POPULATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 159, 23 February 1871, Page 5

POPULATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Tho issue of the Colonial " Statistical Abstract," presented to Parliament by the Board of Trade, shows us, year by year, the vastness and the progress of our empire beyond the aeas. This little annual Blue Book has now come down to 1863. Beginning with British India, we find the area under British administration roturne 1 as 910.353 square miles, with a population of 155,333/090 souls ; there are also under British protection native States, governed by native chiefs, occupying an area estimated at 646,147 square miles, with a population (so far as can be ascertained; of 48,245,888 . souls. The Straits settlements, now transferred to the Colonial Office, have their 1,225 square miles, with a population in (3862) of 282,831. Ceylon contributes 24,454 square miles, with 2,081,395 inhabitants ; and we may enumerate here Labuan, with its 45 square miles and (in 1881) 2,373 people ; Mauritius, with its 708 square miles and 324,402 of population ; and Hon-_r Kong with its 32 square mile 3 and (1861) 1 L 9,321 inhabitants. We pass next to younij and vigorous Australia, and, including New Zealand, we have an area of 2,582,070 square mile 3 and 1,788,055 souls in 1868— a number now fast approaching 2,000,000. Crossing the great Pacific we reach British North '\merica. Canada, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia an area of 632,418 square miles— had in 1808 a population of 4,114,150; but that is only a fraction of the whole British territory in North America, cultivated and wild, settled and awaiting settlement. Coming to the Atlantic, we pass Bermuda, with its twenty-four square mile 3 and 11,881 of population ; aud then we come to our West Inlia Islands, with their 12,683 square miles and 934,197 of population in 1861, now more that a million. On the American continent there is Honduras, with its 13,500 square miles, aud its 30,000 people ; and British Guiana, with 76,000 square miles, and 141,026 of population in 1861. Passing the Falkland Islands, with their 7,600 square miles and 653 people, and St. H 3 lena, with its 47 square miles, and its 6,860 inhabitants, we reach Africa. The colony at the Cape of Good Hope has 200,610 square miles and (in 18G5) 566,158 souls ; Natal, 10,145 square miles and 274.828 people ; Sierra lnona and other African settlements, 6,489 square miles and 205,789 people. Gibraltar and Malta close the li3t. The area of the United Kingdom and its possessions abroad is, therefore, 4,609,000 square miles, without reckoning our great territory, yet unsurveyed, in North America ; and the population, over which Queen Victoria reigns is nearly 200,000,000, or at least one-seventh of the population of the world,