for their use. As to commercial advantages, if the colonial trade were quite free, our commercial relations with the colonies would resemble the intercourse between ourselves and independent countries; and, with our unrivalled superiority in capital, manufactures, machinery, and skill, what have we to fear from unrestricted competition? What have we lost by the independence of the United States? Nothing: the nobility have lost provincial governorships; but the population of both countries has been enriched and benefited by the vast augmentation in their mercantile intercourse.

The rage for colonies has been one of the great big blunders of our national policy, originating in the vain glory of conquest and aristocratic cupidity. England has neither conferred nor derived social happiness from territorial acquisitions. We may have imparted strength to others, but have received in return only the disease of monopolies and vast individual accumulations. How, indeed, could the results have been more favorable? A great nation, possessing within herself the resources of wealth and civilization, what advantage can she derive from exhausting her energies in rearing to maturity and fostering ingratitude in the unfledged offspring of future empires? Between old and infant communities there is not reciprocity of interest; the latter participate in the benefits of the experience, laws, institutions, warlike power, and riches of the former without yielding countervailing advantages it is strength allying itself to weakness-the full-grown oak bending to the palsying embrace of the creeping ivy.

So convinced are we of the fatuity of our conduct in this respect, that we are sometimes inclined to think that we should have been a happier community had our sway never extended over the border. Scotland has benefited by the Union: her soil has been fertilised by our capital, and her greedy sons have enriched themselves by sinecures and pensions, the produce of English taxes; but what has England gained from the connexion? The generous and intellectual character of her Saxon race has not been improved by amalgamation with Scotch metaphysics, thrift, and servility. Again, what benefits have we derived from the conquest of Ireland? Her uncultivated wastes, too, will be made fruitful by English money, unless the connexion be prematurely severed: but what boon in return can she confer on England? Her miserable children have poured out their blood in our wars of despotism; our rich Aristocracy have been made richer by the rental of her soil; and the aggregate power of the empire has been augmented but we seek in vain for the benefits communicated to the mass of the English population. Certainly we do not recognise them in the degraded situation of the "men of Kent," depressed by competition with the Hibernian peasantry; neither have the moral habits of our rural and manufacturing population been bettered by commingling with the wretched and half-civilized emigrants from Munster and Connaught.

But these, at best, are only unprofitable lamentations; it is vain to repine at remediless evils; the union of England, Scotland, and Ire

land, is, we presume, indissoluble: we are married, as the saying is, for better and worse, and we must make the best of an unprofitable alliance.

The chief advantage to be derived from colonies is in rendering them a desirable refuge to a redundant population. But the Aristocracy decline making them subservient to the purposes of an extensive plan of emigration, because of the expense; it would be a sacrifice not for the benefit of themselves, but of the industrious orders, and this they begrudge; they prefer subduing the clamours of a starving people by special commissions and improved man-traps rather than by providing the means by which the unemployed labourer and artisan may transport his superfluous industry to the banks of the St. Lawrence and the shores of Australia.

Although the Oligarchs are so parsimonious when the welfare of the people is concerned, they are reckless enough about expense when it ministers only indirectly to their own gratification and ambition. It appears, from the inquiries of the Finance-Committee, that the collective expenditure of five of our colonies has exceeded, on an account of ten and more years, the colonial revenues applicable to the discharge of it, so as to have constituted a deficiency of £2,524,000, and that this deficiency was paid by the Treasury, although the surplus expenditure had been incurred without previous communication with ministers; nor does it appear ministers had any previous knowledge either of the amount of the colonial revenues or the charges upon them. Can any thing more strikingly show the careless and lavish system on which the affairs of the nation have been conducted? We subjoin an abstract of the returns to parliament of the colonies to which we have alluded. It will be seen that the surplus revenue of the crown colonies above the civil expenditure amounted to £1,453,842, and this was all which remained applicable to a military expenditure of £3,733,939, leaving £2,280,097 to be paid out of the assessed taxes, the excise, and custom-duties of the people of England.

