For this purpose our fisheries are naturally of great importance producing some of our chief products of export. Altogether the value of the exported products of our fisheries averaged before the war about 100 million kroner a year. Besides England and Germany, Spain and Italy were very important markets for our fishery products before the war. During the war these markets have to a great extent been closed to us owing to the difficulty with tonnage. Our chief market now is England and also Germany. But I may mention that our export to Germany is now carried on in strict accordance with agreements with England, not allowing us to export more than a certain proportion of our catch to her enemy.

The products of our lumber trade consisting of timber, sawn timber, planed wood, manufactures of wood, pulp, chemical pulp, paper, etc., are naturally also of much importance for our balance of trade.

But besides this the exportation of products of the various other branches of our manufacturing industry becomes every year more and more important as was pointed out before. The export of our industrial products gave in 1910 an income of one hundred and fourteen and one-half million kroner, and this value has been substantially increased during recent years. The chief buyers of these industrial products during the war have without comparison been England and her allies, and our electro-chemical production. has been especially valuable. This industry, used to a great extent to produce raw material for the agricultural and manufacturing industry of Germany, has during the war more and more become producer for England and her allies, especially France. The products we send them have been, as I understand it, of the very greatest importance. I may as an example mention the ammonium-nitrate sent to England, and especially to France. I may also mention other products as for instance cyanamid and also aluminum. According to what I have been told, a reduction or a stop of the exportation of these products would mean a very serious loss for your allies.

There is still left one branch of trade which is of the very greatest importance for our balance of trade, and that is our shipping. In order to give you an idea of how matters stand in this respect I may tell you that the average value of our imports in the four years from 1911 to 1914 inclusive was five hundred and sixty-one

million kroner, while the average value of exports during the same years was three hundred and ninety-one million kroner. This makes an average deficit of one hundred and seventy million kroner which is chiefly covered by our shipping. This shipping has during the war naturally to a great extent been directed to the shores of England and her allies as well as to this country, and as you are probably aware there has been and still is a great portion of our fleet sailing between United States and the West Indies and South America and also on your Pacific coast. Our shipping between Great Britain and her allies was not considered with friendly eyes by the Germans, and their U-boat warfare has to a very great extent been directed against our shipping, and our losses have therefore been heavier than those of any other neutral nation and I believe also greater than the losses of this great country until now. I cannot give you the exact figures at this moment, but I do not say too much when I say that one-third of our commercial fleet has been destroyed. It means that about one million Norwegian tons have been sunk and about 700 Norwegian sailors, or now probably more, have been killed. In spite of this the Germans have not been able to terrify the Norwegian sailors. I was told of only one instance when a Norwegian sailor refused to go because the ship was going to the war-zone. The consul in that port told him that he was very sorry to hear it because it was the first instance in his experience that a Norwegian sailor had refused to go because he was afraid. The sailor said nothing, went on board and did his duty.

I saw a report the other day of the sinking of a Norwegian vessel off the English coast. One of the surviving sailors was examined before the maritime court in London, and was asked whether he had been sunk before. He answered that this was the sixth time. On the suggestion of the judge that now he had probably got enough of it, he declared that he was of course going out again as soon as he could find a new employment.

But the destruction of our commercial fleet is constantly going on, and if this lasts very long the prospects are that it will be entirely destroyed. The Norwegians will no more belong to the seafaring nations-we who used to have the third commercial fleet in the world. We came next after England and the United States and were only in late years surpassed by Germany.

I have tried to give you an idea of the situation and the needs

of the Norwegian people. We are a small nation, that is true, of no great consequence in the world perhaps, whatever we ourselves may think, but still we are a nation, and we beg for nothing, we only ask for our right to exist. We consider it our duty to remain neutral and do our best to keep out of the war. We think that in this way we may also do the greatest service to the world.

We are of those who, in spite of all,

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though rights were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

May all humanity awaken after this terrible crisis-I think the most serious one in the whole history of the world-may we awaken to see that there is one great purpose in life and that is not destruction of others, it is development of oneself, of all one's possibilities; that there is one high ideal of existence. Its name is not power, its name is justice!

SOUTH AMERICA'S AVAILABLE FOOD SUPPLY

BY HIS EXCELLENCY, SENOR DON IGNACIO CALDERON,
The Bolivian Minister.

