It is, however, the zone in which the population has relatively increased most rapidly since the beginning of the nineteenth century, for at the outset it certainly did not count a million inhabitants. The Australian and African divisions have owed their good fortune to gold, and in a lesser degree to wool; but gold mines are a source of wealth which is exhausted by exploitation. In Australia, where the extent of arable lands is limited, immigration has at present practically ceased. In Africa the soil is little suited to culture, and immigration to the Transvaal has been recruited rather among Asiatic coolies than among free workers of European race. In this southern temperate zone, the Argentine Republic is the State which has the most numerous population: that in which the population has known the greatest increase, and in which economic conditions promise the widest development in the near future. The perfecting of refrigerating processes will certainly facilitate the exportation of meats, and it is to be hoped that the interests of trade, under the necessities of the food supply of the labouring classes, will finally overcome the obstacles which the European producers oppose in the way of imports. The demand for wheat, like the demand for meat, may vary according to the year and the protective legislation of the nations; but in general we may say that it will increase rather than decrease, because the population of Europe, and especially of Central and Western Europe, is for ever increasing in numbers and in density, so that already it cannot suffice to itself by producing its alimentary needs from its own soil, and in proportion as it becomes wealthier it will consume more white bread and more butchers’ meat. The United States and Canada continue to export wheat; but the rapid increase of the urban and industrial population of the United States will assuredly limit this exportation to a very great extent in the twentieth century.[10] [Footnote 10: The consumption of wheat in the United States averaged 200 million bushels between 1871 and 1875, and 531 million between 1903 and 1907. The exportation averaged 62 million bushels between 1871 and 1875, and 122 million between 1903 and 1907.] The Argentine Republic, where the harvest is due in January, so that its wheat arrives in the European markets by March, is the country destined to profit the most by these advantages. It must learn how to make use of them wisely, practising a policy of peace and concord, increasing its powers of stability by the development of the sentiment of nationality, and by inspiring confidence both in foreign capitalists and in immigrants by accumulating capital of its own, and by learning to retain, in spite of success, the foresight which warns of perils and the prudence which avoids them. E. LEVASSEUR, _Member of the Institute, Administrator of the College of France._