THER

HE Canadian regulations may be regarded both as measures to regulate commerce, and as measures of conservation.

The measures in force do not prevent the exportation of very considerable amounts of pulp wood; in fact about one third of the whole product is exported in this form. In 1919 the export of pulp wood from Canada was 1,070,000 cords valued at $10,600,000 and in 1920 1,247,000 cords valued at $15,800,000.1 Ninety-nine and threequarters per cent of the total export went to the United States.

1 The figures in this paper are taken from the Census of Industry, 1920, published by the Canadian Bureau of Statistics in 1922. Dr. Shortt believes these figures to be more accurate than those of the Canadian Trade Reports. The figures have been quoted only to the nearest hundred thousand.

Of the values exported in 1919 and 1920, $6,600,000 and $10,200,000, respectively, were from the province of Quebec. Quebec is, therefore, the province which is chiefly affected, as it contributes nearly two thirds of the total export. And it is in Quebec that the aspect of conservation comes in most clearly. The small farmers apply for farms in the districts where there are ungranted crown lands, ostensibly for the purpose of settling upon them and operating them as farms, but really in order to cut the wood. When the wood is cut they abandon the farm and apply for another-picking out one that is most difficult to clear, i.e., one which has the greatest quantity of wood. The province of Quebec has not been successful in stopping this practice, and the empowering act

passed by the Dominion Government in the present year is the result of an effort to obtain the aid of that Government in solving this problem. A special commission has been appointed by the Dominion Government to investigate the whole subject.

The prohibition of the export of pulp wood can solve the problem by compelling the erection of paper mills in Canada. It may be said incidentally that most of the big mills make both pulp and paper, and that a great part of the capital is American capital. The machinery used in these mills is very large, and a mill requires an enormous quantity of wood to maintain its operations. The company, therefore, requires a large grant of land and it cannot afford to jeopardize its capital investment by skinning the neighborhood, thus depriving itself of raw material. So the large companies cut the wood carefully and dispose of the waste in such a manner that disastrous fires will not result, and new growth is encouraged. The terms, upon which the large companies obtain leases of extensive pulp wood areas from the provincial governments involve a prohibition of the export of pulp wood which works both for the conservation of timber resources and for the selfinterest of each province.

The United States wasted its re

MR

sources and therefore is dependent upon the preservation-accidental preservation of the resources of Canada. The permanent interests of the United States require that the Canadian resources be conserved.

The industry in Canada is capitalized at $347,500,000. The export in 1920 was $15,800,000 in the form of pulp wood, $76,400,000 in the form of pulp, and $86,700,000 in the form of paper. Practically all of the wood went to the United States, four fifths of the pulp, and three quarters of the paper. Australia and New Zealand purchased paper in 1920 to the value of $5,200,000, and the remainder was distributed in smaller amounts to other countries.

The restrictions upon the export of wood are essentially a matter of provincial policy. The restrictions take the form of a contract that the wood shall not be exported as wood. This contractual restriction applies quite as much against any other Canadian province as against foreign states.

The export of pulp wood under existing circumstances is destructive of Canadian resources, whereas capital invested upon the spot and having an immense stake in the country operated to conserve the resources of pulp wood and to make the business a permanent

one.

R. CULBERTSON remarked that the British Dominions were continually escaping from difficulties by the double life which they led. If one suggested that, from an international point of view, it was desirable

1 Synopsis prepared by the Secretary of the Conference and corrected by Mr. Kerr.

to maintain the open door in dependencies and to have no differential duties, the Canadians would reply that Canada was not a dependency, but an independent nation; and if one then called their attention to the undesirability of a policy by which one nation makes invidious discrimina

tions between other friendly powers, the Canadians would reply that Canada was not an independent nation but a British colony. Mr. Culbertson, therefore, in calling upon Mr. Philip Kerr, asked, "What are the Dominions, anyway?"

Mr. Kerr gave no answer to the question. As a resident of the United Kingdom he could not venture to speak for the Dominions in any way. It would be as dangerous as for one member of a family connection to talk about other members thereof. The Dominions and Great Britain undoubtedly belong to the same family; they get together on the occasion of a birth, death or marriage; but it would not do for a resident of the British Isles to dogmatize about the status of the Dominions upon which the inhabitants of the Dominions could so well speak for themselves.

He had been thinking of the expression: "Mesopotamia-that blessed word." He thought there were many other devastating words. Self-determination was one of these. It had had a great influence on recent history since President Wilson first projected it into European politics. But if it were allowed to dominate other words and ideas it was capable of causing much trouble. Imperialism was another such word. It seemed to connote in this country everything that is evil and malignant. He did not deny that there were evil characteristics connected with it; but the use of it affected him as it did when he heard members of the labor party speaking about capitalism. Capitalism had admitted evils. But capitalism was a sound and valuable system of production when properly carried on. Similarly, great as the evils connected with imperialism were, it was a great world force. It represented the attempt to bring order and government in back

ward areas where chaos or the disorders created by modern civilization reigned. The United States was one of the great imperial powers; the whole history of the United States was one of imperial expansion. But he could not admit that imperialism was a collective name for the seven deadly sins.

