204 
National Wealth and Public Debt. 
[April, 
and treading British soil in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, 
and in most of the principal islands of the seas. The 
nearest approach to these figures is found in the Russian 
empire, the area of whose possessions is a very little short 
of eight millions of square miles, with a population, how- 
ever, of scarcely 82 millions. Like the British empire, 
Russia is both an European and Eastern power, but, whilst 
the latter owns nearly an equal extent of territory, her 
population is less than one-third of that of the former. 
China has a smaller territory still, but her population is 
said to number upwards of 400 millions. There is, how- 
ever, no official information available on this point, and 
figures relating to the Flowery Land must therefore be 
accepted only as estimates, and with caution. 
Next in order comes the United States, with 3,600,000 
square miles of territory, and 38J millions of population. 
After this the territorial possessions of States rapidly de- 
crease. Germany and France are nearly of a size, having 
each slightly over 200,000 square miles of possessions ; but 
whilst the former has a population of 41 millions, the latter 
has only 36 millions. Austria and Hungary together com- 
prise about 240,000 square miles, with a united population 
about equal to that of France. Spain is under 200,000 
square miles in extent, and Italy is but 114,000, the popula- 
tions of these two empires being about 17 millions and 
27 millions respectively. 
Whilst the British empire thus stands prominently first 
in extent, it is the only one that has been successful in 
planting colonies and maintaining them as integral parts of 
the empire. Those who foreran England in this respeCt 
have, as a rule, lost most of the colonial possessions once 
claimed by them, which have, for the most part, since fallen 
to the lot of England, whilst those yet retained by them 
are generally sources of weakness rather than of strength, 
as a proof of which we may witness Algeria, France’s only 
colony, and Cuba, the principal remnant of Spain’s foreign 
possessions. France has, at different times, resigned to 
England, either through conquest or by treaty, Canada, 
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward 
Island, St. Lucia, Grenada, Mauritius, Antigua, Dominica, 
Tobago, the Bahamas, and Malta. From the Dutch 
England has obtained the Cape Colony, British Guiana, 
Ceylon, and St. Helena ; whilst from Spain she holds 
Gibraltar, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the Falkland Islands. « 
What — it may be asked by some — is the use to us of 
these colonies ? Much, in many ways. It has been 
