THE BRITISH EMPIRE. ITS EXTENT AND POPULATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2260, 24 June 1897, Page 8

THE BRITISH EMPIRE. ITS EXTENT AND POPULATION.

The United Kingdom oconpies bub an infinitesimal portion of the surface of the world, and yet it dominates a larger area than has ever fallen to the lot of any Power, ancient or modern. The area of the United Kingdom is only 120,979 rquave miles— that of the woild is 196,000,000. Ths copulation of the world is about 1,4.50,000,000 — that o£ Great Britain and Ireland is less than 40,000,000. In all the history of tha world there has beeu no parallel to the contrast between the area and population of the mother country and her swarms of colonies and tributary countries. It is not necessary to descant upon the influence which Great Britain exercises upon the world's affairs. It is enough to remember that in the most remote, as in the most powerful, State, an international question can never be said to be finally settled until Britain's ultimatum has bean given. And yeb from how small a territory this influence emanates! The mother country is not one - twentieth oE the Empire. The Empire of Darius the Great was vast, bub the British Empire i 3 five times as larpre. Rome spread her colonies in every part of the then known world, but her dominions were less than a fourth of the area of the British Empire. Russia's territories'are coasidered large. From the German Ocean to the Pacific, more than half of Europe, almost half of Asia — all r,bese regions acknowledge the Czar as their lord and master, and yet Britain's territories exceed the Czar's by more than an eighth. France is grsat and powerful ; the British Empire Is sixteen times its size. United Germany is also powerful and vast ; the British people have an empire more than 40 times as exteasive. The United States of America strstch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and for seven daj3 and slights one may travel ab the rate of 30 miles an houu and still be under the Siars and Stripas; yet the British people own an Eocpire three times as extensive. Canada has an area of nearly four million square miles. Australasia eztendß over 3,173,000 aquare miles. India has nearly a million and a-quarter square ' miles. British Africa, owned by the. Empire, has 357.311 eauare miles, with a population

of 4,763.952 ; ana tinder British influenoe there are other 2,120,000 sqaare miles with a population of 35,000,000. And these areas do not represent so many tquare miles of arid surface, or tenantlees prairie, or snow-clad I mountain. They are among the most fertile I regions of fche earth. The torrid, temperate and frigid zones, north and south, send their tiibute, and the worid'B metropolis is filled to repletion with the stores thai come from every latitude. Here is a bare enumeration of the territories owned or protected by this marvellou3 Smpire : — Sq. Miles. Aden ... ... 65 Ascension ... ... 34 Bahamas ... f>,500 13asuto Land ... 10,000 Uechuanaland 356,200 Bermudas ... 41 Canada 3,500,000 Capo Colony 242,0 0 British South Africa Company 750,000 British Central Africa Protectorate ... British East Africa 1,000,00!) Koyal Niger Company 500,000 Niger Coast Protectorate ... Gold Coast Colony 39,060 Lagos 1,071 The Gambia 2,700 Sierra Leone ... ... 15,000 Walflschßay 480 Natal 20,4(51 Zululand ... 8,901 Ceylon 25,000 Cyprus 4,000 Falkland Islands 5,00!) Fiii Islands ~ 8,000 Gibraltar Jij Guiana ... „ 85,0 () Honduras S.OOO Hongkong 32 India and Bimnnh 1,452 375 Jamaica and Turks Island 4,000 Lnbuan 30 Leeward Island* CM Malta and Goza ... 117 Mauritius 70S Newfoundland 40,000* New Guinea 100,000 New South Wales 421.000 New Zealand 105,000 North Borneo 25,000 Perim , 7 Queeusland 665.000 Kotumah , ... 11 •St. Helena 47 South Australia 903,000 Straits Settlements 1,000 Tasmania Sb',ooo Trinidad , 2,090 Victoria 88,000 Western Australia 1,059,000 Windward Islands 800 And 22 other possessions. If an observer glances at the maps recently issued it will be evident that British acquisi- j tions in Africa are destined to be of the greatest importance to the Empire. From Cape Colony in tho south to British Central Africa, and then again, with r,he small intervention of German influence in German East i Africa, up to British Eiet Africa, and nearly . across the continent to the Niger Pro- ! tectorate— not to mention, the position of the British in Somalalaud and ia Egypt, — it will be recognised thafc British influence in Africa is large, and that in the scramble for that continent so recently penetrated by light, Britain has secured a large share. The Balginns have the Congo I Stats, the Portuguese Angola, the French j Madagascar and some barren territories on the | mainland, as tha Germans have Damara and j Namaqaar Land?, and the Italians, Spanish, 1 and Turks their respective slices, but no one of these nations has so compact an area, and aoae a position' so commanding as the j British. The German hopes of sm African ' Umpire are foredoomed to extinction by the \ British position, and it was German colonising influence in Africa that Britain had to