Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Side 13

THE BALANCE OF WORLD ECONOMY
7
For in Asia, so richly endowed by nature, and with its lower
density of population — 28 per square kilometre — hundreds
°f millions live on the border of starvation, and in the densely
populated Europe — 47 per square kilometre — people live far
above this level. Only in recent decades also Europe has begun
t0 precipitate a class, some millions of unemployed, which is ap-
proaching this level, though as yet it is a good way off. This is
a riddle which we must endeavour to unravel if we are to speak
about the economic and political conditions of to-day, because
its comprehension is the necessary starting point for understand-
tng our confused epoch and for realising where future develop-
rnents are carrying us.
At the beginning of the world war of 1914—18 an English
Politician said in Parliament that in future one could no longer
think in countries, one had to think in continents. This saying
^as right because the thought behind it was rational. But when
the Yersailles Treaty was drafted it had been forgotten. Then
they thought in countries. And it is not enough to think rightly;
that is only the first step; the next is to act rightly, i. e. rationally,
m conformity with given facts, not on sentiment, ideas, estimates,
hopes or any other loose foundation. When we realise that now
We have to think in continents because the development of com-
tnunications has brought the countries much closer to each other
and thereby created the possibility and necessity of economic
co-operation and of a community of interest between them, this
fact must make it clear to us that it involves practical conse-
quences in so to speak every aspect of human life, including
Politics.
But before we turn to these consequences we must understand
how it has been possible for Europe to maintain a quarter of
the population of the earth at a high standard of living on one
thirteenth of the inhabited area of the earth, although this area,
notwithstanding the presence of coal, iron, minerals and a cer-
tain amount of oil, is far from lavishly equipped by nature, and
tnuch poorer than for instance the United States of America.
This has been possible because Europe has not confined herself
to employing her population exclusively in natural production,
t- e. the direct extraction of the wealth of nature, whether it be
agficulture, fisheries, mining etc., but has to an increasing ex-
tent concentrated on the refinement of the products of nature,
her own as well as that of others. Europe has in fact been to