ble terms for exports and imports by
concluding favourable commercial agreements; it can help and facilitate
German trade by vigorous political representation of German interests
abroad; it can encourage the shipping trade, which gains large profits
from international commerce;[C] it can increase agricultural production
by energetic home colonization, cultivation of moorland, and suitable
protective measures, so as to make us to some extent less dependent on
foreign countries for our food. The encouragement of deep-sea fishery
would add to this.[D]

[Footnote: C England earns some 70 millions sterling by international
commerce, Germany about 15 millions sterling.]

[Footnote D: We buy annually some 2 millions sterling worth of fish from
foreign countries.]

From the military standpoint, it is naturally very important to increase
permanently the supply of breadstuffs and meat, so that in spite of the
annual increase in population the home requirements may for some time be
met to the same extent as at present; this seems feasible. Home
production now supplies 87 per cent, of the required breadstuffs and 95
per cent, of the meat required. To maintain this proportion, the
production in the next ten years must be increased by at most two
double-centners per Hectare, which is quite possible if it is considered
that the rye harvest alone in the last twenty years has increased by two
million tons.

A vigorous colonial policy, too, will certainly improve the national
prosperity if directed, on the one hand, to producing in our own
colonies the raw materials which our industries derive in immense
quantities from foreign countries, and so making us gradually
independent of foreign countries; and, on the other hand, to
transforming our colonies into an assured market for our goods by
effective promotion of settlements, railroads, and cultivation. The less
we are tributaries of foreign countries, to whom we pay many milliards,
[E] the more our national wealth and the financial capabilities of the
State will improve.

[Footnote E: We obtained from abroad in 1907, for instance, 476,400 tons
of cotton, 185,300 tons of wool, 8,500,000 tons of iron, 124,000 tons of
copper, etc.]

If the State can thus contribute directly to the increase of national
productions, it can equally raise its own credit by looking after the
reduction of the national debt, and thus improving its financial
position. But payment of debts is, in times of hi