nother, and upon the
material resources and labor of other continents.

The second lesson is that, other things equal, it is the most highly
civilized and highly developed countries that are the most dependent
upon others. In a word, there is a presumption that economic
internationalism is an essential feature of civilization.

You will observe that so far I have made no mention of America. And yet
all that I have been saying is, in a sense, introductory to the unique
problem presented by this country. America is the only civilized
country in the world that is virtually self-sufficing as regards the
primary requirements of her economic life. Her soil can and does supply
nearly all her essential foods, her natural resources include the
materials of her great textile, metal, and other basic industries, the
heat, light, electricity, and other forms of natural energy which
satisfy her national needs. She has access to skilled and unskilled
labor sufficient to develop and utilize all these natural resources.
Most of her pre-war imports might be placed under four heads: articles
of luxury and taste in dress, jewelry, etc.; certain chemical and other
scientific products; supplementary supplies of some foods and
materials, from other countries of the American continent, for
manufactures and export trade; and a number of tropical products,
almost all of subsidiary significance in the production and consumption
of the American people. This slight dependence upon foreign countries
has been considerably reduced as the result of war exigency. The art
products of France and Italy, the fine textile goods from Britain, the
dye-stuffs, drugs, and scientific instruments from Germany--in a word,
the great bulk of the imports from Europe, have either been cut out of
American consumption or have been displaced, temporarily, at any rate,
by home products. For several generations the main dependence of
America upon Europe and particularly upon Britain was for capital to
supplement home savings that she might make use of the stream of
immigrant labor in the development of her great continent. This
dependence upon European capital, of greatly diminishing importance
during the last three decades has, of course, now been reversed, and
the principal European countries are heavy debtors to the United
States.

One other important economic lesson war experience has taught, viz.,
the vast capacity for increased productivity which every industrial