions, it ought to be possible to go a step further 

 and to attempt to map the economic value of different regions at the present day. 

 Such maps would necessarily be only approximations at first. Out of them might 

 grow other maps prophetic of economic possibilities. Prophecy in the scientific 

 sense is an important outcome of geographical as well as of other scientific research. 

 The test of geographical laws as of others is the pragmatic one. Prophecy is 

 commonly but unduly derided. Mendelyeff's period law involved prophecies 

 which have been splendidly verified. We no longer sneer at the weather prophet. 

 Efficient action is based on knowledge of cause and consequence, and proves that 

 a true forecast of the various factors has been made. Is it too much to look for- 

 ward to the time when the geographical prospector, the geographer who can 

 estimate potential geographical values, will be as common as and more reliable than 

 the mining prospector '! 



The day will undoubtedly come when every Government will have its 

 Geographical- Statistical Department dealing with its own and other countries — 

 an Information Bureau for the administration corresponding to the Department 

 of Special Inquiries at the Board of Education. At present there is no geo- 

 graphical staff to deal geographically with economic matters or with administra- 

 tive matters. Yet the recognition of and proper estimation of the geographical 

 factor is going to be more and more important as the uttermost ends of the 

 Earth are bound together by visible steel lines and steel vessels or invisible 

 impulses which require no artificial path or vessel as their vehicle. 



The development of geographical research along these lines in our own country 

 could give us an Intelligence Department of the kind, which is much needed. 

 If this were also done by other States within the Empire, an Imperial Intelligence 

 Department would gradually develop. Thinking in continents, to borrow an apt 

 phrase of Mr. Mackinder's, might then become part of the necessary equipment 

 of a statesman instead of merely an after-dinner aspiration. The country which 

 first gives this training to its statesmen will have an immeasurable advantage 

 in the struggle for existence. 



The Need for the Adequate Endowment of Geography at the Universities. 



Our universities will naturally be the places where the men fit to eoastitute 

 such an Intelligence Department will be trained. It is encouraging, therefore, to 

 see that they are taking up a new attitude towards geography, and that the Civil 

 Service Commissioners, by making it a subject for the highest Civil Service 

 examinations, are doing much to strengthen the hands of the universities. When 

 the British Association last met in Sheffield geography was the most despised of 

 school subjects, and it was quite unknown in the universities. It owed its first 

 recognition as a subject of university status to the stimulus and generous finan- 

 cial support of the Royal Geographical Society and the brilliant teaching of 

 Mr. Mackinder at Oxford. Ten years ago Schools of Geography were struggling 

 into existence at Oxford and Cambridge, under the auspices of the Royal 

 Geographical Society. A single decade has seen the example of Oxford and 

 Cambridge followed by nearly every university in Great Britain, the University 

 of Sheffield among them. In Dr. Rudmose Brown it has secured a scientifically 

 trained traveller and explorer of exceptionally wide experience, who will 

 doubtless build up a Department of Geography worthy of this great industrial 

 capital. The difficulty, however, in all universities is to find the funds necessary 

 for the endowment, equipment, and working expenses of a Geographical De- 

 partment of the first rank. Such a department requires expensive instruments 

 and apparatus, and, since the geographer has to take the whole World as his 

 subject, it must spend largely on collecting, storing, and utilising raw material 

 of the kind I have spoken of. Moreover, a professor of geography should have 

 seen much of the World before he is appointed, and it ought to be an important 

 part of his professional duties to travel frequently and far. I have never been 

 able to settle to my own satisfaction the maximum income which a department 



