PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY. throughout the civilized world, would not be complete without reference to the amazing development of the means of transit and of communication; and from a table of railway mileage published in 1882 it would appear that Germany comes first with 21,500 miles, followed by Great Britain, 18,200; France, 17,200; Russia, 14,600; Austria, 12,000; Italy, 5500; Spain, 4900; Sweden, 4600; Belgium, 2500; Switzerland, 1565; Holland, 1435; Denmark, 1160; Roumania, 920; Turkey, 870; Portugal, 660; and Greece, six miles. As for the receipts of British railway companies their total in 1869 was only £41,000,000; but it was £62,962,000 in 1880, £64,338,000 in 1881, and was still increasing. The receipts from thirdclass passengers, which specially illustrated the condition of the working-classes, increased from £7,000,000 in 1869 to £15,000,000 in 1880. In Great Britain there were 26,465 miles of telegraphic lines, as compared with 59,090 miles in Russia, 43,650 miles in France, 31,015 in Austria-Hungary, and 14,265 miles in Germany Germany coming first with the total length of wires, having 159,910 against 134,465 miles in Russia, 125,265 in France, and 121,720 in England. But the total number of messages in 1881 showed for England 29,820,445; France, 19,882,628; Germany, 16,312,457; Austria-Hungary, 8,729,321; and Russia only 7,298,422. In England the gross amount received and the gross amount expended in respect of the post-office telegraph service from the date of the transfer to the government to the 31st March, 1880, were remarkable. The gross amount received from 1870 to March 31, 1880, was £11,592,160, 18s. 3d. ; and the gross amount expended £9,920,597, 9s. 74d. In the year 1880 the gross amount received was £1,469,795, 68. 6d. The capital account amounted to £10,529,577. The computed population of England and Wales in 1871 was 22,760,359. In 1881 it was 25,798,922. The increase from 1840 to 1881 had been 10,068,109. In Scotland there were 3,666,375 persons in 1871, and 3,695,456 in 1881, an increase of 1,094,764 since 1840. In Ireland in 1871 the population was 5,386,708, 331 and in 1881 5,294,436, whereas in 1840 the population was estimated at 8,155,521, and increased in remarkably uncertain proportions till 1846, when the decrease commenced, which has continued chiefly through emigration in fits and starts, but during the years from 1845 to 1854 at a great rate, afterwards in less proportion till 1875, when the decrease on the previous year was 5350. In 1876, however, there began a definite increase on the population of 1875 of 12,124, and in the following year a further increase of 17,288. In 1879 and 1880 the increase was maintained at above 12,000 for each year, but fell again in 1880 to 226, and in 1881 had been replaced by a decrease of 32,663, a diminution which is somewhat significant as illustrating the results of that kind of agitation which stimulates to crime and outrage and removes the safeguards of society. The whole population of the United Kingdom in 1871 was 31,513,442, and in 1881 34,788,814. The population in the large towns has increased. Birmingham had increased from 340,000 to 400,000; Liverpool, from 493,000 to 552,000. Manchester had only slightly increased; but Salford had increased from 124,000 to 176,000; Bristol, from 182,000 to 206,000; Leeds, from 259,000 to 309,000; Leicester, from 95,000 to 122,000; Nottingham, from 129,000 to 186,000; and Coventry, from 41,000 to 47,000. The ratable value of Birmingham, Liverpool, and other towns has also greatly increased. The number of electors in 1880-81 was 2,399,370 in England, 138,440 in Wales, 310,218 in Scotland, and 229,461 in Ireland, making a total of 3,077,489. The assessments in counties, boroughs, and universities amounted to £418,223,601 English, £14,631,847 Welsh, £54,782,336 Scotch, and £34,222,230 Irish, or a total of £521,860,014. There has been an increase in the foreign trade, export and import, of the United Kingdom, as shown by the entries and clearances in the British ports, of 60 per cent in the ten years from 1870 to 1880. The volume of our trade has been continually increasing. The total real value of imports and exports from and to our colonial possessions was in 1865, £124,387,551; in 1875, £161,074,982; in 1881, £178,220,852, exclusive of bullion and specie. Our foreign exports and imports represented in 1865, £489,903,861; in 1875, £655,551,900; in 1881, £694,105,264, which was nearly three millions less than the totals of 1880. The real value of goods imported in 1875 was £373,939,577; in 1880, £411,229,565; and in 1881, £397,022,489; the value of British produce exported in 1875 was £223,465,963; and of foreign and colonial produce exported, £58,146,360. In 1880 the figures were £223,060,446 and £63,354,020; and in 1881, £234,022,678 and £63,060,097. In the forty-one years from 1840 the increase of the value of goods imported had risen in 1881, 540 per cent, the increased value per head of the population being £11, 78. 4d. as against £2, 78. 