ports from fifty-one millions
of dollars in 1860 to five hundred and forty-five millions in 1900, and
its cotton in equal ratio.

But as American economic development proves, it is difficult to
maintain this common agricultural base. The agricultural nation, in
the temperate zone, grows in population, converts itself into an
industrial community, and not only consumes its own food and raw
materials but draws upon the common agricultural fund of the older
industrial nations. To-day the United States is rapidly lessening its
food exports, is increasing its imports of sugar, coffee, tea, fish,
and other foods, and is thus forcing industrial Europe to find a new
agricultural base.

This conversion of agricultural into semi-industrial nations proceeds
rapidly. Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Japan, even Russia, increase
their manufacturing, and intensify the demand for the world's supply of
raw materials. It is a normal and in present circumstances an
inevitable {81} process. When, however, the exportable supply of food
and raw material of an agricultural country dwindles, a new equilibrium
must be established. New states, territories, colonies, hitherto
exporting but little agricultural produce, are opened and their
production stimulated. From Russia, the Danube Valley, Canada,
Australia, Brazil, Argentine and many parts of Africa, new supplies of
raw material are secured. Fresh sources are also discovered for the
production of fodder, flax, cotton, wool and ores. It is an
equilibrium, forever destroyed and forever re-established, between an
increasing number of industrial nations with increasing populations and
new agricultural bases, upon which the superstructure of the world's
export industry is reared.

It is not, however, by the sale of present manufactured goods alone
that the industrial nations can secure their foreign food. One may own
abroad as well as earn abroad. An Englishman with a thousand acres in
North Dakota or Alberta may export the wheat that he raises exactly as
though the farm were in Devon. If he owns shares in the Pennsylvania
Railroad, he may with his dividends purchase wheat, which he may ship
to his own country without exporting commodities in return. The true
economic dominion of England extends wherever Englishmen hold property.
Subject to the laws of the land where the property is held, this
ownership gives the same claim to the product of industry as does an
investment at home.