1865.] Pengellt on the Causes of Britain's Greatness. 2'J 



and Wales in 1801 was something over nine millions, in 1861 it was 

 nearly twenty and a quarter millions, the increase being more than 

 one hundred and twenty per cent. ; at the former period there were 

 one hundred and fifty-eight persons to the square mile, at the latter 

 there were three hundred and fifty. 



In 1861 the population appears to have been thus composed : — In 

 every thousand persons, there were twenty-four belonging to the pro- 

 fessional class, five hundred and seventy-four to the domestic, thirty- 

 one to the commercial, one hundred and one to the agricultural, two 

 hundred and forty-two to the industrial (" comprising all our manu- 

 facturing community as well as those who follow the production of the 

 material to work it up into almost infinite forms of utility and 

 beauty"), and twenty-seven to the indefinite and non-productive ; * so 

 that at present the manufacturing alone, bears to the agricultural 

 population the ratio of nearly five to two ; and this ratio, in all proba- 

 bility, will increase, because the number of agriculturists will be 

 related to the number of cultivatable acres (already nearly a maxi- 

 mum), not to the general population, which is rapidly increasing ; and 

 also because the mechanician, by new inventions and applications, is 

 constantly displacing the farm labourer. The occupation of the 

 masses as a whole, therefore, is steadily changing and in a definite 

 direction, and this, as we have seen, cannot but be followed by a 

 change in the character of the population ; moreover it is, at least, 

 relatively diminishing the class from which our armies have been very 

 largely if not mainly recruited. 



The accumulation of wealth, too, calls into being a new, a moneyed, 

 — aristocracy, which, to some extent, is a counterpoise to the aristo- 

 cracy of territory and of rank ; and an auxiliary in the de-feudaliza- 

 tion ( if such a coinage be allowable) of our institutions. 



The importance of foreign corn-fields and foreign markets to us, 

 necessarily affects our international treaties, and, through them, the 

 nations with which we come into contact ; our true policy is peace and 

 unrestricted trade. 



But why is Britain thus great ? Whence this pre-eminence ? Are 

 there any facts connected with her or her people which will account 

 for the place she occupies ? Anything which would have enabled a 

 gifted man to predict her position amongst the nations ? In reply, it 

 may be asked, Is not her history the simple result of her structure and 

 situation ? Was it not pre-written in her geology and geography ? 



Let anyone take a common terrestrial globe, and so adjust it that 

 the greatest possible amount of land shall be above, and the least 

 below, the wooden horizon ; that is to say, divide the world into two 

 hemispheres, one terrestrial, the other oceanic ; one the home of the 

 nations, the other their common highway ; and it will be found that 

 the town of Falmouth in Cornwall — and hence we may say Britain — 

 occupies the centre of the first ; she has the best possible position for 

 the market-place of the world, since her dealers dwell around her on 

 every side. Geologists tell us that their science discloses the fact 



* ' Companion to British Almanac, 1802.' 



