compelled to begin in earnest the slow process of reforesting. What we have already done with our forests we are doing just as successfully with our soils and mines.

LAND DETERIORATION

A very large per cent of the life-sustaining power of the soil, notably of the southern and eastern and New England states, has been wasted. Wasted in two ways: First, by physical destruction, through the carrying away of the earth to the sea; and second, chemically by the withdrawal of the elements required by plant life. The sterility of the soil in the older, which are also the more hilly, portions of the cultivated country, is accounted for by the former cause. It may be checked or easily prevented. Professor Shailer says that a field lying at an angle of twenty degrees can be totally destroyed in a hundred plowings. This process of denudation of the soil has proceeded far in the South and is going on rapidly. Shailer estimates that in Kentucky one-tenth of the arable soil has thus been destroyed, much of which cannot be restored by any application of industry and care.

The second cause of waste of the soil, more serious and even more general and speedy, is the deliberate soil exhaustion. New England once supported a population of farmers, but today agriculture as an independent industry, able in itself to maintain a community, does not exist in the hilly parts of that part of the United States. During the last twenty years the average yield per acre of wheat in the United States has been from 12 to 15 bushels per acre. The agricultural lands of Great Britain, France, and Germany, which have been farmed for more than a thousand years, produce on the average from 30 to 33 bushels of wheat per acre, and other cereals in proportion. Japan supports its 45,000,000 people-30,000,000 of whom are farmers-by a cultivated area of but 19,000 square miles. France at the time the world's war began drew five times as much wealth from the soil as she did a century ago. Before the world's war began almost all of France's national debt of $6,000,000,000 was held at home, and her holdings of foreign securities was about $15,000,000,000.

Thus, by the adoption of the proper methods of cultivation of the soil, such as prevail in France and Germany, the annual pro

duction of farm products of the United States could be increased from the minimum yield of $5,000,000,000 before the war to $15,000,000,000 or $20,000,000,000.

COAL AND IRON

The two great sources of wealth that are indispensable to the comfort and growth of a people are coal and iron. When a pound of either has been used it can never be replaced. The annual production of coal in 1895 was 193,000,000 tons. In 1905 it was 393,000,000 tons. In 1915 it rose to 531,619,000 net tons, and in 1918 it rose to 678,212,000 net tons. Thus during the period of twenty-three years the consumption of coal increased 251 per cent! No account was taken of the vast consumption of natural gas and petroleum for fuel purposes. In 1950 our population will be more than 200,000,000. At that time the best authorities say that the areas of hard coal will be exhausted and a double demand will then be made upon the soft coal. Formerly much wood was used for fuel, but now scarcely any is. At that time our best and most convenient coal will have been so far consumed that the remainder can only be applied to present uses at an advanced cost, which would compel the entire rearrangement of industries, revolutionizing the common lot and common life.

IRON GOING FAST

In 1870 we produced 3,000,000 tons of iron ore. Every ten years to 1890 it increased 150 per cent. In 1895 our production was 16,000,000 tons. For the years 1902 and 1903 it was 35,000,000. It rose in 1905 to 42,000,000 tons, and again in 1915 to 55,526,000, and in 1916 it became 75,168,000 tons! The increase in consumption of iron during the twenty years, 1895-1915, was nearly 400 per cent.

All of the ore deposits of national importance have been known for twenty years. There is no substitute for iron whose production and preparation for its main practical uses is not far more expensive. By tariff and otherwise, every effort has been made to stimulate its consumption. Not merely our manufacturing industries, but our whole complex industrial life, so intimately built upon cheap iron and coal will feel the strain and must suffer realignment. The

peril is not one of remote time but of this generation. Their exhaustion in central Europe is one of the great factors among the causes of the world's war. Where is there a sign of preparation for it?

During the period, 1545-1624, the Portuguese took from Japan 60,000,000 pounds sterling of gold and silver. From 1611 to 1710 the Dutch imported from Japan 43,000,000 pounds sterling of gold and silver, or in all, Europe obtained from 1545 to 1710, $515,000,000 gold and silver. Very little was obtained thereafter, owing to the sound financial policy of the Minister of Finance introduced in 1710, which you may learn from the following:

A thousand years ago gold and silver and copper were unknown in Japan, yet there was no lack of necessaries. The earth was fertile, and this produced the best sort of wealth. Gangin was the first prince who caused the mines to be diligently worked, and during his reign so great a quantity of gold and silver was extracted from them as no one could have formed any conception of, and since these metals resemble the bones of the human body, inasmuch as what is once extracted from the earth is not reproduced, if the mines continue to be thus wrought, in less than a thousand years they will be exhausted.

