COLONIES AND THE MOTH Ell COUNTRY. 249 



foundation, but the British Parliament twice granted considerable 

 sums to initiate it and carry it on; the Society for the Propagation of 

 the Gospel aided, and the benevolence of philanthropic England con- 

 tributed largely to its success. Not till 1818 — more than half a cen- 

 tury after the conquest — did the revenue of Canada balance its ex- 

 penditure. The convict colony of New South Wales was, of course, 

 entirely of state origin. Stores of every kind, together with cattle and 

 seeds, were sent out at the beginning, and long continued to be sent out 

 to it. The first governor was granted a space of two years to make it 

 self-supporting, but the growth of a convict colony is abnormally slow, 

 and the civil and military establishments for thirty-four years continued 

 to be a drain on the British exchequer to the extent of over ten millions. 

 Even now one of the oldest and best of existing British colonies, with 

 an area of over three hundred thousand square miles, does not produce 

 the breadstuff's needed for its own consumption. The Cape of Good 

 Hope, of mixed Dutch and French origin, was first made a truly 

 British colony by the dispatch of six thousand emigrants at the cost 

 of the mother country — a cost much greater than was anticipated. 

 When the Transvaal was forcibly annexed by England, the stepmother 

 country advanced a sum of £90,000 to rescue the quondam republic 

 from its financial difficulties. In 1895 Parliament voted three millions 

 for the building of a railroad in British East Africa. Uganda is sup- 

 ported by a British subsidy. Algeria is a manufactured colony, which 

 has all along had to be supported by its creator. Apart from the cost 

 of their civil and military establishments, France has to subsidize her 

 colonies to the extent of over four millions sterling, partially expended 

 in reproductive public works. Even tiny New Caledonia costs France 

 half a million, one half of which, it is true, is expended on the convict 

 establishment. 



Most colonies at their beginning are burdensome to the mother 

 country. Years after its foundation South Australia fell into such em- 

 barrassment that its governors had to draw on the imperial exchequer 

 for nearly a million. In 1831 the expenditure in Cape Colony was still 

 in excess of the revenue. Sierra Leone had to be aiclen! by a parlia- 

 mentary grant year after year. Xo wonder the Colonial Office com- 

 plained that colonies were expensive to keep up. In German Africa 

 the revenue does not meet the expenditure. The Congo Free State 

 does not pay its way. On the other hand, Congo Frangaise has a 

 substantial surplus. Western Australia was another exception to the 

 rule. There the Imperial Government announced that it would con- 

 tribute nothing to the foundation of the colony, which was to be self- 

 supporting from the first. Private capitalists were to arrange for the 

 emigration of ten thousand persons in four years. Lands were granted 

 to the emigrants on a scale of extravagance which long hampered the 



