YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES UNION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6791, 20 November 1883, Page 3

YOUNG MEN'S SOCIETIES UNION.

At tho mooting of thoDtfncdin Young Men a Societies Union (Rev. Dr Stuart in the cb'air)',1 hold in tho hall of tho I'irst Church last cvorf: ing, Mr J6. N. Adams road a paper oh "Tho British jAinpiro anrt Contemporary Jfowei'd," which was. illustrated by clln.'jjmr's nl>o\vini? ihn rolativo nre.t of tho various) lending couhijle::, tlioir population, trado, revenue, and national debt, Tho papor gave a short akotoli of Britain1!) pro^rc.i in her commercial relations from 1870 to tho pt'es.lsC time, nnd tlion enlarged upon tho aspect of the present sti»ts of international matters. As tho energy of tho nation was withdrawn from war, and became more directed to the demands of tho civil artsi there Appeared such men as Arlcwright, Watt, Oartwright, Macadam, nnd otheis, whose inventions gave an impetus to trado which reacted upon other countries. In IS7O the imports mid oxpurts of tho United Kingdom amounted to only 30,000 tons j in .1800 to 175,000 tons ; in 1810 to 9,500,000 tons j in 1880 to 55,73(i,000, valued at £CM,105,2b'1. Germany stood next as a trading peoplo at £330,000,000—1e5s than half the British return. Then in shipping, Britain owned a gross torinago of s,3s;i,<H'J ; whilo all tho other mercantilo fleets in tho world aggregated only 3,40-1,!)32 tons. As a carrier,' Britain monopolises live-eighths of tho sea-borno merchandise of all nations. Her navy was equal to any other, but her army was small; still tho standard of a nation's greatness lay not in her army, for tho era of fighting had given place to that of commercial rivalry, in which the British could not bo matched. As a money-making and nionoy-lending people England was also most important. Twentynine States were yearly paying to the British the enormous sum of £120,000,000 sterling for money borrowed, whilo Britain paid nothing out for her national debt. No other pooplo had such a source of wealth. The Queen's writ ran over nearly 9,000,000 square milea of laud surface, inhabited by people numbering 301,000,000. Tho natural increase of. ,tlie British race was greater than any otn'or,1 It was also tho most industrious, and possessed of more endurance; was more enterprising, more widely scattered over the various countries of tho earth, and possessed the most flexible and wealthy language of any. Out of 3-1,274 newspapers and periodicals in the world, 10,600 were published in English. Tho British alone had an authorised versiou of the Bible, and were alone in having tho seventh rest day established by law. They were the great evangelical or missionary race, tho only successful colonising people, and stood in the van in all charitable actions. They were the liberators of the slave, the dread of tlie pirate, the police of the seas. Their mission was the enfranchisement of the poor, the destruction of the despot, tho propagation of the universal brotherhood of man. Without her physical and moral influence to act upon the reßt of the world, tho prospect was Bimply a return to the despotism of the past