¥.— ECONOMICS. 149 
earth which are fit for cultivation are not yet cultivated at all, and that 
of other areas only the surface has been seratched; but it is not 
certain how great the areas that could be cultivated are; how much 
of the land that is now unproductive of anything must for ever remain so. 
In most European countries from 70 to 95 per cent. or more of the 
total area is now classed as ‘ productive’; it is being turned to some 
use—as arable, pasture, forest, and the like. In nine provinces of 
Canada (excluding the desolate Yukon and North-West Territories) 
the percentage of all the land that now produces anything is 
8, in Siberia 18, in Australia 6, in South Africa 8. Even for the 
United States it is only 46, and for European Russia 96.* 
Part, no doubt, of the ‘ unproductive area’ in all those countries is 
beyond possibility of cultivation; it is impossible on the present infor- 
mation to say how large a part. But the figures as they stand are 
eloquent of how little the Huropean races have yet done to fill the 
lands that they hold; how ample the room for their expansion. Any 
suggestion that these races have reached or are within sight of territorial 
limits to their growth hardly deserves serious consideration. 
Material Progress in Britain. 
Ib is reasonable to suppose, however, that Mr. Keynes, though he 
speaks throughout of Europe, though he emphasises his European 
standpoint, was at heart concerned mainly for his own country, and 
may thus have generalised impressions derived from Britain. For us 
at least the position in these islands, rather than that in Europe or in 
the world as a whole is of prime importance If we look at Britain in 
the last years before the War and ask if all was then well and the 
prospect cheerful, we get no. clear answer to our question. The picture 
that our economic records paint is half in shadows; to many the shadows 
will seem ominous of ill. 
Unfortunately on this issue, so vital to our interests, the use of 
statistical tests is peculiarly difficult. The yield of our soil in agricul- 
ture is clearly irrelevant; only less so is the yield in such elementary 
industries as coal or iron mining or pig-iron production. Britain 1s 
essentially & manufacturing, commercial, and financial country; the 
return to its labour is measured by its output or gain from finished 
articles and services which themselves, by their infinite variety, escape 
all measurement. Current statistics both of production and of prices 
refer mainly to raw materials or food; they miss the main features of 
British economic life and service. 
With this warning I invite consideration of the accompanying table 
of ‘ Material Progress in the United Kingdom relative to Population.’ 
The table shows at six suecessive epochs, beginning with 1860 and 
ending with 1910, the course of some of the most important indices of 
economic conditions. The figure for each epoch is an average for ten 
years in which the epoch is ‘central ; thus for ‘1860’ the average of 
1855-64 is taken, for ‘1870’ the average of 1865-74, and so on; for 
the last epoch, ‘1910,’ the average is for the nine years 1905-13 
alone ; all War years are omitted. The various indices cover the activity 
; 4 International Yearbook of Agricultural Statistics, 1921, pp. 20-21. 