Since these metals were discovered the heart of man has become more and more depraved. With the exception of medicines (European drugs), we can dispense with everything that is brought to us from abroad. The stuffs (cloths) and other articles are of no real benefit to us. If we squander our treasures in exchange for them, what shall we subsist upon? Let the successors of Gangin reflect upon this matter, and the wealth of Japan will last as long as the heavens and the earth.

Through a bloody war of thirteen years the Spaniards were expelled from Japan in 1625. The principal reasons which prevented the Spaniards from enslaving the Japanese were two: The Japanese had the knowledge of the use of steel weapons, armor and horses, but no firearms; and primarily the Mexicans believed in a Messiah, and when Cortez craftily announced himself as the emissary of this heavenly personage, Montezuma was credulous enough to believe, to yield to him possession of his person, and to advise his people to surrender themselves to the stranger. The Japanese, being Buddhists, looked for no Messiah, and in the selfreliance of an ancient creed, regarded the strangers more with disdain than fear. They regarded the strangers as barbarians, who were shrewd traders, but held no reverence for them.

Shall America, Russia, their Allies, and the Neutrals, be duped by the Teuton propaganda of Pan-Germanism in the same fashion as were the Mexicans, South Americans, the West and East Indies, by the Spanish conquerors?

If we were today only as wise as the Japanese Prime Minister was in 1710, then our statesmen would adopt his policy and not export in the future a pound of the product of our mines, excepting in emergencies such as the world's war, but limit the exports of the United States to the products of the soil and things produced thereform, for not a pound of coal, or of any mineral once removed from the mines, can ever be replaced. But the products of the soil can by skilful cultivation be steadily increased and the soil be kept in as good condition, and in most parts of the country in better condition, than it now is. The high way to success of the American in the future must be fashioned from the common clod under his feet. He must cease to stimulate his industries and exert himself in the improvement of the production of the products of the farms.

V

What are the means, if any, for destroying or preventing the development of the germs which cause political decay, and which have been fatal to civilizations and their governmental organizations in the past, which America must recognize in order to prevent the decay of our government and its institutions, and make them the easy prey of internal and external enemies?

The French, through the instrumentality of Napoleon, conquered almost the whole of Europe and ruled and governed it for a decade of years. Yet the defeat of Napoleon and the passing of the French dominion over the countries which he had conquered did not result in the extinction of the French civilization nor in a great moral degradation of her people. This is proved by the successes of the French nation in the world's war. The French nation in proportion to its population is the equal, if not the superior, of any of the belligerent nations in the great national virtues, courage, self-denial, morals, thrift, national organization, and intellectual gifts of the highest order.

That the French nation has not gone the way of earlier world conquerors is, we think, due to the socializing principles of justice

found in the Code Napoleon and its development, the abolition of hereditary aristocracy and primogenitureship, the limitation of testamentary disposition of property, the introduction of uniform legal procedure in the administration of the law by the courts, the nationalization of educational institutions and elementary schools, the introduction of vocational educational training, social insurance for the working classes, and the establishment of many devices for the encouragement of efficiency and economic thrift of the common people. The war has not redeemed France, as some are wont to say. It has merely revealed France-that France whose national life has been developed under the democratization of its institutions, the foundation of which was the Code Napoleon. The illustration and analysis given shows that the minimum requirements for the prevention of political decay of modern governments and their institutions are three:

1. The preservation of liberty and opportunity to earn a living for every citizen, and the conservation of minerals, soil, forests, and all of our national resources, and the provision of national schemes. for encouraging universal thrift.

2. Industrial efficiency, the conservation of the family, and the nationalization of a vocational educational system.

3. The elimination of political waste. Universal and compulsory military and naval service with adequate equipment. The promotion of justice.

All of these requirements are substantially provided for under the Napoleon Code, as developed during the last century. None of them in fact existed under the Roman imperial system of government, and that of the other world-powers which have perished. They all were present in the German imperial political system, in their highest perfection, excepting the provision for individual liberty. There, hereditary aristocracy, materialistic as well as social and political were dominant. Universal suffrage was a mere form. All of the political power of the national importance was centered in the German Emperor and those whom he personally selected, and they were responsible to no one but him. Thus he was able to plunge the entire world into the world's war.

The political organization of Great Britain provided for these requirements only in part. It still retains hereditary aristocracy,