(d) How Coal and Iron Aided the Empire's Growth.—The minerals of Britain have been of the first importance. An abundance of cheap coal close to the water enabled Britain to substitute steamships for sailing vessels sooner than did any other nation. Then it enabled her to run her ships cheaply and gave her cargoes to take abroad in exchange for bulky food stuffs and raw materials. Thus coal clinched Britain's control of the sea. So having picked up an island here, a seaport there, and a whole province somewhere else, she was able to hold them easily. Her iron ore helped equally, for with the coal it enabled her to become a manufacturing nation sooner than did any other country. Her manufactures supplied her ships with the most profitable kind of goods for export, and thus are one of the main causes of the growth of the empire. Petroleum is the only important mineral product which neither Britain nor her colonies supply. For that reason after the Great War some influential Englishmen wanted to retain Persia and part of Transcaucasia in order to control the Baku oil fields. Others, however, felt that such a course was con trary to the spirit embodied in the League of Nations.
(e) How British Energy Turns the Scales.—England, as we have seen, probably has the best climate in the world. It keeps people out doors, and makes them tough and sturdy; it stimulates the mind, and makes it easy to think clearly and act energetically. Thus when the British are pitted against other nations their extra energy has again and again turned the scales and enabled them to hold parts of the world against their rivals. One of the main reasons for the strength of the British Empire is that several of the chief colonies have climates which resemble that of England in their stimulating qualities. Southern Canada, New Zealand, and southeastern Aus tralia, rank highest. No other country has colonies which at all approach these in this respect. Their value is evident from the sturdy help that they gave in the Great War.
(f) How the Need of Food and Raw Materials Forced Expansion.— From the point of view of a colonial empire it is well that certain useful plants and animals cannot grow in the British Isles, for it was the search for valuable products like tea, spices, and silk, which led to Britain's first expansion to India and America. In later times, when manufacturing became important, the fact that Britain can not produce either food or raw materials in sufficient quantity and variety impelled the British still further to expand their empire. The jute and hides of India are far more valuable than all her spices, silk, tea, and precious metals. So, too, the wool and meat of Aus
tralia, the wheat, wood, bacon, cheese, and paper of Canada; the cotton of Egypt; the rubber of Ceylon; and the wool of South Africa, are the kind of products that make her colonies worth while to Britain.
(2) The Expansion of Russia.—Just as England furnishes the greatest example of expansion by sea, so Russia furnishes the best example of expansion by land. Compared with the 13,000,000 square miles and 440,000,000 people of the British Empire, Russia, before the Great War, had 8,600,000 square miles and 180,000,000 people. Yet the Russian Empire had little of the strength and vigor of the British, for Russia and Siberia are subject to many geographical dis advantages.
(a) In location the Russian Empire had the disadvantage of be ing in the worst part of Europe and in the least accessible part of Asia. Thus it came in little contact with the world's most progressive coun tries. It had the advantage, however, of being a single compact mass instead of a vast number of isolated and vulnerable parts such as com pose the British Empire.
(b) The form of the land in Russia courted expansion, for in the great portion between the dense northern forests and the southern deserts the vast plain is easily traversed. From Moscow, where the empire began,, the plain stretches away in every direction. To the north it finally reaches a boundary only in the Arctic Ocean, and to the south in the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. West ward the Russian Empire never reached any natural boundary, for before the form of the land changes appreciably, new races are found and new conditions of climate and vegetation. In this lay much of Russia's weakness, for when the Empire began to crumble these border regions at once broke into minor principalities like Finland, Poland, and Ukraine. Eastward the plain is only slightly inter rupted by the low Ural Mountains and extends thousands of miles to the plateaus of northern Siberia. Its vast extent was one chief reason why the Russian Empire became so huge.
(c) As we saw in the last chapter Russia has always been handi capped by her unfortunate relation to the oceans. So far as inland bodies of water are concerned, however, her expansion has been helped. Because Siberia is a plain the pioneers in that country were able to float down one river and pole their boats up another time and again. Such water transportation aided greatly in allowing the Russians to spread easily over northern Asia.