OUR COLONIES.

West Coast Times, Issue 109, 23 January 1866, Page 3

OUR COLONIES.

(From All 11/e Year Hound,)

Dear old Mrs. Britannia has n family of forty-six children. Some members of the family are infantine ; some are in lusty early, manhood ; while others arc so matured in ago, wealthy in pocket, and self-governed in general economy, that the tic that binds them to homo is a very slight one. Recently, for tho first time, these forty-six children, her colonies, have sent in their accounts in such form that the mother country knows how each has thriven for fourteen consecutive years. Collectively, these coloniesand foreign possessions of Britannia cover an area of considerably more than four million square miles — equal to the whole of Europe, and a great deal to spare. India claims ono of these millions, and Western Australia nearly another ; and so they go down, down, down in size, to Gibraltar, which is a distinct and isolated British possession although not a colony, and barely covers two square miles. Several of the others aro very small, such as St. Helena with its fifty square miles, Hong-Kong with thirty, Bermuda with twenty-four, and Gambia with twenty; but small as they are, each has its own governor.

Then, as to population, we. make up not much less than thirty millions souls it the British islands; and yet Britannia's possessions over the seas contain two hundred millions. India as overwhelmingly exceeds all tho rest in this particular, that we must leave that outi if we would compare the growth of the colonies proper, between the years fifty and sixty- three (the two years winch begin niid end the series). ' Wo then see that tho North American colonies increased from two and a half to three and a half millions. But far more wonderful were ihc Australian colonies ; they had less than half a million inhabitants collectively in the first of tho years ; they had a million and a quater in the second. When we consider that, exception made of tho babies born on the spot, most of these seven or eight hundred thousand additional persons travelled ten thousand miles and more to get there, we cannot help regarding it as a really wonderful migration — not so wonderful as that of the Irish to America in regard to numbers, but more so in regard to the immense distance. The world presents few contrasts more remarkable than that between the density of population in two of these foreign possessions of our old mother. British India and Western Australia are not fur from equal in size; yet, the one, contains as many inhabitants as two-thirds of the whole of Europe ; while the other does not contain one quarter as many as Clerkeuwcll parish. In the one, the peoplo are obliged to puck nearly two hundred to every square mile ; in the other, every man, if tho population were spread evenly, would stand alone in the middle of a region of sixty square miles.

The forty-six colonies hav\ nearly all of them, spent more than they- have earned. They have not taxed themselves to the extent uf their annual expenditure ; and, as a consequence, they have had to borrow, at it much higher rate of interest, too, than tho old country pays. India owed sixty millions sterling just before her troubles began in connection with the mutiny ; by the time they were well ovor, she owed ono hundred millions, a token that mutinies are rather expensive. New South Wales boasts of six millions of debt, Victoria of eight, Canada of twelve millions. Big Western Australia, the most sleepy and stagnant of all our colonies, si>ls down her debt at precisely seyenteei} bundled and

fifty pounds. Roundly speaking, nobody docs anything in this last-nuned place, nobody has any money, nobody buys or sells, nobody lends or borrows, nobody wants any woi'kmcn, and nobody could find them if he did ; but everybody wants to go away, unless the Government will continue tq support tho place as a penal settlement. A great many ships of course visit |he forty-six colonies in a year, mostly sent out from the home country. India doubled tho tonnage of ships, entered and cleared, between fifty and sixtythree. So did Ceylon, and Mauritius, and New South Wales, and tho North American colonies ; but so did not the West Indies, which, somehow or other, have never recovered from tho effects of negro emancipation. New Zealand much more than doubled this item ; while Victoria took a giant stride, despatching and receiving seven times as many ship I*,1 *, or tons of shipping, at the end as at the beginning of this period of fourteen years. Only think of ten million, tons of British shipping, irrespective of foreign and colonial, entering and leaving our colonies in a year, all of it having to mako voyages from three to twelve thousand miles to get there !

