AMONG the various and pressing interests, the consideration of which is now brought home to the British Empire, there is none which is of such paramount and growing importance as the extension of our Colonial Empire, and the securing of our connexion with it. The more minutely and anxiously that our social condition at home is considered, the more it will be found that the maintenance, not only of our domestic prosperity but of our national independence, is entirely dependent upon promoting the growth and maintaining the connexion with our colonies; and that our trade with other countries, so far from being a source of strength, may at once be converted into the greatest cause of weakness on the next occasion in which this country is engaged in a maritime contest. The facts on this subject which are to be found in our Parliamentary Reports are of the very highest importance, and perfectly decisive of the vast superiority of colonial to foreign commerce. Nevertheless, that they are very little known, even by those whose whole fortune and interests are wound up with the subject, appears in the most striking manner from the astonishment which the facts connected with this subject never fail to excite when stated to an intelligent and respectable assembly; and, unless these facts are constantly brought home to the public mind, and come at length to influence the measures of Government by the accumulated force of public thought, it may confidently be predicted that a catastrophe, at some future and possibly not distant period, awaits the British empire, greater, perhaps, than has ever yet befallen any civilized nation.

We have now been so long in the enjoyment of profound peace, and in the possession of an export commerce to every quarter of the globe, that the older part of the present generation have forgotten, the younger never have experienced, what it was to have the export trade of England to nearly all but its own colonies closed by foreign hostility. Fortunately, how ever, the experiment has been tried, and a durable monument remains of

the consequences which result to all classes in this country from such a stoppage in the vent for our produce. In the year 1811, the hostility of Napoleon had closed all the harbours in Europe against our commerce, while the Americans, by a new Intercourse Act, shut us out from every harbour in the United States. The consequence was, that the exports of Great Britain, which, in the year 1810, amounted to forty-three millions, sank in the next year to twenty-seven; and the fall in the exports and imports taken together for the one year, amounted to no less than thirty-six millions. Mr Brougham, in terms no less just than eloquent, in the debate upon the Repeal of the Orders in Council in 1812, thus described the state to which the manufacturing districts in England were reduced by this calamity :-" Take, for example, one of our great staples, the hardware, and look to Warwickshire, where it used to flourish. Birmingham and its neighbourhood, a district of thirteen miles round that centre, was formerly but one village, I may say one continued workshop, peopled with about 400,000 of the most industrious and skilful of mankind. In what state do you now find that once busy hive of men? Silent, still, and desolate during half the week; during the rest of it miserably toiling at reduced wages, for a pittance scarcely sufficient to maintain animal life in the lowest state of comfort, and at all times swarming with unhappy persons, willing, anxious to work for their lives, but unable to find employment. He must have a stout heart within him, who can view such a scene and not shudder. But even this is not all: matters are getting worse and worse; the manufacturers are waiting for your decision, and if that be against them they will instantly yield to their fate, and turn adrift the people whom they still, though inadequately, support with employment." -" In the West Riding of Yorkshire, the applications to the parish officers have so alarmingly increased, that they have given repeated warnings to the master manufacturers, and I believe to the higher authorities,

of their utter inability to relieve the increasing distress, or to answer for its consequences. Among other circumstances which marked this part of the case, there was one peculiarl affecting to every one who heard it. It had been proved that at Kidderminster, where the great carpet manufacture is almost entirely destroyed, the wants of the poor became so pressing, that they were forced to part with their little stock of furniture, which used to make their cottages in some degree comfortable, and even the clothes off their backs, to raise food, until the pawnbrokers, having already loaded themselves with such deposits, refused to issue any more tickets. But at Sheffield the same feature recurred in a heightened and still more striking form. The workmen in the cutlery trade, unable to obtain any longer their usual market from the master dealers and merchants, or brokers refusing to purchase any more, were compelled to pawn their articles at a very low valuation for money, and even for food and clothes; so that this extraordinary state of things arose-the pawnbrokers came into the London market with the goods, and there met with the regular dealers, whom they were able greatly to undersell, in such wise as to supply to a considerable degree the London and other markets, to the extreme augmentation of the distresses already so severely pressing upon this branch of trade."*

Now, in order to appreciate the misery that would ensue to this country from a similar stoppage in its export trade at the present time, we have only to reflect upon the vast increase of exports, imports, and population, which have since taken place; we have only to recollect that our exports, which in 1810 were forty-three millions, had, in 1838, risen to one hundred and five millions; and that our imports, which in 1809 were thirty-one millions, had risen in 1838 to sixty-one millions; and that our population, which at the former period was seventeen millions, is now twenty-five. Now, if such wide-spread and heart-rending misery was produced then, what would be its effects now, when the manufacturing establishments of the country have nearly

tripled, and our manufacturing population has advanced in a proportion unheard of in any other age or coun.. try? It may confidently be affirmed, that the misery, devastation, and social convulsions that would ensue, would be greater than ever yet were experienced in the world.

