The British Empire

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THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

The British Empire

The Empire is divisible into three portions: (1) the United Kingdom; (2) colonies in the proper sense of the word—plantations—in congenial climates, where the English race can take root and multiply indefinitely until the unpeopled land is occupied, as in North America, the Cape, Australia, or New Zealand; and (3) Ceylon and India, which are inhabited largely by Aryan or Semitic stocks that have given abundant evidence of courage, culture, skill, and industry. The military and naval stations, the factories for commerce, as they were first called, and the fertile tropical islands and settlements of the "West Indies and Central America, which have been cultivated by English planters, employing black and Creole labour, might be thrown into a class apart; but as it is difficult to draw the line, or to foresee their future, they may for the present be classed with the colonies, to which, by Blackstone's definition, they belong.

Area

The Empire possesses 7,769,449 square miles of territory: the United Kingdom Area. 121,608 square miles, the colonies 6,685,021, India and Ceylon 962,820 square miles.

Density of population

There are 30 persons to a square mile in the Empire; 260 in the United Kingdom; 201 in India; 1.41 in the colonies.

While there are 14 acres to a household in the United Kingdom, and 17 acres in India, there are 2,534 acres to a household in the colonies.

The colonies differ to an indefinable extent in capacity as fields of labour and sources of produce. Thousands of miles of water, of intractable moors, of marshes, of icebound earth, of barren mountains, are intermingled with fat pastures and fertile soil, widely distributed, nearly equivalent in their expanse to a tract of 4,000 miles in length and nearly 2,000 miles in breadth.

England, the most highly cultivated centre of the Empire, has only three fourths of its area under crops of any kind, and can so deal with little more profitably. But after every reduction has been made for waste in the colonies, there will remain open to enterprise a vast extent of pasture and of arable land, besides inexhaustible stores of mineral wealth. The young plantations will one day be mighty forests, shedding their leaves and seeds over the ages to come.

The population of the Empire, nearly all enumerated, is 234,762,593, of whom 31,629,299 inhabit the United Kingdom, 9,420,937 inhabit the colonies, and 193,712,357 inhabit Ceylon and India. The human unit differs as much as the unit of land; but it is always human. In the old language of statistics, the Queen's sceptre extends over two hundred and thirty-four million subjects; her Government has charge of two hundred and thirty-four million souls.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE. —AREA, INHABITED HOUSES, and POPULATION.

Area. Inhabited
Houses.
Population.
In Square
Miles.
In Square
Kilometres.
BRITISH EMPIRE 7,769,449 20,122,049 44,142,651? 234,762,593
         
United Kingdom (including Islands in British Sea 121,608 314,952 5,655,178 31,629,299*
India and Ceylon 962,820 2,493,601 36,798,883? 193,712,357
Other Colonies, Possessions, and Dependencies 6,685,021 17,313,496 1,688,590 9,420,937
         
United Kingdom:—        
  ENGLAND and WALES 58,311 151,019 4,259,117 22,712,266
  SCOTLAND 30,463 78,896 412,185 3,360,018
  IRELAND 32,531 84,252 959,894 5,412,377
  ISLANDS in BRITISH SEAS 303 785 23,982 144,638
         
Colonies, Possessions, and Dependencies:—        
  In EUROPE 122 316 33,699? 176,213
  In NORTH AMERICA 3,376,925 8,745,879 627,895? 3,789,670
  In WEST INDIES and CENTRAL AMERICA 26,609 68,914 217,879? 1,088,596
  In SOUTH AMERICA 82,500 213,666 39,435? 194,294
  In AFRICA 236,860 613,442 327,054? 1,813,450
  In ASIA:—        
  India 938,366 2,430,268 36,341,914? 191,307,070
  Ceylon 24,454 63,333 456,969? 2,405,287
  Straits and other Settlements 1,283 3,323 56,670? 433,119
  In AUSTRALASIA 2,960,722 7,667,956 385,958? 1,925,595
* The Army, &c. Abroad belonging to the United Kingdom are here assumed to be included with the Population of the Colonies and Possessions in which they were located at the time of the Enumeration.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE. —DENSITY of HOUSES and POPULATION.

Houses. Population.
Number
of
Acres
to a
House.
Number
of
Houses
to a
Square
Mile.
Number
of
Houses to
a Square
Kilometre.
Number
of
Hectares
to a
House.
Number
of
Acres
to a
Person.
Number
of
Persons
to a
Square
Mile.
Number
of
Persons
to a
Square
Kilometre.
Number
of
Hectures
to a
Person.
BRITISH EMPIRE 112.64 5.68 2.19 45.58 21.18 30.22 11.67 8.57
                 
United Kingdom (including Islands in British Sea 13.76 46.50 17.96 5.57 2.46 260.09 100.43 1.00
India and Ceylon 16.75 38.22 14.76 6.78 3.18 201.19 77.68 1.29
Other Colonies, Possessions, and Dependencies 2533.72 0.25 0.10 1025.32 454.14 1.41 0.54 183.78
                 
United Kingdom:—                
  ENGLAND and WALES 8.76 73.04 28.2 3.54 1.64 389.50 150.39 0.66
  SCOTLAND 47.3 13.53 5.22 19.14 5.80 110.30 42.59 2.35
  IRELAND 21.69 29.51 11.39 8.78 3.85 166.38 64.24 1.56
  ISLANDS in BRITISH SEAS 8.07 79.15 30.55 3.27 1.34 477.35 184.25 0.54
                 
Colonies, Possessions, and Dependencies:—                
  In EUROPE 2.32 276.22 106.64 0.94 0.44 1444.37 557.64 0.18
  In NORTH AMERICA 344.03 0.19 0.07 1392.89 570.30 1.12 0.43 230.78
  In WEST INDIES and CENTRAL AMERICA 78.16 8.19 3.16 31.63 15.64 40.91 15.80 6.33
  In SOUTH AMERICA 1338.91 0.48 0.18 541.82 271.75 2.36 0.91 109.97
  In AFRICA 463.50 1.8 0.53 187.57 83.59 7.66 2.96 33.83
  In ASIA:—        
  India 16.536 38.73 14.95 6.69 3.14 203.87 78.72 1.27
  Ceylon 34.25 18.69 7.22 13.86 6.51 98.36 37.98 2.63
  Straits and other Settlements 14.49 44.17 17.05 5.86 1.90 337.58 130.34 0.77
  In AUSTRALASIA 4909.50 0.13 0.05 1986.73 984.04 0.65 0.25 398.21

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