kets.

CHAPTER XIII.

COLONISATION.

Patriotism is a necessary link in the golden chain of our affections and virtues. It is a false philosophy to believe that cosmopolitism is nobler than nationality, and the human race a sublimer object of love than a people. The powers of men are most fitly exercised in a circle defined by human affections, whence they spread without confusion through a common sphere, like the vibrations propagated in the air by a single voice, distinct, yet coherent, and all uniting to express one thought and the same feeling.-COLERIDGE, The Friend.

New mar- EXCLUDED from the principal manufacturing countries by a protectionist policy, it is to the colonies, and to the half-civilised countries, that we must look for new openings for the expansion of our trade. The development of our commerce in this direction will afford us additional satisfaction, in that the results arising from our success must be mutually beneficial.

Africa.

We cannot create a trade with Africa or New Guinea without first raising those countries in the scale of nations. We must co-operate with the native populations in the development of their resources, we must help them to accumulate wealth, or they cannot purchase our goods.

Statesmen and merchants, in their efforts to procure new outlets for commerce, may wisely direct their attention to Africa-that vast untravelled continent, with a population of from 350 to 400 millions

of people, and where 500,000 human beings, according to Mr. Bradshaw's computation, are annually destroyed in the wars that are carried on for the capture of slaves. The first condition to be fulfilled is the establishment of peace and order among these savage

races.

China, again, has been well described by the China. 'Quarterly Reviewer as a storehouse of men and means. Its outer door has scarcely yet been opened. The future of the commerce with China is dimly shadowed forth in Professor Levi's calculation. Assuming,' he says, 'the population of the world to be considerably over a thousand million human beings, that at the very minimum they will require food and clothing to the value of 10l. per annum each, and that not more than half that amount is produced in the same countries in which the consumption takes place, the aggregate exports will be increased from the present total of a thousand millions to more than three thousand millions. If the productive power of the world is great, the consuming power is still greater. The field of international commerce, present and future, is yast, and what we see of its progress gives but an imperfect idea of its probable expansion.'

trade.

The recent fluctuations in trade afford abundant Colonial evidence of the importance of the colonies to the mother country from a commercial, no less than a political, point of view. While our commerce with the continent of Europe, and with the United States, has been contracted, our exportations to our colonies have steadily increased. This valuable source of employ

ment to our population has been developed, partly because national sympathies exert an influence in trade as in higher things, but mainly because no tariff, exceptionally unfavourable to the mother country, has been imposed. If an import duty is levied, it is levied impartially on the products of all countries. In her commercial relations with her colonies, England may rest assured that she will always be placed on the footing of the most favoured nation.'

The Commissioners of Customs in their last Report direct particular attention to the elasticity exhibited in our colonial trade. Taking for the points of comparison the years 1872 and 1877, we find that the value of the exports to foreign countries diminished from 195,701,350l. to 128,969,7157., a difference of 66,731,635, or 34.1 per cent., and that the value of the exports to the British possessions increased from 60,555,9971. to 69,923,350l., or 15.5 per cent.

'This is so far satisfactory as showing that, notwithstanding the decline in our exports generally, we have as yet encountered no serious competition in the supply of manufactured articles, such as apparel, cotton, yarn and piece goods, haberdashery, hardware, and cutlery, leather, wrought (especially boots and shoes), machinery and millwork, iron and steel, paper of all sorts, and woollen and worsted goods, to our own colonies.'

In the year 1877, there was a decrease of 6,811,000. in the value of British exports to foreign countries; while the export trade to the colonies increased by 5,000,0647.

tances

emigrants.

These figures afford a convincing testimony of the Remitvalue of our colonial connection to our trade and com- from merce; and it is not alone by their demand for the produce of her looms and ironworks that the colonies lend their valuable support to the mother country. Large remittances are sent home to their less fortunate relatives by successful emigrants. Between 1848 and 1876 the emigrants to the colonies and the United States are estimated to have remitted no less than 19,800,000l. In many instances large fortunes are brought home, or at least the proceeds of colonial enterprise and investments are spent in the mother country.

value of

tion.

Emigration confers reciprocal advantages on the Money colonies. Mr. Graham has made an interesting calcu- emigralation of the wealth which the United Kingdom has bestowed on the colonies by emigration. The United Kingdom sent forth in the thirty-nine years, 1837-1876, eight million emigrants, chiefly to the English-speaking nations in America and Australia. Mr. Graham estimates the value of the emigrants at 175l. per head.

Commenting on this extensive emigration, he remarks that the average money value of the emigration from the United Kingdom since 1837 may be estimated at 35,000,000l. a year.

Growth of the colonies. Austral

The Australian Governments did wisely in seizing the opportunity, afforded by the recent Exhibition in Paris, of setting before the world some striking evidences of the results achieved by this extensive emigration into countries possessed of great national resources, and wanting only the hand of man to convert a wilderness into a garden.

A still more accurate and complete knowledge may be gained in the volumes of Mr. Wilson, from which I have derived so much assistance in the preparation of these papers. The Colonial Abstract published by our Statistical Department contains a mass of well-arranged

statistics.

The total yield of gold in Australia and New Zealand, since the first discovery in Victoria, was estimated by Mr. Wells at 247,000,000l.; but the value of gold is small compared with the accumulation of agricultural wealth. According to the tables appended to the Agricultural Returns of Great Britain for 1876, the Australian colonies own altogether about 52,000,000 sheep; New Zealand has nearly 12,000,000. The number of sheep in Russia is estimated at 48,000,000; in France, 26,000,000; in Germany, about 22,000,000; and in the United States, 34,000,000. New South Wales has more than 3,000,000 head of horses and cattle.

Mr. Read's essay on New South Wales contains a striking summary of the growth of the population, and of the trade of the Antipodes. The population of Australia increased in thirty years from 214,000 to 2,000,000, or 834 per cent. The population of the