ness of our coalfields we are the most favoured country in Europe; the quality is good, the strata are ample and regular, and calculated, in spite of Sir William Ramsay, to last at any rate 500 years; and the richest basins are so close to the sea as to economise materially the cost of shipment. This is the leading item in our modern economic life. Such a colossal asset, combined with our store of iron ore, furnishes us with three priceless advantages: in a rigorous climate we obtain cheap fuel; our manufactures secure cheap power; while, not least, we are enabled to buy food and raw materials cheap. This last service of the three is performed as follows.
Of our total output of coal, on an average a quarter or somewhat less is exported, thus providing cargo for vessels outward bound. Were this not available, the bulk of the ships bringing to our shores corn, cotton, wool, wood, and so forth, would necessarily clear without cargo and in ballast; no outward freight would be earned by the shipowners who, in that case, to make both ends meet, would have to charge a much heavier freight on imported articles, thus increasing their cost very seriously to the consumer. Hence, through coal we procure the warmth, the food, and the materials vital to our existence.
Thus, on the whole, what Nature has done is to give us, in return for grave disadvantages, the opportunity and the power to be an important manufacturing people. It remains to see whether