The open door was another "blessed word." He believed that it contained a progressive idea of great importance, and should be widely applied. He did not believe, however, that it was applicable to voluntary preferences which were in no sense imposed as part of an imperialistic exploitation of dependencies. It was necessary to see what lay at the bottom of these preferences. The preferential tariffs of the British Dominions were in no sense an emanation of Britain's imperial impulse. The movement began in Canada and both there and elsewhere the preferential tariff was of local origin, enacted by the local legislators, and without bargain or contract of any sort by the mother country. In all of the Dominions, the present preferential systems antedated by many years Great Britain's grant of a preference to the other parts of the Empire, which did not take place until 1919. The Dominions could at any time withdraw the preference without fear that anyone in the mother country would challenge their right to do so.

Mr. Kerr minimized the practical importance of the British preference, saying that it affected-outside of certain "colonial products" mentioned by Mr. Culbertson-almost nothing aside from Canadian-built automobiles. But these automobiles were really made by American branch factories situated in Canada. The United Kingdom was full of automobiles with American names, but under the name there was a small plate bearing the words "Made in Canada."

The British Empire in Mr. Kerr's opinion has kept its record fairly clear in the matter of the open door in the non-self-governing dependencies which it controlled, except for a temporary aberration during the war.

The danger from an international point of view lies rather in the countries which are at least nominally independent, but which are weak. One or another nation may seek to obtain exclusive control over such regions. In these regions the open door should

be enforced by the common action. The problem was complicated by the world wide monopolies affecting different commodities. Because of these monopolies and other differences between the situations in different countries, it would be necessary in enforcing the open door to study each case as a separate problem and to modify in a hundred different ways the regulations and machinery to be provided in order to make the plan a practical

one.

I'more far reaching than that em

braced under the heading: "Movement of Raw Materials and Foodstuffs in International Commerce." A discussion of this subject would reach the foundations of our present civilization, the varying prosperities of the peoples of the world and most political actions by those peoples for the last two centuries.

In the modern civilization three things are required to support our industrial activities: power to operate machinery; material to fabricate with machinery; and labor to supplement and control that machinery. Of the three, labor is the most fluid and material the next. Power, in the shape of fuel, is required in such quantities that its presence practically dictates the location of industrial establishments. Where there are great factories, there will be congested population, for only by the output of intensively operated machinery can a dense population support itself in comfort. To such ma

raw materials to work with and from it must be carried the finished or semifinished product. At the same time, in order to feed the masses of humanity which gather about an industrial region, foodstuffs must be imported from those localities where land is cheap and can be employed pastorally. We may, therefore, begin this most elementary survey by observing the distribution of population in the world, for a densely settled region is usually, although not always, a region which must import foodstuffs and raw materials, and export manufactured articles and surplus fuel.

There are three general regions in the world where the density of population exceeds two hundred persons to the square mile. These regions are Northwestern Europe, Northeastern United States and Eastern Asia. Only the first two have populations whose standard of living is high; Eastern Asia, and to a large extent British India, while densely settled, are not entirely

comparable because their populations are inured to an existence of the very scantiest.

At

Where Caucasian peoples import foodstuffs the first need is for grains: wheat, corn, rye, oats and barley. The great sources of breadstuffs are the central basin of North America, the plains of Argentina and to a lesser degree Australia, southern Russia, and the basin of the lower Danube. present, of course, the Ukraine is exporting no grain, and not a normal amount moves from the Danube. The American crop is more and more consumed by our own rising population, leaving England and the Continent to be supplied by Canada and the Argentine. In the case of the Asiatic races, the demand is for rice and the excess consumption of China and Japan is ordinarily met by drawing on the Burmese fields.

After grain comes the demand for meats. The great livestock countries of the world are the Argentine, whose special product is beef; Australia, which particularly exports muttons; and the United States which, while raising cattle and sheep, has an exportable surplus only of pork products. The British Isles, which are entirely dependent upon imports of meats, therefore draw their mutton from Australia, their beef from the Argentine and their pork and, to some extent, dairy products from the United States. Continental nations are no such races of meat eaters as are the American and British and this fact, combined with the intensive agriculture which they practice upon their tiny farms, makes for a limited demand on their part for meats. The Asiatic, of course, has a very low per capita consumption of

meat.

The third essential foodstuff is sugar, which may be either cane or beet. The Southern United States

raises both in large quantities; Central Europe produces beet sugar, while Cuba, Java and Hawaii are the sources of the cane product. The greater part of the Cuban crop is required to supplement the domestic output of the United States, while the Javan crop moves to Europe.

Of the foodstuffs which are used for decoctions the three of importance are coffee, tea and cocoa. The primary source of coffee is Brazil, with Colombia and Central America of importance. This product moves to the United States and to Europe. Tea is grown in Eastern Asia and in southern India and the surplus is similarly exported to the great consuming centers in Europe and the United States. Cocoa is the product of West Africa, the Caribbean countries, and Ecuador, and from the shipping standpoint is much less important than either coffee or tea. The great drink of South America, yerba mate, has almost no distribution outside of the immediate vicinity of its origin.

The great citrous fruit centers are southern California, Florida and the Mediterranean. The banana imports into the United States from the West Indies approximate a million tons a year and besides this considerable quantities are shipped to Europe. The apples of the Northwest are moved across the Continent in quantity, and to a certain extent to Europe by ship. Coconuts are gathered in the West Indies, in Ceylon, in the Philippines and in the islands of the South Seas and are imported either whole or shredded, or dried into copra, which is brought in in that form or as oil. Other than these, most fruit movements are so small as to be negligible.

BASIC RAW MATERIALS

Turning now from foodstuffs we may take up the basic raw materials. It must be borne in mind that in dis