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The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes
page 18 of 243 (07%)

When first the virgin soils of America came into bearing, the
proportions of the population of those continents themselves, and
consequently of their own local requirements, to those of Europe were
very small. As lately as 1890 Europe had a population three times that
of North and South America added together. But by 1914 the domestic
requirements of the United States for wheat were approaching their
production, and the date was evidently near when there would be an
exportable surplus only in years of exceptionally favorable harvest.
Indeed, the present domestic requirements of the United States are
estimated at more than ninety per cent of the average yield of the five
years 1909-1913.[5] At that time, however, the tendency towards
stringency was showing itself, not so much in a lack of abundance as in
a steady increase of real cost. That is to say, taking the world as a
whole, there was no deficiency of wheat, but in order to call forth an
adequate supply it was necessary to offer a higher real price. The most
favorable factor in the situation was to be found in the extent to which
Central and Western Europe was being fed from the exportable surplus of
Russia and Roumania.

In short, Europe's claim on the resources of the New World was becoming
precarious; the law of diminishing returns was at last reasserting
itself and was making it necessary year by year for Europe to offer a
greater quantity of other commodities to obtain the same amount of
bread; and Europe, therefore, could by no means afford the
disorganization of any of her principal sources of supply.

Much else might be said in an attempt to portray the economic
peculiarities of the Europe of 1914. I have selected for emphasis the
three or four greatest factors of instability,--the instability of an
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