Account of the Number of Persons, distinguishing between Males and Females, belonging to the different Divisions of the United Kingdom in 1841; showing, also the Number of Houses in each, with the Number of Persons chiefly occupied in Agriculture, Trade, Manufactures, &c,

Total of U. K. 13,281,702 13,737,856 27,019,558 4,794,820 230,837 33,647

Abstract Account of the Numbers, Ages, and Sexes of the Persons in different Occupations in Great Britain. (Returned in the Census of 1841.)

Abstract Account of the Numbers, Ages, and Sexes of Persons, &c.-continued.

It would be very desirable to have a table representing the numbers and incomes of the different ranks and orders of the people. Unfortunately, however, we are without any materials for its construction. The classification in the population returns, as given above, is but very rude, and little to be depended on; and we are absolutely destitute of any means by which to form any estimate of the average income of any one of the leading classes. It is seen from the details elsewhere given, (ante, p. 404,) that the amount of income assessed to the property tax, in 1842-43, including the dividends on the national debt, and the salaries and incomes to public servants, amounted to 171,078,8997.: but all incomes of less than 150l. a-year are exempted from the operation of the Act; so that we can only guess at their gross amount.

The population of Great Britain may, as already seen, (vol. i., p. 449,) be taken at present (1846) at about 20,000,000. We have, however, no authentic details by which to measure the average annual incomes of any pretty considerable number of individuals in the various ranks and orders of life; and without knowing the numbers in each class, a

knowledge of the average incomes of the individuals belonging to it would not enable us to form a correct estimate of the average income of the people generally. But, in the absence of authentic data, we incline to think we shall not be very wide of the mark if we estimate the average annual income of the people of Great Britain at from 18/. to 197. each, or at 927. 10s. at a medium for every family of five persons. This, taking the population at 20,000,000, would give a total gross income of 370,000,000l. We offer this merely as a rude approximation. But, how diminutive soever it may appear, when contrasted with some late estimates, we are pretty well satisfied that, if it be not materially beyond, it is, at all events, not much within, the mark. The late Lord Liverpool, who was well versed in questions of this sort, stated, in his place in the House of Lords, on the 26th of February, 1822, that he estimated the annual income of the people of Great Britain at from 250,000,000l. to 280,000,000. And we believe we shall not be far wrong if we estimate it, at this moment, at from 360,000,000l. to 380,000,000l.

Considering the poverty and destitution of the great bulk of the Irish people, their incomes must be inconsiderable indeed, compared with those of the people of Britain. We should not, in fact, be inclined to estimate them at above 71. 7s. or 77. 10s. each, at an average of the population.

CHAPTER VI.-COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES.

No work descriptive of the British empire could have any pretensions to completeness that omitted to notice its colonies and dependencies. It would, however, be inconsistent alike with the objects and the limits of this work to enter into any detailed investigations, with respect to their statistics. Our object has been to exhibit the physical capabilities, the industry, wealth, and institutions of the British nation; and our colonies and foreign dependencies are connected with our subject only in those respects in which they may be supposed to contribute to, or diminish, our wealth and prosperity.

Our colonies consist of the extensive provinces of the Canadas, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, &c., in North America; of Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the other islands subject to our sway in the West Indies; of Demerara and Berbice in South America; and of the colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, &c., in South Africa and Australia. The vast empire of Hindostan, of which we are now the uncontrolled masters, is a dependent or tributary kingdom. Malta and Gibraltar are to be regarded as mere fortified stations or strongholds: and the Ionian Islands form a sort of semi-independent state, of which Great Britain is protector.

Advantages of Colonial Establishments. However extensive and valuable, our colonies confer on us no direct advantage. The attempt made in the early part of the reign of George III. to compel the American colonists to contribute towards the public revenue of the

empire eventually led to that disastrous war which terminated in their independence. Since then we have renounced all attempts to tax the colonies for any purpose, except that of their own internal government and police. They contribute nothing directly to the general revenue of the empire. The fleets and armies required for their protection in war, and their security in peace, are all supplied by the British nation, and cost them nothing. Whatever benefits they confer on us result entirely, or almost entirely, from the commercial intercourse we carry on with them, the opening they afford to emigrants from this country, and the facilities they give to British adventurers for making fortunes, with which they may return to their native land.

