160 
Agricultural  Competition, 
received  from  the  United  States  ; but  there  has  been  a great 
decrease — about  sixty-two  per  cent. — in  imports  from  that 
source  since  1904,  probably  because  British  manufacturers  have 
recently  made  implements  similar  in  type  to  those  which  we 
receive  from  the  United  States.  It  seems  strange  that  the 
Netherlands  should  stand  second  in  this  connection,  and 
probably  this  is  in  relation  to  tools  i-ather  than  implements, 
and  to  tools  not  nearly  all  agricultural.  France,  Germany, 
and  Canada  follow  in  the  order  given,  not  one  of  them, 
however,  having  sent  goods  of  the  value  of  20,000Z.  in  a year. 
Canada  has  made  some  advance  since  1904.  The  figures 
relating  to  agricultural  steam  engines  are  too  insignificant  to 
be  worth  notice,  the  total  weight  in  1908  being  only  twenty- 
six  tons.  Other  agricultural  machines  come  chiefly  from  the 
United  States,  Canada  being  the  only  other  important  con- 
tributor. The  total  value  in  1908  was  under  726,000Z. 
Future  Competition. 
There  are  many  reasons  for  believing  that  agricultural 
competition  in  the  future  will  never  again  be  quite  as  severe 
on  the  whole  as  it  has  been  in  the  somewhat  recent  past.  As 
the  land  suitable  for  cultivation  becomes  more  and  more 
occupied,  and  population  increases,  the  tendency,  it  seems, 
must  be  towards  an  enhancement  of  the  demand  for  agricul- 
tural commodities  relatively  to  the  demand.  It  is  true  that 
there  are  vast  tracts  of  land  in  Canada,  South  America, 
Australia,  South  Africa,  and  the  Russian  Empire  as  yet  un- 
cultivated ; but  nearly  all  of  it  is  distant  from  a port,  and  but 
little  of  it  comparatively  is  at  present  served  by  railways. 
The  cultivation  of  these  great  tracts  would  be  profitable  with 
a somewhat  high  level  of  prices,  but  not  otherwise.  The 
progress  of  settlement  upon  fresh  land,  except  in  the  United 
States,  has  been  very  slow,  because  prices  have  been  too  low  to 
encourage  it.  As  the  population  of  the  world  increases,  more 
and  more  land  will  be  needed  to  supply  it  with  food,  and 
consumers  will  be  constrained  to  pay  enough  to  render  the 
cultivation  of  this  additional  land  profitable. 
Possibly  some  great  discovery  may  add  greatly  to  the 
productiveness  of  the  soil  ; but  in  that  case  farmers  in  this 
country  would  share  in  its  advantages,  so  that  the  severity  of 
competition  with  them  would  not  become  more  acute  in 
consequence  of  the  discovery.  When  it  was  first  found  that 
nitrogenous  manure  could  be  derived  from  the  atmosphere, 
some  writers  indulged  in  sanguine  predictions  as  to  a vast 
increase  in  the  productiveness  of  the  land  from  this  tapping  of 
an  inexhaustible  supply  of  nitrogen.  Possibly  some  cheap 
method  of  obtaining  the  valuable  fertiliser  may  be  discovered 