Now what have these children bought from the old country during the fourteen years ? How far have they spent their money or bartered their goods in a way to benefit her ? Here tho importance of the gold discoveries becomes very manifest. Four of tho colonies, at any rate, have had nuggets and dust to give in exchange for bonnets, boots, Bass, buttons, brandy, and brad-awls ; and they have shown a wonderful capacity for appropriating these and other commodities. India and Ceylon, not owiug to any gold' discoveries in those countries, but owing to the natural development of evciy kind of commerce, inereascd their import of British cargoes from eight millions to twenty millions sterling in three years. The North American colonies increased theirs from three to six millions. But look at the wonderful Australian group. New South Wales bought fourfold as much from us in 'sixty three as in 'fifty, " Victoria fourteen times as much. Only imagine that, in one single year, cargoes were shipped from tho United Kingdom, to go eleven or twelve thousand miles over the ocean, and landed at some or other of the Australian ports, to tho valuo of eighteen millions sterling; only imagine this, and we shall get some remote idea of the extent of the trade relations between England and those distant colonies. From the year when gold was discovered iv Australia, English manufacturers derived almost as decided and sudden an advantage as if the precious metal had come to light iv our own tiny island. All the implements for extracting and working the* gold came from hence ; and when the nuggets and dust were exchanged for coined sovereigns, these were readily and even lavishly exchanged for comforts and luxuries brought fiom the old country. How striking tho prosperity of the colonies tells upon the old country ,is shown as much by the negative results in tho vvest Indies as by the positive- results in Australia. iji tho former no gold has been discocovered, no new industrial resources developed ; tho negro will not work hard, now that he is a freeman ; the planters have not in them the dash and daring of English capitalists ; they are frightened at what Cuba can do in competition with them ; their sugar and rum and molasses do not bring them in so much as in bygone years ; they have not much money to spend on English commodities ; the condition of their islands is not such as to attract emigrants from tho old country; and thus it happens that our dealings with the West Indies collectively are not advancing. •We actually sent over less to Jamaica, Antigua, Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent, Barbadoes, Grenada, and Tobago, iv .'sixty-three than in 'fifty. There was one enoronous exception to this stagnation ! tho Bahamos imported thirty or forty times as much as was her wont. 13ut Bahama wanted very littlo (if these good things for herself, and could not have paid for them if&ho had ; tho game of blockaderunning was being played in 'sixtythree ; and Bahama was a house of call for ships whose owners and crews were quite ready to make profit out of the troubles between Federals and Confederates.

Of course it follows naturally that tho cicumstanees which enable some of the colonies to import more lnrgly than heretofore operate in augmenting their exports likewise. Victoria, for instance, which exported to the value of about a million sterling in eighteen: , hundred and fifty, rose to the magnificent figure of thirteen million^ in 'sixty-three: and of this tolal more than seven millions were in gold, actual gold, either already refined, or in more or less quart/, or granular state. Tho other colonies did,not tell up so brilliantly ; but still they showed what gold d^qsitsean do; seeing that New South \ .>\V^ raised her exports from two to seven millions, New Zealand from a mere drop to three millions, South Australia from half a million to two millions and a half. The Australian group altogether made up thir teen, millions sterling of their exports in the shape of <>old. This is a marvellous thing, certainly, in ono year. And even British Columbia, 6 iii America, is beginning to tell upon the gold market in Europe.

Almost equal in commercial interest to the Gold question is that which relates to Cotton. Here have we been, for four years, hungering and thirsting for tliose delicate littlo white fibres ; the planter* of tho United State;! woveforbidden to send their cotton to u,s j

and as four-fifths of our supply had for many years been obtained from them, the result was a veritable famine in this commodity. How nobly tho Lancashire operatives bore their sufferings ; 1 ow liberally the other classes of tho coun'ry came to their assistance ; how wildly the Liverpool merehaniß speculated on tho rapidly rising value of the small quantity of cotton — it is not here to tell. But it may fittingly be told how astonishingly the calamity benefited such of our colonies as were able to grow this much-coveted substance. In eighteen hundred and fifty, three millions steiling was paid for all the cotton wo obtained from tho colonies, including India ; whereas in sixty-threo we paid six times as much to that one country alone. Nearly twenty millions sterling value of goods and silver (they do not want much gold currency in India) were sent out in exchange for (say) fivo hundred million pounds of cotton. India ought to have benefited greatly by this unexpected chance. There is too much reason to fear, however, that tho actual cultivator.", the ryots or peasant proprietors, obtained but a very small share of the enormously increased price for this cotton ; it was filtered among a number of dealers and middlemen, and gave enormous profits to tho native Bombay merchants — Messrs Boobooje.o, Rumtunvjee, Jamtoljcc, Wacfoljce, and the rest of them. Let tho reader remember that cotton used to be sold at a fair profit for twopence per pound at Bombay ; let him calculate what price is denoted by twenty millions sterling for five Hundred million pounds of cotton ; and then he will see how much reason Bombay has had to rejoice at the shot which tho Southerns fired on Fort Sumter. Provoking it is, certainly, to bo told that in tho West Indies, which used to send us a respectablo quantity of cotton, the commercial arrangements of the planters, and tho laziness of emancipated negroes, have caused tho cultivation almost to dio out. lii our dire and sore distress, when we wanted cotton from anywhere, everywhere, the Wet India Islands .sent us only driblets, telling little in the great account. In the Australian colonies labour is too high-priced, except as a partial experiment; and somehow or other, most of the other colonies failed in coming to the rescue. Thus it happens that India is almost tho only foreign possession of lingland which has responded to our cry for cotton during tho late war.

