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V
OUR INDUSTRIAL FUTURE
71

in the Northern Sea. … There is a naval and military expenditure per head of the population of the United Kingdom of 29s. 3d. per annum; in Canada the same items involve an expenditure of only 2s. per head. No one will pretend that this is a fair distribution of the burdens of Empire."

But our Empire, after all, is to an overwhelming degree composed of the dark races. These have never known peace and comfort and prosperity until our coming, but are learning ever more keenly to appreciate and to require those advantages. To strengthen the concrete aspirations, to fortify the bodily desires, to elevate the standard of living of those nations entrusted to us, this is, in its material aspect, the imperial office. Hitherto we have been mainly intent upon conferring on them the boon of settled government. Their demand for the products of our civilisation will be the result and our reward.

Thus, then, it seems clear that, both as regards productive capacity and power to sell her output, England, in spite of inevitable reactions, will gather strength in the future. As it is, her industrial revolution is only midway, her conquest of Nature merely opened, the demand of the world for her products but begun.

Nevertheless, beyond these two stages of future progress, several others may be discerned.

It has been pointed out that an underlying cause of the troubles witnessed in the summer of 1911 was the condition of casual labour. No form