102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BALTIMORE MEETING 



French oflBcial sources indicate that the post-war industry in tungsten, tin, 

 and phosphates will be chiefly in the hands of the Allies, and that efforts should 

 be made to prevent Germany from participation in control of these industries. 



These suggestions are interesting possibilities for post-war regulation of 

 mineral industries. Nevertheless, we should remember that healthy industry 

 will always be governed to a large extent by the laws of supply and demand. 

 We must prevent Germany from becoming the dominant industrial market of 

 the world, but the result should be attained not so much by choking German 

 industry at its source as by fostering and sustaining our own industries until 

 they can successfully compete with Germany in her own field. If each indi- 

 vidual nation shall come to realize that she owes it both to herself and to the 

 world to fully develop her resources and her efficiency, not selfishly, in order 

 that she may swell her own power to the extermination of industrial develop- 

 ment in other nations, but generously, so that each nation may fulfil the share 

 of human welfare imposed on her by nature, then and then only the great war 

 may bring forth lasting good to the human race. 



Eead in full from manuscript. 



Discussion 



Dr. E. S. Bastin : Miss Bliss has, I think, sounded a keynote for the future 

 in the appeal for an unselfish use of our natural resources. "Economic inde- 

 pendence" has acquired the force of a slogan during the war, and now at the 

 close of the war is already being used as an argument for protective tariff 

 legislation. In formulating our attitude toward these questions let us remem- 

 ber that our great part in the war has been conditioned not so much on the 

 fact that our resources were adequate for our own needs as on the fact that 

 they were more than adequate, so that we were able to contribute largely to 

 the needs of our Allies. Further, our voluntary restriction of imports during 

 the war, with its attendant efforts to further develop home resources, was 

 designed to free ships for the transport of troops and supplies; it was not 

 inaugurated for the purpose of developing home industries and will not be 

 continued for such purposes alone. Great natural resources, like large personal 

 inheritances, have no virtue except as they strengthen and ennoble the national 

 character; unless they are properly used they build "fat," not "brawn." The 

 great events of the past two years show nothing more clearly than the oppor- 

 tunities and duties of enlarged intercourse with the rest of the world, and 

 trade is the material basis of such intercourse. The resources we cast on the 

 waters in foreign trade may prove fully as important to our national welfare, 

 and vastly more important to the world's welfare than those we consume at 

 home. 



Miss Eleanora F. Bliss : It should be borne in mind that France, in order 

 to develop her recently acquired mineral resources, must have coal. The neces- 

 sary coal can be drawn only from Germany. If Germany furnishes to France 

 sufficient coal for complete development of French industry, she will be defi- 

 cient in coal for her own needs. On the other hand, if France should export 

 her iron and steel to Germany for treatment, the French iron and steel would 

 suffer in the German market by competition with the product of the Luxem- 

 burg furnaces which is admitted to Germany duty free. The problem is essen- 