Gold and Cotton — thirteen millions' worth of tho one, twenty millions' worth of tho other ! these are tho mighty items which tho •' forty-six chidren sent to us one year. But there Avero great doings in bther commodities likewise The Australian colonies sent us wool to the value of two millions in eighteen hundred and fifty; but so rapidly did their sheep grow, and so well werovthey attended to, that tho export more than trebled by the year 'sixty-tliree ; while that of hides and skins multiplied seven-fold. Go we to India; there wo find that dyes, hides, skins, opium, jute, rice, salt etre, seeds, silk, sugar, and wool, made up a magnificent tolal of twentyfive millions sterling — not all sent to us, certainly ; for Pooh Pooh Whang Chop is tho buyer of tho chief item, opium. Go we to Ceylon ; thero wo find coffee and cocoa-nut oil, the two chief items, rising nearly threefold in amount in tho stated fourteen years. Go we to Canada, and the other American colonies ; there we find that the chief items sent us aro timber, dried fish, potash, corn, and flour — treble as much in tho last-named as in the first- named' yem\ So completely fishy is Newfoundland that all the chief articles of exports smell of fish in some form or other. Look nt the list : — two million cwt. of dry codfish, three hundred thousand seals (we beg. pardon for calling a seal a fish, but he will paddle about in the water), three thousand tons of cod-oil (perhaps not all cod-liver, and four thousand tons of seal oil. Go we to tho West Indies ; there we find coffee, rum, sugar, molasses, and cocoa. .The throe principal islands send us o little over two millions' worth of these commodities ; but this was not such an increase beyond tho year 'fifty as cught to have been exhibited, or . s would have been exhibited if those islands were wt'il managed. The reader will not be wearied by tho" above few round numbers. It really is interesting to see what aro the chief articles which our foity-six children can sell to us, and how far' they differ from each other in this matter. '

Nor will it bo a waste of time to see what sorts of things they are willing to buy from us in return. Clothing, and the materials for clothing, figure in a remarkable degree. Apparel and slops, millinery and haberdashery, hats and bonnets, boots and shoes, silks and woollens, linens and laces, the work of the needle and the spindle and the loom — what would the vender suppose our colonies took of these in sixty-three ? Twenty-five millions sterling. It really is one of the most astonishing things in our eomtnerco ; for these are not merely the raw materials of industry ; they aro articles on which millions of fingers have been employed iv the old country, millions of mouths fed or partially fed. livery throb of success or failure in India or Australia is sensibly felt by those who work upon textile goods in England. If we do not all form one family, more shame to us ; for our colonies will buy of us as much and as rapidly as wo of them. And then, if twenty -five millions are spent upon clothing, how much upon, food and drink V About eighteen millions sterling. Not that it costs less to fill the belly fomv to clothe, the b*ick; but that tliVj

colonies do more to grow their own food than to grow and make the 'materials for their clothing ; and thus the money thoy spend to buy the former from other eountricK is relatively lessTho colonials are either thirsty souls, or clso they think English beer and ale, paramount to all others ; for they .swallow theso famous boveragos to an astonishing extent. Mr Bass, and Mr Allsopp, and Bnrton-upon-Trent, would be great sufferers if India wore suddenly swamped ; she takes more than three millions gallons of ale and beer from us yearly ; most of it, we may be sure, in the form of pale ale. Now South Wales swallows two million gallons ; Victoria two million and a half; New Zealand a million ; Queensland and South Australia half a million between them. Even supposing those- colonists not to be able to mako good malt or grow good hops, tho freight of those articles from England would of course ' bo very much less than that of tho beverages brewed from them ; and we might suppose that the foaming t.inkni'ds would reasonably bo obtained iv this way. But no ; free trade allows ale and beer to flow hither and thither ns it will ; and the East Indians and Australians seem moro willing to pay the market price for Bass and Barclay than to turn brewers themselves. Clothing materials, food and drink, metals in various forms and stages of preparation — theso arc the throe great classes of imports from tho old country; and considering how weighty metals are, we may well bo surprised that it should be worth while to send thorn so far and in such largo quantities. Iron and steel, copper nnd brass, lead and tin, plates and sheets, bars and rods, castings nnd forgings, cutlery and tools, millwork and machines, manufactured goods — from tin-tacks up to steamengines — 'three millions sterling worth of these went to India in 'sixty-throe ; nnd indeed all tho forty-six children show that they understand tho productions of Birmingham, Sheffield, Low Moor, and Wolverhampton, as well as those of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Burton-upon-Trent.

Slightly Inoiu:wbm:. — A city paper men* tionM tho arrest of a woman in tho streets, "with nothing on her person but a love-letter and a daguerreotype "

A Good Fmjbce.— At tho recent show of tho MuiTumbidgoo Pnstoral Association, held uf; Wugga "Wnggn, Mr John Dow, of Togtmmain, oxhibilocl n two-tooth Rnmbouillet. in wool, which took ono prizo as tho bo9t ram in tho yiml, ns nlso imothcr for boing ono of tho three best two-tooths shown. Tho nnimnl wna shorn a fow days sinco, and tho flccco taken off wns found to weigh 151 b ldoz. — Dtiillitjiiln Chronicle,