250 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



progress of the colony. Companies likewise expend large sums in many 

 colonies. French and English companies embarked on American, In- 

 dian, African and island adventures at ruinous loss. Law's company 

 withdrew from Louisiana, the New Zealand Company from New Zea- 

 land, and the Canterbury Association from Canterbury with a balance 

 on the wrong side of the account. Wealthy individuals bear their part. 

 Mr. Rhodes annually subsidizes the British Central African Protecto- 

 rate, and King Leopold the Congo Free State. Colonial bishoprics 

 have also been endowed and colonial cathedrals built, largely with the 

 aid of voluntary contributions by sympathizers in the mother country. 



The mother state sometimes gives the colonies the benefit of her 

 financial good name. In 1869 England withdrew her regiments from 

 New Zealand when the colony was still at war with the Maoris, and 

 to salve the wounded feelings of the colonists she agreed (under pres- 

 sure) to guarantee a loan of a million in aid of emigration and public 

 works. Before the Canadian Pacific Railway could be completed the 

 Imperial Government had to guarantee a loan of £3,600,000. Mr. 

 Rhodes proposes (unsuccessfully, it now appears) that the Imperial 

 Government, which contributed £200,000 to the cost of a railway from 

 Kimberley to Bnluwayo, should guarantee a loan of an enormous 

 amount for the continuation of the African trunk railway from Bnlu- 

 wayo to Lake Tanganyika. 



The mother country supports or aids its self-governing colonies 

 through its capitalists. In order to execute public works — roads, 

 bridges and railways — to assist immigration, to build fortresses, and 

 sometimes to pay the interest on previous loans, all the colonies have 

 habitual recourse to the British Stock Exchange. There are good 

 reasons for this. The colonies have little capital of their own, for all 

 their money has been used up from day to day. The English investor 

 has an almost unlimited amount — the savings mainly of one industrious 

 century — and he is prepared to lend it at a lower rate of interest than 

 would content the colonial capitalist. Of over two thousand millions 

 sterling which John Bull has out at usury all over the world, the total 

 public and private indebtedness of the seven Australasian colonies 

 alone, with a population of four millions, is stated to exceed three hun- 

 dred and twenty millions, or at the rate of eighty pounds per head of 

 these daring colonists. One half of this sum is due from colonial 

 governments for the purposes already named. The half of it, due from 

 banks, building companies, mercantile associations and mortgage 

 agencies, excites no misgivings; these institutions can always go bank- 

 rupt, as many of them did in the financial collapse of 1891-'93. But 

 it is not open to a British colony to file its schedules, or at least so we 

 used to think; and so the Times said till the oldest of British colonies 

 went bankrupt the other day. At all events, it is harder, and we con- 



