The utilization of tidal power has been debated, and a scheme for the Severn estuary, as well as one for the north coast of Brittany, has been elaborated. Should this line of development be followed in the future, Britain's position and the power of the tides at several points would assist greatly. For the present, however, the fashionable power is oil, of which, so far as is known, Britain has only a very little, and in which the whole of Western Europe is also poor. But oil is rather easily transportable, and Western Europe's powers of transport are being used to exploit sources of oil in such places as are not already in the sphere of influence of the United States of America. However this may be disguised, it is none the less an indication of Europe's increasing dependence on other regions for what her industry needs. Large amounts of raw products now come from outside Europe, and if power also comes from afar, Europe's advantages will be restricted to her climate in its relation to efficiency, her capital, her tradition of skill which she has endangered by the enormous amount of specialization developed among her workers, and her ownership and control of transport by sea. On this last point it is noteworthy that the great advance made by the {105} United States of America does not seem to be fully maintaining itself. For the immediate future the incalculable water-power available in the monsoon lands, the immense and easily workable deposits of coal in Shansi (North China), the coal and oil available in and near the United States of America, the huge water-power that might be utilized in several parts of America, the possibilities of tidal power in many regions, and the production of power-alcohol from equatorial vegetation, are all interesting factors of a situation the precariousness of which for the thickly populated areas of Western Europe is obvious to all. With their organization based upon skill and patience, the peoples of Central Europe may well go on developing, perhaps even exploiting, the Russian and Turanian lands on their eastern flank, as these latter do not seem likely to become industrial for some time. On the other hand, a Sino-Japanese development of industry on a large scale is always possible, and, if wisely managed, should have the benefit of the skill, taste, and honesty of the Chinese merchant as well as of the skilful industry of the Chinese workman, whose frugality and cheerfulness would make him a formidable competitor. The signs of the times are thus in favour of the departure of industrial primacy from Europe, however much political effort may contrive to delay the change.