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276 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
increase of the needs of the growing population on the
one side, and the growth of invention and mechanical
power in supplying human wants on the other side-
will gain as time goes on. I t is hardly possible that
there can always be equilibrium, or that the conditions
of the Nineteenth Century, in which the growing popu-
lation has always been provided for, will continue in-
definitely. A turn may come at any moment in the
opposite direction. Possibly the force of the dilemma
_ may be first felt in our dealings with those black and
yellow populations which are subject to civilized rule.
and which begin to increase under that rule without any
proportionate increase of their resources; but the con-
ditions of the dilemma are always there, and the states-
man of the future must certainly look out for difficulties
of a formidable kind. I t is not merely a question of
food we must remember. As Professor Cairnes long
ago pointed out, it is a question of everything neces-
sary to supply human wants; the metals presenting as
much, or even more, difficulty than food.
To turn from these topics I should like to otdvert for
a moment to yet one more conclusion, which seems to
be suggested by the statistics, and which may not be
without practical value in economic discussion. Many
people are puzzl~d by what they speak of as the neces-
sity of finding new markets, with competition on all
sides increasing around us. F or this reason they are
anxious to obtain possession of the territory occupied
by black or yellow races, or to prevent the exclusive
occupation of such territor9 by rival powers. The same
idea has obviously dominated the politics of Germany
and France, and it has not been without some influence
perhaps even in the United States, which is now to be
included among the countries manufacturing for export.
But the figures we have been dealing with point to
quite another source of new markets, within the control
of the very peoples for whom there is so much anxiety.
Surely, there can be no lack of new customers if the
500 millions of the advanced races themselves are to