PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 545 
and the two problems might in such cases be dealt with together. Much may be 
learned about the relation of water supply to distribution of population from a 
study of history, and a more active prosecution of combined historical and 
geographical research would, I believe, furnish useful material in this con- 
nection, besides throwing interesting light on many historical questions. 
Continued exchange of the ‘ north-and-south’ type and at least a part of 
that described as ‘east-and-west’ gives permanence to a certain number of 
points where, so far as can be seen, there must always be a change in the mode 
of transport. It is not likely that we shall have heavy freight-carrying monsters 
in the air for a long time to come, and until we have the aerial ‘tramp’ 
transport must be effected on the surfaces of land and sea. However 
much we may improve and cheapen land transport it cannot in the nature of 
things become as cheap as transport by sea. For on land the essential idea is 
always that of a prepared road of some kind, and, as Chisholm has pointed out, 
no road can carry more than a certain amount; traffic beyond a certain quantity 
constantly requires the construction of new roads. It follows, then, that no 
device is likely to provide transport indifferently over land and sea, and the sea- 
port has in consequence inherent elements of permanence. Improved and 
cheapened land transport increases the economy arising from the employment of 
large ships rather than small ones, for not only does transport inland become 
relatively more important, but distribution along a coast from one large seaport 
becomes as easy as from a number of small coastal towns. Hence the conditions 
are in favour of the growth of a comparatively small number of immense seaport 
cities like London and New York, in which there must be great concentration 
not merely of work directly connected with shipping, but of commercial and 
financial interests of all sorts. The seaport is, in fact, the type of great city 
which seems likely to increase continually in size, and provision for its needs 
cannot in general be made from the region immediately surrounding it, as in the 
case of towns of other kinds. In special cases there is also, no doubt, per- 
manent need of large inland centres of the type of the ‘railway creation,’ but 
under severe geographic control these must depend very much on the nature and 
efficiency of the systems of land transport. It is not too much to say (for we 
possess some evidence of it already) that the number of distinct geographical 
causes which give rise to the establishment and maintenance of individual great 
cities is steadily diminishing, but that the large seaport is a permanent and 
increasing necessity. It follows that aggregations of the type of London and 
Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast will always be amongst the chief things to be 
reckoned with in these islands, irrespective of local coal supply or accessory 
manufacturing industries, which may decay through exhaustion. 
I have attempted in what precedes to draw attention once more to certain 
matters for which it seems strangely difficult to get a hearing. What it amounts 
to is this, that as far as our information goes the development of the steamship 
and the railway, and the universal introduction of machinery which has arisen 
from it, have so increased the demand made by man upon the earth’s resources 
that in less than a century they will have become fully taxed. When colonisa- 
tion and settlement in a new country proceeded slowly and laboriously, extending 
centrifugally from one or two favourable spots on the coast, it took a matter of 
four centuries to open up a region the size of England. Now we do as much for 
a continent like North America in about as many decades. In the first case it 
was not worth troubling about the exhaustion of resources, for they were scarcely 
more than touched, and even if they were exhausted there were other whole 
continents to conquer. But now, so far as our information goes, we are already 
making serious inroads upon the resources of the whole earth. One has no 
desire to sound an unduly alarmist note, or to suggest that we are in imminent 
danger of starvation, but surely it would be well, even on the suspicion, to see if 
our information is adequate and reliable and if our conclusions are correct; and 
not merely to drift in ‘a manner which was justifiable enough in Saxon times, but 
which, at the rate things are going now, may land us unexpectedly in difficulties 
of appalling magnitude. 
What is wanted is that we should seriously address ourselves to a stock- 
taking of our resources. A beginning has been made with a great map on the 
scale of one to a million, but that is not sufficient; we should vigorously pro- 
ceed with the collection and discussion of geographical data of all kinds, so that 
1913. NN 
