In the production of one great article of manufacture, wool, it easily leads the world, both in respect of quantity and quality. In its singular adaptation for pastoral pursuits it seems the natural complement of a great manufacturing country like the United Kingdom, and of a cold country like Canada. Its {196} capacity for supplying meat as well as wool to the United Kingdom has increased greatly during the last few years and appears capable of indefinite expansion. The production of gold, amounting to more than £300,000,000 in less than fifty years; of silver, copper, tin and other metals, which in vast quantities find their chief market in Great Britain, indicate another important line of connection with British industry. In proportion to population the Australasian colonies take from Great Britain more than any other countries in the world; they are able to do so because they sell to her more than any other countries. Without precise figures to justify the assertion one is yet quite safe in saying that no two states in the American Union, even those lying most closely together, have such proportionately large trade relations with each other as have the Australasian colonies and the United Kingdom, situated at opposite sides of the globe. Australia's apparent isolation has suggested to many the possibility and expediency of her aiming at an independent national life. A little study of her relations with the rest of the world shows that her isolation, at any rate, is purely imaginary. If the first glance leads us to think that the colonies most remote from Britain are likely to have the least connection with her, facts soon show us that they really have the closest of all. There is a very plain argument which goes to prove that distance under {197} the conditions of modern commerce, produces a greater community of interest than contiguity. In Canada I have put historical bias in the forefront of the factors determining towards national unity, a bias so strong that in the future, as in the past, it seems likely to defy any geographical considerations which oppose it, and to force even commercial relations, to some extent, if need be, into its own direction. In Australia the prior place must be given to geographical situation and its influence upon commercial relationship. In her interests and connections Australia is, in an extraordinary degree, European and Asiatic. Four-fifths at least of all her external commerce is with Britain or with European countries chiefly through Britain. This trade passes along waterways the safety of which depends upon the movements of European powers. It is an essential element in the prosperity of the people. A trade at present small but prospectively great in the Indian and China seas gives Australia a deep interest in Asiatic questions.