CONSTITUTION AND RESOURCES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



curious fact that, whilst the repeal of the Navi- 

 gation Laws has increased our own shipping- 

 trade, it has not injured the foreign shipping- 

 trade done with us. Comparing 1872 with 1849, 

 the last year of the restrictive laws, there is in the 

 former year an increase in British tonnage repre- 

 sented by 22,228,605 tons, or 444 per cent. ; and an 

 increase in foreign tonnage of from 2,949,182 tons 

 in 1849 to J 3>78i,935, represented by 457 per cent. 



MONETARY SYSTEM. 



The coin in circulation in Great Britain may be 

 .ken at upwards of 75 millions of gold, 13 millions 

 ibr silver and copper. Taking the last quarter of 

 the year 1872, it seems the average monthly cir- 

 culation of bank-notes has been Bank of England, 

 25,162,000 ; private and joint-stock banks in Eng- 

 land, ,4,973,691. In Scotland, the bank-note cir- 

 culation for the same period was ,5,632,112. In 

 Ireland, for the Bank of Ireland, it was .3,254,525 ; 

 and for joint-stock and private banks it was 

 .4,365, 564. The total for the United Kingdom 

 was ;643>387,892. In England, the notes are not 

 lower than ^5 ; in Scotland and Ireland they are 

 as low as i. The Bank of England monopolises 

 the circulation within 65 miles of London. The 

 authorised issue of notes is .15,000,000. The 

 aggregate fixed issues of provincial English banks, 

 originally ,8,631,647, have fallen to ^6,653,966. 

 In Scotland, the authorised issue is .2,749,271, 

 the average amount of specie held by the banks 

 is 3>5,ooo, and the actual circulation about 

 .5,500,000, issued by 10 joint-stock banks and 

 upwards of 700 branches. The authorised circu- 

 lation of the Bank of Ireland is ^6,354,494. 



Savings-banks. 



In the Post-office savings-banks there is a vast 

 amount of capital invested, giving one a fair idea 

 of the wealth of the working-class in the mass. 

 In 1863, in the United Kingdom, it came to 

 3)376,828, and has gone on steadily increasing 

 by one or two millions each year, till it in 

 1881 amounted to ,36,194,496. Besides these 

 banks, we have others, called trustees' savings- 

 banks, in the United Kingdom ; in which we 

 find deposited, in 1863,^40,951,505, but then the 

 deposits decrease until 1867, when they begin to 

 increase but slowly ; and even in 1881 they only 

 amounted to 44,140,116. Perhaps the institu- 

 tion of Post-office banks has something to do with 

 this. In 1841, the total deposits in savings-banks 

 were ,24,474,689. And the total deposits in Post- 

 office and trustees' savings-banks were, in 1881, 

 80,334,612, an increase of 55,859,923. The 

 commercial policy initiated by the free-traders 

 has therefore enriched the labouring classes as 

 well as their employers. 



THE BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES 



embrace about one-third the surface of the globe, 

 and one-fourth its population. The total area of 

 them is 4,500,000 square miles, or 30 times the 

 area of the mother-country. The articles on 

 geography will treat of them in detail ; meantime, 

 we may subjoin the following table, giving a brief 

 view of the resources of these portions of the 

 empire : 



EMIGRATION. 



During the years 1840 to 1872, the total 

 number of emigrants from Great Britain has 

 been 6,578,058. Of these, 4,487,497, more than 

 two-thirds, however, have not gone to the 

 colonies, but to a rival country namely, the 

 United States. From 1840 to 1872, 956,748 emi- 

 grants have gone to British America ; 958,077 

 to Australasia ; and 175,736 to other places. In 

 1 88 1 the numbers were, for United States, 176, 104 ; 

 British America, 23,912 ; Australasia, 22,682 ; 

 other places, 20,304. 



POPULATION AND SOCIAL STATISTICS. 



A special part is devoted to this subject, so 

 here we may be brief. The total area of the 

 British Islands is 121,115 square miles, with a 

 population in 1881 of 35,262,762 ; this includes the 

 army and navy and merchant seamen abroad. 



The population from 1801 to 1841 is given by esti- 

 mate. The number of families in 1841 was in- 

 correctly taken. It will be noticed that the 

 figures under the head ' increase ' for Ireland 

 1841-71 indicate a decrease of 2,811,370. The 

 census of 1881 shewed the population of England 

 and Wales to be 25,968,286, an increase of 

 3,256,020 since 1871; Scotland was 3,735,573, an 

 increase of 375,555 > and Ireland 5,174,836, a 

 decrease of 237,541 : making a total increase in 

 the United Kingdom of about 3^ millions. The 

 census of 1871 shewed an increase of 519,612 

 inhabited houses in England and Wales ; of 

 18,965 in Scotland; 944 in Channel Islands 

 and Man ; but in Ireland a decrease of 33,927. 

 The net increase of inhabited houses for the 

 United Kingdom was 505,620. The popula- 

 tion in urban districts, in England and Wales and 

 Scotland, seems to have grown about twice as 

 fast as it has done in the rural districts. Although 



191 