The policy pursued with respect to India is different. It is subjected to very heavy taxes, and is not only made, in as far as practicable, to defray the cost of the armaments required for its protection, but a surplus revenue has occasionally, also, been transmitted from India to England. A large number of Englishmen are besides employed, at good salaries, in administering the government of India; and the opportunities it affords to these and other descriptions of adventurers for making fortunes are much greater than those afforded by any of our colonies.

The advantages derived from the possession of such strongholds as Malta and Gibraltar are altogether of a political nature, consisting principally in the shelter they afford to our fleets, and, consequently, in the means they afford for protecting our commerce, and for the annoyance of our enemies during war. Every commercial and maritime nation that takes a just view of its real interests will always take care to possess itself of some such fortified positions.

Were this the proper place for entering upon such inquiries, it might be very easily shown that the advantages supposed peculiarly to belong to the colony trade, are in a great degree imaginary. No considerable colony will ever import any material quantity of goods from the mother-country, unless they be, at the same time, the cheapest and most suitable for her markets; and if they have this quality, the chances are ten to one that the colony would continue to import them were she to become independent. It is not by dint of custom-house regulations, but exclusively through the agency of comparatively cheap goods, that all great markets are acquired in the first instance, and are subsequently preserved. All the guarda costas and tyrannical regulations of Old Spain could not hinder her trans-Atlantic possessions from being overrun with the manufactured products of other countries. And were any competitor to come into the field capable of supplying the Canadians with woollens, cottons, or hardware, on lower terms than we can supply them, we should be effectually shut out of their markets. It is not, therefore, to the fact of a country being a colony that we are to ascribe the circumstance of our carrying on a great free trade with it; but to the fact of our being able to supply it, or of its being able to supply us, with one or more articles or products in considerable demand on cheaper terms than it or they can be supplied from any other quarter. And a circumstance of this sort would, in most cases, lay the foundations of as extensive a trade with an independent state as with a colony.

Admitting that it were possible-which, however, it rarely is-to compel a colony to purchase articles from the mother-country with which she might supply herself cheaper elsewhere, that would be of no advantage to the parent state, how injurious soever to the colony. Every country has some peculiar departments in which she possesses either a natural or an acquired advantage over others; and in which, consequently, it is most for her interest that her capital and industry should be principally employed. But the articles she compels the colony to take from her are plainly not of this description; and by continuing to produce them, and to force them upon the colony, she retains a portion of her capital and labour in a comparatively disadvantageous business, doing an injury to herself as well as to those she obliges to buy the dear articles.

A country which founds a colony on the liberal principle of allowing it to trade freely with all the world, necessarily possesses considerable advantages in its markets, from identity of language, religion, customs, &c. These are natural and legitimate sources of preference, of which it cannot be deprived; and these, combined with equal or greater cheapness of the products suitable for the colonial markets, will give its merchants the complete command of them. But all attempts at forcing a trade with colonies are sure to be pernicious alike to the mother-country and the colony; and make that intercourse a source of poverty and ill-will, which, if let alone, would be a source of reciprocal advantage.

In

The state of the trade with Canada may be referred to in proof of what has now been stated. It employs a large number of ships and seamen, and seems, to a superficial observer, highly valuable. truth and reality, however, it is decidedly the reverse. Two-thirds, or more, of the trade with Canada is forced and factitious; originating in the excess of 40s. a load formerly imposed on timber from the north of Europe, over and above what was imposed on that brought from a British settlement in North America; and which excess, notwithstanding the reduction it has undergone, and is to undergo, will amount to about 14s. a load from the 5th of April, 1848. This tempts us to resort to Canada, whence we import an inferior article at a higher price. The disadvantages of this impolitic system are numerous and glaring. To a manufacturing country, having a great mercantile and warlike navy, timber is an indispensable necessary; and yet, instead of supplying ourselves with it where it may be found best and cheapest, we load the superior and cheaper article with a high comparative duty; and thus do the most we can to make our houses and ships be built, and our machinery constructed, of what is inferior and dear! But the mischief does not stop here. By lessening the imports of the timber of the north of Europe, we proportionally lessen the power of the Russians, Prussians, Swedes, and Norwegians, to buy our manufactured goods; while, by forcing the importation of timber from Canada, we withdraw the attention of its inhabitants from the most profitable employment they can carry on, that is, from the cultivation of the soil, and make them waste their energies in comparatively disadvantageous pursuits! Such, either in a less or a greater degree, is the uniform result of all attempts to interfere with the natural order of things, and