An able Australian writer lately said in the _Times_, 'Australia is one of the least self-contained countries in the world. It is a wonderful producer of raw material. But it must trade off this raw material. ... A dozen big "stations" would supply wool enough to clothe every man, woman and child in Australia. How is the big remainder, almost the whole, to be disposed of? We must sell it in the other hemisphere. We have no choice. ... The fact is we cannot {198} produce all we want to consume, and we cannot consume all that we can easily produce. ... We must sell our surplus abroad. It would not be worth while disturbing the deposit at Broken Hill only to pack away millions of silver coins in vaults.' He goes on to say: 'England could do without Australia better than Australia could do without England. The one imaginable event would mean something like ruin; the other, only disaster. England's prosperity is rooted in many countries, in so many that she is always able to turn a brave face in any single direction.' Leading merchants and financiers of Australia have said to me that six months stoppage of the English trade would mean the closing up of three-fourths of the commercial and financial houses of the country. The rapid expansion of this trade every day increases the importance of the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope routes, the two channels along which Australian commerce chiefly flows. Another field for trade is opening up in the China seas and in India. For a people thus related to Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Eastern Question, with all that it involves, has a deep and permanent interest. The question of whether Great Britain or Russia is in India and holds command of Indian waters is vital to Australia's position in the Southern seas.