Page:Future of England - Peel.djvu/81

Rh investments oversea are divided equally between the Empire and foreign countries. Of the total thus put abroad 60 per cent is in railways, while the remaining 40 per cent goes to produce food, minerals, and materials. By this means we multiply the very things necessary to our existence, and provide the means of conveying them here, on the one hand, while, on the other, we create communities able and willing to take our goods. Thus only does the weary Titan live. Thus only, in the increasing prosperity of others, England will seek and find her own.

A further method available for the strengthening of demand is imperial co-operation. The Empire, it is true, is not our best customer, in the sense that, in 1910, for instance, foreign countries took 65·8 per cent of our exports as compared with 34·2 per cent taken by our Empire. Besides, it is easy to see that our self-governing Dominions, peopled by the same energetic race as ourselves, aim at becoming some of our most redoubtable competitors.

Nevertheless, if we consider the origin and history and meaning of the Empire, we must suppose that one of the results of its existence must be, in the purely business sphere, to strengthen demand. After all, that is really why we created it. On the loss of the United States we felt it vital, in face of the general animus of Europe, to build another Empire in the place of the one which we had forfeited. Our precise motive was