6d. The value of British produce and manufactures exported had risen from £51,308,740 to £234,022,678, or 356 per cent, and the proportion per head from £1, 18s. 9d. to £6, 14s. These figures are very full of suggestion. They mean a vast accession of comfort, a much larger supply of food, a remarkable improvement in the condition of the labouring population. They also suggest that with increasing freedom of commerce trade has increased, and that the national ledger shows under the head of foreign traffic the gigantic total of more than fourteen thousand millions sterling for the twenty-eight years from 1854 to 1881 inclusive. One more word on this subject. Since the remaining shilling duty and some other restrictions were removed from foreign grain in 1870, the proportion of food brought here from abroad has vastly increased. In the twenty-one years from 1849 to 1869 the importations were about 583,000,000 cwt. of wheat and wheat flour, 110,000,000 cwt. of barley, 109,000,000 cwt. of oats, 183,000,000 cwt. of maize, and a total, including large quantities of peas and beans, of 1,046,123,490 cwt. In the twelve years from 1870 to 1882 the figures were about 677,000,000 cwt. of wheat and wheat flour, 132,500,000 cwt. of barley, 143,500,000 cwt. of oats, 334,000,000 cwt. of maize, and a total of 1,334,701,083 cwt., a proportionate increase of sufficient magnitude to mark emphatically the date of the removal of the remaining restraints upon food supply. It must be remembered, too, that the increase in national prosperity has been accompanied by that steady and compatible increase of population which is itself sometimes an evidence of wellbeing. One glance may be taken at the vast extent and the constantly increasing commercial relations of that colonial empire the contemplation of which seems to dwarf the physical and numerical proportions, while it enhances our sense of the vigour and intense vitality of the portion of the realm in which we live. From the North American colonies to the teeming provinces of British India, from the West India Islands to Africa, Fiji, and the Australias, the computation is made from year to year, and may be regarded as approximately accurate when it recounts that the British Empire, including the United Kingdom, consists of an area of 7,926,737 square miles, with a population of 240,753,111, a revenue of £181,332,505, an expenditure of £189,153,411, a debt of £1,069,699,974; imports, including bullion and specie, of £491,345,959 value, exports of £393,078,218 value, and a total of shipping, inwards and outwards, but excluding the coasting trade, of 56,541,708 tons, of which 44,469,846 tons is British. With these stupendous figures this record may well close, for from the seeming dry bones of such statistics there should arise in the imagination of the reader a great living nation-a nation which has held a foremost place in the councils of the world, and has gone forth from the small island which is its central home, not only conquering and to conquer, but to increase and multiply and to replenish the earth. This "land of old and wide renown, where freedom slowly broadens down from precedent to precedent," has too often followed bad traditions, and yielded to unwise counsel in its relations to the world. It has gone out to fight when it might have made peace by bravely refusing to draw from the scabbard a sword of which all men knew and many had felt the smiting power; it has sometimes inter CONCLUSION. meddled with quarrels not its own, and turned them into conflicts that have stayed the onward march of mankind; it has more than once been duped by foreign statecraft and fooled by its own rulers, who threw high stakes for place and pride. British temper has occasionally appeared to be overbearing, or British policy has had a temporary look of truckling. But with all these faults Britain has stood forth in the main as the upholder of truth and justice, as the vindicator of freedom and the claims of human progress. The voice of the nation has many a time risen clear and strong above mere party cries, above the murmurs of those who thought either to lead or to drive, but found the halter shaken loose in their grasp, the goad piercing their own hands. Oftener still there has arisen some great leader like him whose name stands as part of the title of this book—a man clear in purpose, resolute, and strong; with his face set towards one goal, his life earnestly devoted to promoting, with unflagging zeal, the moral and political improvement of the country, the advancement of free institutions, and the progress of a higher education. One more word. Every reader of these pages, old or middle-aged or young, is in one way or other helping to make or to mar the 333 history of the country in the future. The young especially, who are presently to be the men and women to whom the position of England is to be intrusted, will have to stand in the world's great highway either as partisans or as patriots, and on their action the future progress of the nation will depend. They may by trying to face both ways persuade themselves that they are politicians. They may stand and block the road against their fellows, and profess that they are thereby acting for the security of the whole people. They may try to turn back the advancing army and for a moment make confusion in the ranks; they may be urged onward in breathless haste by pretentious, loudmouthed demagogues, and, missing the road, find themselves obliged to seek a way of escape from the mires of self-seeking, of unbelief and of false doctrine; or they may, with an eye that is single and full of light, pursue the course of peace, justice, and truth, and of that righteousness which exalteth a nation. The time is not far distant when a vaster multitude of men, if not every man and woman, will have a voice in the government of the country; but that time should not let us trust that it may not arrive till there is good reason to hope that no voice shall ring out with a treacherous or an uncertain cry. INDEX. Abd-el-Kader, his defence of the Chris- Achilli, Dr., converted Catholic lec- Adelaide, Dowager Queen, death of, ii 206. Adelaide, Queen of William IV., popu- Albert, Charles, King of Piedmont, takes Albert, Prince, visit to England, i 292; Albert Nyanza, discovery of, iv 20. Alfred, Prince, begins his nautical ca- Alien Act, amendment of, ii 2. Allied fleets sent to the Dardanelles, iii 25. Alma, battle of, iii 95; news received in Althorp, Lord, chancellor of the ex- Anatomy Act of 1832 passed, i 176. 279. Anti-Corn-law Association, the Man- ner, Anti-Corn-law Conference, i 278. |