THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1334, 30 April 1885, Page 3

THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

The Chicago Herald (America) eays : " Let us not delude ourselves with fictitious greatness. There is another country at whose greatness we may pause for contemplation. Its area exceeds eight and a-half million square miles. The basis of its power is not land, but water. Its greatness is maritime, and its coast-line is 28,500 miles long. It lies on both sides of the equator, and its boundaries touch the extremities of heat and cold. Its uncultivated area, which can be made to feed unboro millions without help from America, covers millions of square miles. It contains one hundred thousand square miles of forest, which are being jealously preserved, while ours are being ruthlessly sacrificed. Its population amounts to 315,000,000 souls, including pretty nearly all the races known to man. Its revenue for government amounts to more than a thousand million dollars annually, only one fourth of which is levied in direct taxation. It has nearly a million men under arms. It has one policeman for every sixteen square miles of its entire area. Its 249 wtr vessels are all in commission, not rotting in harbors. Its merchant navy consists of 30,000 ships, manned by 270,000 sailors. It surpasses in stoamers all other powers on the globe, and nearly equals their combined totals in sailing vessels. 49 per cent, of the carrying power of the world is under its fl ; ig. More than half the ships' earnings from freights and passengers belong to it. Two-thirds of the tormngo annually built belongs to if. The banks of that Empire transit one-third the business of the entire world. Its manufactures compriwe one-third those of all Europe. Its enormous debt, which it uses as the most profitable investment of its own earnings, amounts to only 9 per cent, of the wealth which it has made by its exports. It 3 name is Great Britain. It sends its ships to every clime; it offers waree in every port; it asks no tax on articles offered in exchange ; and the cargoeß its ships carry back to their wharves enrich it as much as those they had borne away," .