The three great powers

Before the recent Great War three nations stood out preëminently in the world of trade, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Germany’s position was, of course, adversely affected as a result of the war. Through the Treaty of Versailles she has lost the rich iron deposits of Lorraine and important coal reserves in Upper Silesia. Nevertheless, she is left in a position stronger than that of any other nation, aside from the United States and Great Britain. From the point of view of commercial leadership, she must still be reckoned one of the three great powers. [Chiozza Money: In reviewing the wealth of the world as a whole, we saw how all-important is the possession of natural stores of energy. Despite the present importance of petroleum and the future possibilities of electric energy developed from water power, the largest source of energy utilized by the industries of the world is supplied by coal. Coal is so heavy and bulky that its transport is costly. For this reason machine industry is chiefly carried on in the countries which have large coal deposits.]

Estimates of the coal reserves of the different countries are subject to an uncertain margin of error. The following estimate, however, is as recent and as authoritative as any:

United States 3,500,000,000,000 tons Great Britain 190,000,000,000 tons Germany 400,000,000,000 tons

Since the known coal reserves of the whole world are estimated as only slightly over 7,000,000 million tons, it appears that the United States has about half of the world’s coal. Add to this the fact that the coal reserves of Canada are estimated at 1,250,000 million tons, and that there is coal in Alaska and Mexico, and it will be seen that two-thirds of the world’s coal is contained within the

continent of North America. This is the first and most fundamental fact which any one undertaking to prophesy respecting the future industrial leadership of the world and the future distribution of the world’s population must take into account. Half of the coal reserves of the United States, like three-fourths of the Canadian reserves, are lignite. But this fact does not materially modify the significance of the figures as given.