246 REPORT — 1861. 



ten years, which we believe is not fer from the truth, and that the mean population 

 during the same period may be fairly assumed to have been 403,000, it wiU then 

 follow that the natural increase, arising from the excess of births over deaths, could 

 not have amounted to more than about 35,000, which, being deducted from the 

 ascertained increase as shown by the late census, proves that the increase of the 

 city and suburbs must have been supplemented by an immigration of upwards of 

 50,'000. 



That Glasgow, indeed, has been chiefly indebted during the last half century to 

 the immigration which an increase of capital and an active and multifarious in- 

 dustry have induced, cannot better be illustrated than from the facts which om* 

 own lately printed analysis of the enumeration retiutis of the Glasgow census then 

 exhibited. From these the fact may be gathered that, independent of the many 

 thousand individuals that have been attracted to that centre of Scottish industry 

 from all quarters of Scotland, there were found within the limits of its municipality 

 alone, on the 9th of April last, no less than 10,809 native English, 63,574 native 

 Irish, 827 foreigners, and 1440 colonists, being about 20 per cent, of the whole of 

 that population. While Scotland, from its improved and stiU improving system 

 of agriculture and cattle-rearing, may feel well content to part with her supernu- 

 merary and unemployed peasantry, either to add to the prosperity of her m'ban seats 

 of industry, or to continue to fulfil the old adage, that, in every nook of the world 

 where any good is to be got, there is to be found a Scot, a rat, and a Newcastle 

 grindstone, she at the same time cannot but feel assured, so long as her soil is daily 

 becoming more productive, and her manufactures, mining, and commerce are ad- 

 vancing, and her cities, harbours, and railroads are extending as they are at present 

 found to be, that she is still on the pathway of prosperity, even although the census 

 has tnily proclaimed that the progress of her population has only exhibited an in- 

 crease of scarcely six per cent, during the last ten years of her history. 



Notes on the Progress and Prospects of the Trade of England with China since 

 1833. By Colonel Stkes, M.P., F.E.S. 

 Our present and prospective relations with China, both commercial and political, 

 are so highly important, and involve such serious consequences, that a few obser- 

 vations on those subjects may neither be inopportime nor iminteresting. Whether 

 om* past policy towards China has been justitiable or not, the extension of our com- 

 mercial relationns with the Chinese is sufficiently remarkable. In the year 1814 

 the total amount of imports and exports on British account was about 5f millions 

 sterling. In 1826 the value exceeded seven millions ; and for the last live years 

 of the East India Company's monopoly the average value of the Company's and 

 the private trade in which they permitted their servants to engage approached 

 to ten millions sterling. Since the Act of 1833, which deprived the East India 

 Company of their monopoly, as might be expected, a nish of competing interests 

 has increased the trade since 1834 fully fom-fold. In 1856, according to statements 

 which appeared in different numbers of the Hong Kong Government Gazette, the 

 value, independently of the opium trade with India, amounted to £17,526,198. In 

 1857, the imports were £4,783,843 ; but the exports were £12,742,355. So far as 

 the legal trade was concerned, the exports trebled the imports; but there was an- 

 other article of commerce of which there was no official record kept. He referred to 

 opium, which in 1857 amounted to four millions. Still the exports exceeded the 

 imports by nearly four millions, which must have been paid to China in silver; but 

 as the balance of trade between India and China had alwavs been in favour of 

 India, most of the silver from Europe found its way to India through China in pay- 

 ment for opium, and this fact assisted to account for the silver which poured into 

 India annually, and did not leave the country again. From the years 1834-36 to 

 1858-59, India received £123,143,696, in bullion, of which only £19,752,653 left 

 the country again. A remarkable progress had taken place in the export trade of 

 Shanghai— a fact which presented some anomalous and conflicting considerations. 

 Since the year 1853 the rebels or Taepings had been in possession of Nankin, the 

 ancient capital of China, and of several great tea- and siJk-producing provinces in 

 the Yantsze Kiang ; and Shanghai had to be supplied either from these provinces 

 «r from provinces heyond the rebel territories and still under the Tartar authorities, 



