[published dailt.J FKIDAY, AUGUST 7, 1908.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 12535, 7 August 1908, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 1908.

WHAT IS THE BRITISH EMPIRE?

An absorbingly interesting article was recently contributed to the Sydney Daily Telegraph by the Right Hon. G. H. Reid on "The Empire, and What It Is." Comparing the growth of the Empire with that of other Empires, the writer pointed out that the British Empire was no so much due to the power of the State as to private enterprises. He instanced the founding of New England and Virginia by voluntary exiks. In. Asia it was a trading company that wrested India from France. Even the conquest of the sea was mainly owing to hardy spirits who had no Royal authority behind them. It was not the statesman who led the adventurer, but the trader who led the statesman. Perm, who founded an Anglo-Saxon settlement in North America, was really an exile, Clive, who won the Indian. Empire on the field of Plassy, was not a servant of the Crown. The real forerunner of British power in Africa was the brave and lonely missionary Livingstone, and even now a huge slice of British South Africa, which bears the name of the one great statesman of that part of the world— Cecil Rhodes— is governed, not from Downing Street, but from a private office. The statistics of the Empire give a vague idea of the multitude of savage and civilised communities which owe allegiance to, or are under the protection of Great Britain. They inhabit one fourth of the earth's land surface, and number more than one-fifth of the world's population. Every conceivable form of human society, ranging from the highest civilisation down to the darkest savagery, lived, is governed, and improved under the British flag. In the Indian Empire there are no less than 650 native States, whose aifairs are administered by their own rulers under their own laws. Ten years ago the British possessions in Africa covered 450,000 square miles, and contained a population of 5,000,000. They now exceed over 2,600,000 square miles, and include a population of 45,000,000, larger than that of Great Britain and Ireland. The population of the empire is 420,000,000. Only 11,000,000 of these, in addition to the British people, belong to the dominant race. The remaining 355,000,000 have not a single link of birth, colour, or religion connecting them with the white races. The whole trade of the British Empire is about £1,600,000,000 a year. Within 15 years it has increased by .£300,000,000 a year. Its total wealth is £22,500,000,000. Turning to the statistics of the Mother Country, Mr Reid remarked that a country of very limited area, which has been tilled for many centuries, has 44,000,000 of people crowded in a spot that seems so small and remote from the centre of the world as to be scarcely visible. Britain's 120,000 square miles seem lost in the 12,000,000 square miles she governs. Yet her share of the Empire's income of ,£3,000,000,000 a. year is no less than ,£1,175,000,000. Of the Empire's trade of .£1,600,000,000 her own. external trade is more than £ 1,000,000,000. British shipping carries half the cargoes of the whole world. In many countries, notably the United States auu Germany, enormous energies and industrial developments have been let loose of late years. These countries are in£ mensely large in area and in population, and equally progressive and enlightened, yet the capital of the Empire — London — is still in many senses the capital of the world. The Empire is an snormoug aggregation of wealth in every possible shape, both actual and latent. In different parts of the Empire are found abundantly the most important products, products which modern civilised man requires for his use. Domestic animals, both for their food and for their skins, are reared in many parts of the Empire, and there is a great trade in meat, hides, and wool. A great supply of cotton is grown in India and Egypt, while wheat, sugar, and tea are also grown. All minerals and metals are found in the Empire. Iron, copper, tin, lead, zinc, and nickel are mined in great quantities, and five-eighths

of the gold of the world is obtained from the Empire. So far as commerce is concerned, no people has shown itself more capable in exploiting the earth for its products and in manufacturing from them all that man requires. In consequence the movement of raw material and the finished product between all parts of the Empire and Great Britain, and between the latter to the rest of the world, is stupendous, and the British shipping which carries it correspondingly vast. Great Britain alone has half the steam tonnage, and also the larger, newer, and swifter steamships. The ' whole commerce of the Empire (with the exception of some .£70,000,000 passing by land between Canada and the United States) moves across the sea. In addition British shipping carries probably some ,£400,000,000 worth of foreign trade. It is estimated that there are always afloat ,£300,000,000 worth of goods, not to mention at least £ 100,000,000, the value of the ships, all in British bottoms. But, from a loftier point of view, the Empire represents far more to the human race than mere territory, wealth, and commerce, more even than the individuals who inhabit it. The Empire stands for what is more precious to the future of the world, the ideals of the British people, the spirit of civil and religious liberty, of independence and individual effort untrammelled by Government, and working for the welfare of the whole. It stands for the world language of the future, and the noblest literature of modern civilisation, for a system of law, the wisest, humanest, and most flexible that has ever kept mankind in the path of order. It stands for a lofty conception of civilised existence, of duty to others, of good government to alien races, for high ideals in conduct, character, a.«.d public opinion — shortly, for religion, justice, and liberty. Such is the British Empire.