POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES 215 



For a given country the problem is complicated by exchange. The 

 exchange values, however, must be won on the home ground. England 

 has, for example, a far greater population than she can feed, but her coal 

 and iron have enabled her to manufacture and to carry for other nations. 

 But England is now to a considerable extent using foreign supplies of 

 the ores of iron. For a period she may do this and maintain her in- 

 dustry, through inertia, but imported raw materials and fuel could not 

 permanently afford a basis for British industry, and for the present 

 population of the United Kingdom. In that future, whenever it may 

 come, the islands will contain the people whom they can feed, clothe and 

 shelter, and no more. 



Total resources, therefore, rather than total food production, de- 

 termine how many people a given country can support, but in the world 

 aspect total food marks an absolute limit, since we can not bring in food 

 from Mars, even if Mr. Percival Lowell should convince us that she had 

 a surplus. 



It would be interesting to consider the United States in the light 

 of the principles that have been suggested, but the story would be too 

 long. We might simplify it by adopting the interesting and pleasant 

 belief that our extraordinary range of resources would enable us to get 

 on with little exchange, but this, as we have seen, would hardly change 

 the result as to population. Mr. 0. P. Austin supports our hopes of 

 three hundred million people by the comfortable assurance that we can 

 grow all our sugar, all our rice, wine, tea, silk fibers, tobacco and most 

 tropical fruits. Probably we could get on without diamonds and there 

 are those who think our civilization might survive without coffee. But 

 it would really make little difference whether we raised coffee or bought 

 it with the proceeds of wheat. Or we might, indifferently, raise our 

 silk, or sell farm machinery and buy silk, since either sort of production 

 at present requires trees, and trees require land. 



We have ventured the belief that we are sure of power. We may 

 further include hopefully the resources of the underworld of the rocks, 

 considering new reductions and uses of metals and many mineral sub- 

 stances. When the use of wood has come down to the minimum, the 

 chief remaining demands on the soil, may, after all, be for food and 

 clothing. 



If we further suppose war and heavy armaments eliminated and all 

 government honestly and economically administered, we shall cover a 

 vast present waste. Thus to arrive at maximum population we must 

 somewhat approach millennial conditions. Then, in high degree a self- 

 sufficient nation, we could keep as many people as our own soil could 

 feed and clothe. With wise timidity we have been deferring those large 

 transactions in figures which the reader has been expecting, and we 

 might with good show of reason, confess that inquiry for precise results 

 is absurd and drop the attempt to forecast. Nevertheless, the next 

 patriotic speech will marshal before us our future hundreds of millions, 



