Having thus proven that the material progress of the South is exaggerated, the next logical step is to show that perhaps it has foundation, inasmuch as the equivalent 28,000,000 people in the Northwest in 1905 are gaining wealth still more rapidly, having increased their estimated "true value" from 44 billions in 1904 to at least 50 billions in 1907. The South, which supposes itself to be getting rich faster than any other part of the globe, has in the last few years actually added less to its wealth than a similar Northwest agricultural region. In the year 1906-7, while the South added 650 millions to its tax duplicate, the North added 850 millions. If, as may be the case, the 650 millions of valuation meant 1,700 millions of new wealth, the Northwest was adding at least 2,300 millions. In all this array of figures there is no criticism of the South, no denial that it is more prosperous than it has ever been before; no desire to minimize its splendid achievements which are helping on the solution of the race problem; but it is essential that the Southern people should measure themselves squarely with their neighbors. The single state of New York, with less than a fifth the population of the South, has as much property as the whole South (leaving out Missouri), and adds every year to its wealth as much as is added by the whole South (leaving out Texas). The South is really at about the same place where the Northwest was thirty years ago; it is developing its latent resources; building its cities; perfecting its communications; starting new industries; and in much less than thirty years it will come to the point that the Northwest has now reached; but that section is still driving ahead more rapidly, and thirty years hence may be proportionately richer than it is to-day. If the South is saving four millions a day, the Northwest is saving five millions; and the Middle and New England states, the other third of the country, are saving eight or ten millions a day. If the South is to range up alongside the Northwest, to say nothing of the Northeast, it must increase its production still faster, and the only way to accomplish that purpose is by improving the average industry, thrift, and output of its people. _III. Comparative Efficiency of White Populations North and South_