EUROPE: THE MOST ACTIVE OF THE CONTINENTS The Volume of Europe's Business.—From the standpoint of busi ness Europe is the most important of the continents. In normal times no other continent rivals it in the production of wheat, oats, rye, and barley; of sugar, potatoes, peas, cattle, dairy products, and hides; sheep, wool, and flax fiber; hay, horses, and swine; coal and iron; and probably poultry, wood, clay products, cement, stone, vegetables, berries, grapes, apples, and other orchard fruits, although few statistics are available for the last ten years. Europe also carries on more manu facturing than any other continent. Among the 50 items in the table of the world's chief products in Chapter II, there are only 21 in which any other of the five continents is supreme. Moreover, 20 of the 29 products in which Europe excels are of the first rank, being produced to an estimated value of over a billion dollars each year. Even North America, which comes next to Europe, excels the other continents in pnly 10 products, namely corn, cotton, copper, petroleum, water or power, tobacco, cottonseed, silver, lead and zinc. Among these inly corn, cotton, and copper attain a value of over a billion dollars per tear. Among the products in which Asia excels only three, rice, nillet and beans, are of major importance, and there are only 5 others, .aw silk, flaxseed, tea, rubber, and tin. South America leads the .est of the continents in coffee, Africa in gold, and perhaps sweet pota oes or yams, and Australia in none of the 50 main products. Thus he order is: The importance of Europe is seen in foreign trade as well as in' domestic production. Expressed in round numbers the normal foreign.. trade of the continents each year before the war was as follows: Europe $24,000,000,000 South America. . ..42,300,000,000 North America 5,(X)0,000,000 Africa 1,500,000,000 Asia 2,500,000,000 Australasia 1,000,000,000 Although Europe was greatly injured by the war, it still leads by a wide margin. Its relative position would be much reduced if we
considered only the trade of each continent with other continents instead of all foreign trade, but even if we exclude the trade of each country with others in the same continent Europe remains far ahead.
In transportation Europe has almost as great a supremacy as in primary production and commerce. The tonnage of ocean steamships 1 belonging to the various continents in 1921 was approximately as follows: Europe 36,000,000 1 South America 1,000,000 North America 15,000,000 Australia 700.000 Asia 4,000,000 Africa 300,000(?) If figures for canal boats, coastwise traffic, and airplanes were available they would show the importance of Europe in an even greate degree. So, too, would the mileage of improved roads and canals. In railway mileage, to be sure, North America much exceeds Europe,_ the figures being about. 320,000 miles against 230,000. The same is even more true in trolley mileage and in automobiles, for in 1921 North America's registration of ten and a half million automobiles com prised seven-eighths of the world's entire number. Nevertheless, in normal times the tonnage of freight carried by European railroads i about the same as by those of North America,—about two billion tons in 1911, with an average haul of approximately 100 miles in Europe an 140 in North America. On the other hand, the number of passenger, that year was only about 1,100,000,000 in North America with a average journey of 33 miles, while in Europe it was five times as grea with an average journey of 25 miles. Thus even in railroad busines. Europe exceeds North America, while if all kinds of transportation are considered her supremacy is much more marked.
Another way of estimating the business of the continents is by means of the total national wealth. This is extremely difficult ascertain and as yet it is impossible to determine the full effects of the war. The best recent estimate is given in the following table atk pertains to 1914.