All know that South America is a very vast continent, full of possibilities and great in resources, where ten independent republics are established, each one with its own characteristics; therefore, to speak of South America as a unit is misleading and inaccurate.

For instance, if we say that South America produces a great deal of wheat, it would mean that wheat is produced for export in all the countries. That is not the case. Wheat is not produced for export except in Argentine. If we say that tin is exported from South America, we also make a wrong statement, because tin is produced only in Bolivia, which gives to the world one-third of the production of that mineral. Therefore, it is not correct to say that tin is produced in South America.

I am going to give you a review of the exportable food resources of each of the countries in South America.

Agriculture is not very much developed in those republics

for the simple reason that they are wanting in means of easy and cheap transportation, which is an element very important in agriculture. Argentine is the only country in South America that, because of its advantageous geographical position and the lack of mountains, being entirely flat, and because it receives thousands of immigrants every year, has been able to develop its agricultural resources. Argentine exports every year large amounts of wheat, corn and barley. These same cereals are produced in small quantities in other countries. Rice is exported in small quantities from Peru and Brazil. Chile produces and exports some barley and oats and what they call frijoles, which is a kind of bean.

Coffee, as you all know, is the great staple article of Brazil; · in fact, is the main export from Brazil. Venezuela and Colombia also export some large quantities of coffee; and Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia are also producers of it and export it in small quantities.

Cocoa is the staple product and the main export from Ecuador. Ecuador produces most of the cocoa that is used in the world. Venezuela, Colombia and also Brazil may be counted as providers and exporters of cocoa in smaller amounts.

Peru manufactures and sends out a great deal of sugar, and Argentine will perhaps soon be able to export it because the manufacture of sugar is improving, at the present time being only enough for home consumption.

These are the principal articles of agricultural production that are actually available in South America. Then of course, we have to count the tropical fruits, like bananas, oranges, pineapples and different kinds of nuts that are exported from the tropical countries, like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

The products I have mentioned are simply those that are available for consumption in the present emergency all over the world. Each country produces different kinds of vegetables and cereals that are not exported, and therefore it is not necessary to mention them.

Argentine and Uruguay are the great centers of meat supply. In both countries there are millions of cattle. Chilled and frozen meats and jerked beef are exported in large quantities to all parts of the world. In the northern part of South America, that is to say, in Venezuela and Colombia, there is also an abundance of cattle. Beef is exported on the hoof to the West Indies. These two countries, as well as the southern countries, like Brazil, Paraguay and

Bolivia, have extensive grazing grounds where millions of cattle can be raised.

In fact, Bolivia, whose territory comprises more than seven hundred thousand square miles, has roaming, in the section neighboring to Argentine, Paraguay and Brazil, thousands of wild cattle in its vast grazing fields. They have already received the attention of the people in this country. I often receive letters from western farmers asking detailed information about the grazing grounds in Bolivia. Southern Argentine and Chile are developing a large sheep raising industry. There are great flocks in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

This supply of meat is very interesting to the United States. If we take into consideration that from 1907 to 1917, the stock of cattle in this country has diminished, according to statistics, at least ten million heads, while the population increased more than fifteen million, it is a fortunate thing that in the great plains of Colombia and Venezuela, which have splendid grazing grounds, cattle could be raised in great numbers, just as in the other countries I have already mentioned, thus making it possible to supply the deficiency in this country.

Such is the summary of the products that South America could furnish to the world under the present circumstances.

Of course, many of the countries of South America import great quantities of flour from the United States. We in Bolivia import every year from twenty to thirty thousand tons of flour. It seems a shame that we have to import flour when we have such a fine climate and plenty of wheat. But transportation is too expensive and therefore, with the railroads that have been built lately in the neighboring countries and the cheap ocean freights, the American wheat can go to Bolivia cheaper than the native wheat can be transported a few hundred miles on mule back.

The facility of communication, the cheapness and the promptness of transportation, have so knitted the nations of the world that they have grown to depend on each other and to receive whatever is needed and to sell whatever they have to export. In this way, little by little, the extension of commerce and good-will among all the peoples has progressed almost to the extent of making the whole world into one single community.

But unfortunately, this condition of affairs has lately been abso