If we look at the jealousy with which we are regarded by foreign powers, and the general aspect of the political world at this time, we shall see no reason to believe that the elements of strife are awanting in the political atmosphere, or that the time is far distant when war, even on as great a scale as it was waged with Napoleon, must be undertaken by the British empire. With Russia, it is universally admitted, we are in a state closely bordering on hostility; it is only a question of time when that gigantic contest is to arrive. The menacing aspect of the Baltic, of the thirty ships of the line lying ready, and thirty thousand land troops ready at a moment's warning to embark in themof the Dardanelles, where fifteen British ships of the line are constantly stationed at the back-door of the Russian empire-of Affghanistan, where twenty thousand British troops are permanently stationed in the very heart of Asia, -all demonstrate that both parties are preparing for this great contest, and that it will be carried on on a scale which will render the world itself the field of battle. And on whom are we to rely for maritime support in such a contest? Is it on the Austrians, who could not furnish a ship of the line or two frigates to save England from destruction? or on the French, who, what between dread of Nicholas, and separate interests at Algiers, have drawn off from the British alliance at the very first outbreak of hostilities in the Archipelago? or the Americans, whose government is so weak, and their hostility to this country so inveterate, that thousands of armed pirates have for two years back kept up an almost incessant warfare upon the Canadian frontier? Every thing indicates that a great maritime contest is not far distant, and that, when it does arrive, we will have to depend almost entirely upon our own resources for our defence.

And are these resources, then, particularly our maritime strength, in such a state as to warrant us in any reasonable expectations that we shall be able to maintain our maritime superiority in the contest, and avert the evils of actual blockade from the British harbours? The preparations of the enemy are well known: they have thirty ships of the line and eighteen frigates constantly in commission in the Baltic, and fifteen ships of the line and twelve frigates constantly in readiness in the Euxine. Inconsidering the force which England has at her commaud to resist aggression from such an enemy, we shall not go back to the higher palmy days of British exertion during the war; we shall not go back to the year 1809, when the British navy

Line in Frigates in Line, ordinary
Commis.
and building.
124
70

1792, 26

1838, 21

Commis. 52 9

consisted of two hundred and forty-two ships of the line, and a thousand and sixty-one armed vessels of all sizes. We shall content ourselves with reverting to a humbler and more parallel period, viz. the state of the British navy in 1838 compared with 1792, before the revolutionary war commenced, and when the naval and military establishments of the country were on the scale to which Joseph Hume always refers as the ne plus ultra point of economic perfection. Now, upon turning to authentic documents, viz. the returns of the navy in 1792, given by Mr James in his Naval History,* we sball find that the defensive naval establishments of the country at the two periods stood as follows:

£24,904,850 105,170,549

Thus it appears that since 1792 the population of the British islands has more than doubled, the imports more than tripled, the exports more than quadrupled, and the commercial navy increased about seventy per cent., while the ships of war, in all branches, have sunk to nearly a half of their standard in 1792. This, too, has taken place during a time when the colonial empire of Great Britain has been multiplied above five-fold, and the chances of hostility with which we are brought in contact at different points over the globe, have been increased in a similar proportion. We invite the Whig Radical writers to examine and contradict these facts if they can, and submit them to the deliberate consider

Grand Total of all Vessels. 411

363

ation of all the sober reasoners, and of all the intemperate admirers of democratic wisdom throughout the realm.

It is impossible for any one who is a friend to his country to contemplate such a state of things without the most serious alarm-an alarm which is only rendered the greater from the experienced difficulty of getting such future and contingent events to arrest the attention either of Government or the nation in this unthinking age. But, above all, if the matter is seriously considered, and if we reflect upon the imminent hazards of a maritime war, the miserable state of preparation in which the British navy is to meet it, and the awful effects which will ensue by the stoppage of trade, and the blockade of our harbours by hostile squadrons, it must be evident that no more important subject of consideration ever was submitted to the attention of a thinking nation. And we dwell upon the subject with the more earnestness, because, when our situation as a whole is fairly looked in the face, and the policy which duty and interest alike prescribe, is adopted, there not only is no ground for alarm, but the most satisfactory prospects of future prosperity and welfare are opened on all sides to the nation. It is in our colonies that this source of strength is to be found; it is in our descendants on the other side of the Atlantic and the Pacific, that we are to look alike for the only certain market for our produce, and the only undecaying elements for our strength. Some very striking facts on this subject were brought forward upon the late dinner given upon the occasion of the embarking of the first emigrants to New Zealand, at Glasgow; and we willingly give a place to them here, as exhibiting, in a more striking light than has yet been done, the incalculable importance of the British colonies, not merely to the extension, but to the independence and existence of the mother country.

