28 BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



Norwegian molybdenum for a substitute, until tbis move again was partly 

 countered by our purchase of the Norwegian output. Germany then found 

 that she wanted ten times more nickel than Central Europe could produce ; 

 so she imported her supplies from the Scandinavian countries, and they 

 being neutral, obtained nickel from another neutral country, where the 

 Canadian ores — the World's main source— had hitherto chiefly been 

 smelted and refined. We thus realised, not only our dependence on other 

 lands for the essential raw minerals, but we had the mortification of finding 

 that, through our own previous shortcomings in the metallurgical industries, 

 we were compelled to face lethal munitions made of metal obtained from 

 our own ores. 



The political boundaries of the nations, originally delimitated on con- 

 siderations dominantly agricultural in origin, have now no natural relation 

 to the distribution of their minerals, which are nevertheless essential for 

 the maintenance of industries in peace time as well as for the requirements 

 of defence. This circumstance, as I hope to show in the sequel, gives a 

 special meaning to measures recently designed on supplementary lines in 

 Europe and America for the maintenance of international peace, measures 

 which, as I also hope to show, can succeed only if the facts of mineral 

 distribution become recognised as a controlling feature in future inter- 

 national dealings. 



If minerals are essential for the maintenance of our new civilisation, 

 they are, according to the testimony of archaeology and history, worth fight- 

 ing for ; and if, according to the bad habits which we have inherited from 

 our Tertiary ancestors, they are worth fighting for, their effective control 

 under our reformed ideas of civilisation should be made an insurance for 

 peace. In so attempting to correlate the facts of mineral distribution with 

 questions of public policy, there is no danger of introducing matters 

 controversial ; everyone here must agree on two things, namely, our 

 desire and even hope for international peace, and consequently the 

 necessity of surveying the mineral situation as developments in techno- 

 logical science change the configuration of the economic world. 



Since the industrial revolution in Great Britain, the increase of 

 mechanisation and consequent consumption of metals has been accelerated 

 with each decade. It is not necessary to quote the statistical returns 

 available for estimating the tp'^~ of this acceleration, for it can be expressed 

 in a single sentence which ]ustifies the serious consideration of every 

 political economist : during the first quarter of this present century alone, 

 the world has exploited and consumed more of its mineral resources than 



