THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 31 



gradual elimination of manual labour by mecbanisation is obviously the 

 most profitable line of research. 



But mechanisation carries with it in general a tendency to limit opera- 

 tions to the larger deposits, with the concurrent neglect of those 

 propositions which are widely scattered over the earth, and, though 

 individually small, represent in the aggregate a serious section of our 

 limited resources. And so our operations in mining, with the family of 

 industries dependent on minerals, tend more and more to be restricted to 

 a few special regions, where work can be done on a large scale. 



So now, with this thumb-nail sketch of the way in which the new 

 mineral era is developing, we are free to examine more closely the influence 

 which this change in the configuration of the industrial world is likely 

 to have on international relationships. 



In the first place, it becomes obvious that no single country, not even 

 the United States, is self-contained, whether for the requirements of peace 

 or for the necessities of war. Not even the more scattered sections of the 

 Earth that are politically united to form the British Empire contain the 

 full variety of those minerals that are the essential raw materials of our 

 established activities.* Between them these two — the British Empire 

 and the United States — produce over two-thirds of the 2,000 million tons 

 of mineral that the world now consumes annually. Each of them has 

 more than it wants of some minerals ; but, in order to obtain its own 

 requirements at economic rates, each finds it necessary to sell its surplus 

 output to other nations. Each produces less than it wants of some minerals, 

 and so must obtain supplies from other nations to keep its industries alive. 

 Each of them is practically devoid of a few but not always the same 



^ For purposes of reference I give a list of minerals, showing how the resources of 

 the British Empire, so far as our present information goes, can be relied on. This 

 list has been kindly revised by Mr. T. Crook of the Imperial Institute. 



1. Those for which the World now depends mainly on the Empire : — Asbestos, china 

 clay, chromite, diamonds, gold, mica, monazite, nickel and strontium. 



2. Those of which we have enough and to spare : — Arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, coal 

 fluorspar, fuller's earth, graphite, gypsum, lead, manganese, salt, silver, tin and zinc. 



3. Those in which we could be self-contained if necessary : — Bauxite, barium 

 minerals, felspar, iron ore, magnesite, molybdenum, platinum, talc, tungsten and 

 vanadium. 



4. Those for which we are now dependent on outside sources : — Antimony, bismuth, 

 borates, copper, petroleum, phosphates, potash, pyrites, quicksilver, siilphur and 

 radium. 



A corresponding list for the United States was prepared in 1925 by a Committee 

 under the chairmanship of Prof. C. K. Leith, and pubhshed under the joint authority 

 of the two Mining and Metallurgical Institutions in New York. 