"Let us no longer strain," said Mr Sheriff Alison, "after the impracticable attempt to disarm the commercial jealousy of the European states; but, boldly looking our situation in the face, direct our main efforts to the strengthening, conciliating, and increasing of our Colonial Empire. There is to be found the bone of our bone, and the flesh of our flesh. There are to be found the true descendants of the Anglo-Saxon race; there the people, who, already imbued with our tastes, our habits, our artificial wants, must be chained for centuries to agricultural or pastoral employments, and can only obtain from the mother country the immense amount of manufactured produce which their growing wealth and numbers must require. So strongly, gentlemen, am I impressed with these principles so clearly do I see the future path traced out to England, not less by her duty than her interests, that there is no one circumstance in her present condition, not even those which are most justly considered as pregnant with danger and alarm, that may not be converted into

the source of blessings, if a decided and manly course is taken by the nation and its Government in regard to its colonial interests. Indeed, so clearly does this appear, that one is almost tempted to believe that the manifold political and social evils of our present condition, are the scourges intended by Providence to bring us back, by necessity and a sense of our own inte. rests, to those great national duties from which we have so long and so unaccountably swerved. Are we oppressed with a numerous and redundant population? Are we justly apprehensive that a mass of human beings, already consisting of five-and-twenty millions, and multiplying at the rate of a thousand souls a-day, will erelong be unable to find subsistence within the narrow space of these islands? Let us turn to the Colonies, and there we shall find boundless regions, capable of maintaining ten times our present population in contentment and affluence, and which require only the surplus arms and mouths of the parent state, to be converted into gigantic empires, which, before a century has elapsed, may overshadow the greatness even of European reAre we justly fearful that the increasing manufacturing skill and growing commercial jealousy of the Continental states may gradually shut us out from the European market, and that our millions of manufacturers may find their sources of foreign subsistence fail at a time when all home employments are filled up? Let us turn to the Colonies, and there we shall see empires of gigantic strength rapidly rising to maturity, in which manufacturing establishments cannot for centuries take root, and in which the taste for British manufactures, and the habits of British comfort, are indelibly implanted on the British race. Are we overburdened with the weight of our poor-rates and the multitude of our paupers, and trembling under the effect of the deep-rooted discontent produced in the attempt to withdraw public support from the maintenance of the adult and healthy labourer? Let us find the means of transporting these healthy workmen to our colonial settlements, and weshall conferas great a blessing upon them as we shall give a relief to the parent state. Are we disquieted by the rapid progress of corruption in our great towns, and alarmed at the enormous mass of female profligacy which, like a gangrene, infests these great marts of pleasure and opulence? Let us look to the Colonies, and there we shall find states in which the population is advancing with incredible rapidity, but in which the greatest existing evil is, the undue and frightful preponderance of the male sex; and all that is wanting to complete their means of increase is, that the proportion should be righted by the transfer to distant shores of part of the female population which now encumbers the British isles. Are the means to transport these numerous and indigent classes to these distant regions awanting, and has individual emigration hitherto been liable to the reproach that it removes the better class of our citizens who could do for themselves, and leaves the poorest who encumber the land? The British navy lies between, and means exist of transporting, at hardly any expense to the parent state, all that can ever be required of our working population from that part of the empire which they overburden, to that to which they will prove a blessing. Gentlemen, I agree with my eloquent and esteemed friend, Dr M'Leod, that it is astonishing the attention of Government has not ere this been turned to this subject. And why, I would ask, may not part, at least, of the British navy be constantly employed in transporting emigrants of all classes to our Colonial possessions? Why should two hundred vessels of different sizes, that are now in commission in the British navy, be employed only in useless parades, when hundreds of thousands on the British shores are pining for the means of transport across the seas, and millions of acres on the other side of the ocean, teeming with verdant fertility, await only their robust hands to be converted into a terrestrial paradise? Why should the British navy not be employed, like the Roman legions in time of peace, in works of public utility? and why should their efforts not construct causeways across the deep, which would bind together the immense circuit of the British Colonial dominions, as strongly as the highways constructed by the legions cemented the fabric of their mighty empire? In this view the last inconvenience attending a redundant pauper population that of being with diffi

culty removed, would be converted into an element of national strength, because it would induce all classes cheerfully to acquiesce in the duplication of our naval force, from which they all derive such obvious advantages; the navy would augment in size and grow in usefulness under such a salutary system; and the very quality which Adam Smith long ago remarked as the greatest obstacle to the improvement of the human race, that of being the lumber which it is of all others the most difficult to transport, would become the means of augmenting the maritime force of England, and strengthening the unseen chain which holds together the far distant provinces of its mighty dominion."

We cannot help thinking that the suggestion here made, of directing a part at least of the British navy to the removal of such part of our population as desire it, to our colonial possessions, is well worthy of the most serious consideration. It must be evident to every one who considers the extraordinary reduction which has taken place in our naval force during the last thirty years, and which has brought it down from two hundred and forty ships of the line to eighty, that we have fallen now into an economical and commercial generation; and that the rulers of the state, and the democratic constituencies who direct the rulers, are entirely governed by that passion for present economy, and that disregard of future objects, which is the invariable characteristic of the masses of mankind. No surprise need be excited at a democratic community being influenced by such want of foresight, when all the eloquence of Demosthenes was unable to persuade the most enlightened of the states of antiquity to take any steps to ward off the danger arising from the invasion of Philip of Macedon; and all the wisdom of Washington, was unable to communicate to the greatest republic of modern times, sufficient strength or foresight to prevent its capital being taken, and its arsenals pillaged, by a British division not four thousand strong. It is of the last importance, therefore, to discover some method by which the increase of the navy, evidently essential to our national independence, and to avert the horrors of the actual blockade of our