in the Maritime Provinces cheaper than anywhere else in the world. The country possesses the same concentration of resources as found in Great Britain itself, and there can be but one result. The Maritime Provinces will again become a great shipbuilding country, perhaps the greatest of all shipbuilding countries, only the ships will not be of wood but of steel. Already preparations are being made, and it seems as if very soon indeed Sydney, Halifax, and St. John must ring with the sound of the riveting hammer.

One thought in closing. The Maritime Provinces are nearer Great Britain than any other important section in the colonies. If England wishes easily to retain her supremacy in iron and steel and coal, why not devote some attention to the Maritime Provinces of Canada?

"COAL CIVILIZATIONS"

BY S. J. MACKNIGHT

OHN M. ROBERTSON is a contemporary English historian of immense learning, though characterized by a somewhat harsh and eccentric mode of utterance. His recently published work "An Introduction to English Politics" is misnamed. It is really a collection of historical essays on subjects both British and foreign, and contains the following very curious and remarkable comments on the historical development of Brazil. Mr. Robertson says:

"The rapid commercial development of the United States [of North America] is excessively capitalistic, in virtue largely of the factor of coal, and the consequent disproportionate stress of manufactures. The outstanding result is, as in England, a feverish and hard-driven competitive life for the great mass of the population, with the prospect ahead of industrial convulsions, in addition to the nightmare of the race hatred between black and white; a desperate problem from which Brazil seems to have been saved. . . . The revolutions of South America, all told, represent less evil than did the North American civil war, and they are hardly greater moral evils than the peaceful growth of financial corruption in the North. . . . In fine, Brazil-in common with other parts of South America-has a fair chance of being the scene of a future civilization, morally and socially greater and higher than that now evolving in North America. What may be termed coal civilizations, with their factitious and joyless rapidity of exploitation, are in the nature of the case at once ugly and impermanent. That cannot well be the highest civilization which

multiplies by the myriad its serfs of the mine, and by the million its slaves of the machine. In South America the lack of coal promises escape from the worst developments of capitalism, in as much as labor must therefore be mainly spent on and served by the living processes and forces of nature, these so unmeasurable and so inexhaustible of beauty. Fuel enough for sane industry is supplied by the richest woods on the planet."

Again, when speaking of the enormous national debt of Portugal, Mr. Robertson thus attacks the coal problem: “A similar evolution [increase of national debt] will probably take place within the next century or two in England. When the English coal supply is exhausted, a vast debt, it seems probable, will be left to a population ill-capable of sustaining it; and the apparently inevitable result will be such a drift of population from Britain to the United States as now goes from Portugal to Brazil, leaving the home population all the less able to bear its financial burden. It is difficult to see how any arrangement, save a composition with creditors, can meet the case."

Again, when speaking of the progressive ruin of Italian agriculture under the Roman Empire, he says, "Modern England, which has grown rich by burning up its coal in manufacture and selling it outright, but in the process has acquired a share in the national debts of all other countriesEngland is almost stable in comparison. While it lasts, the 'coal at least educes manufactures, which in turn support a good deal of agriculture even against the competition of better soils."

These views are certainly novel and erratic, but I suspect that there is in them a certain substratum of truth. They may constitute a text for a sermon which needs to be preached, and is being preached more and more. The alarm at the impending exhaustion of the coal fields and iron mines of Britain now resounds on every side and is becoming commonplace. The history of the coal era in

Britain, when it comes to be written, will be essentially a history of criminally misused opportunities. The coal deposits have been worked altogether for the aggrandizement of individuals, without the faintest thought of national benefit. When the outburst of machine production began, women and children were used as slaves in both mines and factories. The cotton products which came from the toil of these white slaves were forced by cheapness on the natives of India, who had before not only used but exported their own fabrics, and many of them had to die like dogs of starvation in consequence. This phase of Anglo-Indian history has been very vividly sketched by Horace Greeley in his work on political economy. After a time the factory acts and the introduction of free trade put matters on a somewhat better footing. But the capitalistic system has made England a country of foreign investments, has ruined English home agriculture, and has altogether disturbed the natural and healthy equipoise between manufactures and agriculture.

There is something altogether unhealthy and abnormal in foreign investment when carried beyond certain limits. The interest on such investment partakes of the character of tribute, and paralyzes home industry, sows thistles over the fields, drives men from the country into the towns. It also leaves the nation in a certain peril should war break out and should there be a shortage of grain. The British climate is not suitable even for the storage of grain. What will England be with nothing but big holes where the mines were, and weeds growing in the fields? But a check to manufacture would at once revive agriculture to some extent, so that the two evils would not be exactly parallel. American coal is now finding its way to England, the opening of a new page, and the beginning of a new song.

The recent scarcity of English coal is, I presume, rather the result of labor conditions than of exhaustion of the mines. Yet the time may soon come when the difficulty of working deep mines will become a factor in international

competition. Will England be able to continue her present manufacturing industries when she is obliged to import coal? If so, it will only be as the result of the great capacity and effectiveness of English labor. A failure of manufacture might lead to a revival of agriculture, and from that point of view might be a benefit in disguise, for a healthy and well-balanced industrial life requires a larger development of the agricultural factor than exists in the England of to-day.

Mr. Robertson's main contention, in the passages which I have quoted, is that coal civilizations are essentially impermanent and wasteful. He does not shrink from applying this doctrine even to the United States, whose coal resources are so enormous, and as yet so slightly used. His pessimism brings us right down to the root question, What does our Anglo-Saxon civilization aim at? Are its aims sane aims? These aims undoubtedly are, a desire for increased population, increased wealth, increased exports, and we may perhaps add, increased intelligence and mental progress, though not necessarily intelligence of the highest kind. Now, what we call wealth is in its nature, for the most part, an annual and perishable product. It is as evanescent as the soapbubble. Mere population also is no advantage in itself, unless the social and economic conditions are satisfactory. The mere pride of achievement, the mere ostentation of a small wealthy class, does not count for much. A country to be really great, ought assuredly to have the prospect of handing down its greatness to posterity. Otherwise its character, to use the phrase of Burke, is merely like that of flies in a summer. The real wealth of a country is to be found not so much in its mere annual product as in its permanent resources. Of course, the sleeping resources of a country may be nullified by bad government and lack of intelligence. But we can hardly hope that any possible intelligence can altogether take the place of depleted re

sources.