Statement of the Revenue and Expenditure of Five Crown Colonies referred to in Mr. Herries's Letter to Mr. Wilmot Horton, of the 24th March, 1827.-Parl. Paper, No. 352, Sess. 1830.

Of these colonies, three of them-Ceylon, Mauritius, and the Cape of Good Hope-are chiefly of use to the East-India Company, who ought to defray the charges of their military protection. Many other of our colonies are equally valueless as objects of national utility. Of what use is the retention of the Ionian Islands, with Malta and Gibraltar in our hands? The settlements at Sierra Leone and on the west coast of Africa ought to be abandoned, having entirely failed in the attainment of the object intended. No reason can be shown why Canada, NovaScotia, and other possessions on the continent of America, would not be as available to British enterprise, if they were made independent states. Neither our manufactures, commerce, nor shipping would be injured by such a measure. On the other hand, what has the nation lost by Canada? According to Sir H. Parnell, fifty or sixty millions have been already expended; the annual sum payable out of English taxes is full £600,000 a-year; and there has been a plan in progress for two or three years to fortify Canada, at an estimated cost of three millions. Either the Boroughmongers or the people must have been absolutely mad to tolerate for so many years such useless waste of public

resources.

The Slave-Trade.-On this subject Sir H. Parnell says,-"The great sum of £5,700,000 has already been expended in carrying into effect the measures of government for co-operating with other countries in putting down the slave-trade, and the annual current expenses amount to nearly £400,000. But the attempt appears to have altogether failed. The governments of France, Spain, and Portugal, according to the Parliamentary Papers, make no efforts whatever to enforce the laws for putting down the traffic; and the persons in authority in Cuba and Brazil not only neglect to execute the laws, but in some cases have been engaged in it themselves. So that our treaties and laws, where such parties are concerned, are so much waste paper, and spending money to try to give effect to them is perfect folly. The African Institution say, in their twentieth report, The slave-trade has increased during the last year; and, notwithstanding the number of prizes taken, it continues to rage with unabated fury. Surely here are sufficient reasons for saving £400,000 a-year, now expended to so little purpose."-Financial Reform, pp. 231, 232. Human suffering is equally painful to bear, whether inflicted on this or the other side of the globe, on black or white men, and we should be sorry, even for the sake of economy, that any measures should be adopted tending to revive the hellish traffic in Negroes. But, after all, we ought to look at home. The horrors of the middle passage' did not transcend those of the infernal FACTORY SYSTEM: in the former adults were the chief victims sacrificed to the Moloch of wealth; in the latter it is helpless infancy. If one remonstrate with any of the CROSUSES of the North on the cruelty of exacting such long and severe hours of labour from children and apprentices, their only defence is," If we did not do it, others would-we should be undersold in the market." So with them it is a mere question of political economy-of profit and accumulation of capi

tal-not of humanity. But we shall take leave to tell these lords of the loom that they have another alternative; they might be content with amassing something less, as a passport into the aristocratic circle, than a million or a million and a half of money by mutilating, misshaping, and abridging the lives of God's creatures: but this they will not do; they will persist in realizing their cent. per cent., and rather than forego it will have their pound of flesh,'-they will see orphans' eye-balls start from their sockets, and their tendons crack, through unwholesome longprotracted toil-and this too in a country where society is hourly threatened with dissolution-where internal peace and the security of property are endangered by the multitude of unemployed artizans !

Expense of Civil Government.-The expense of conducting the civil government of the country, including the king, the three secretaries of state, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the Mint, and judicial establishments, is about £2,000,000. The progressive increase of expense, in some departments, is as follows:

Thus, it appears, the charge of these three departments has more than doubled since 1796-a period of hostilities.

Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The vice-regal government of Ireland costs the country £100,000 per annum. This is extravagant, as it is well known that Irish affairs are chiefly managed at Whitehall. The keeping up this mimic sovereign tends to keep up those symbols of separation and hostility which a more rational policy would endeavour to obliterate. For any other purpose, in the present state of intercourse, we might as well have, once more, a lord-president at York-a king in Edinburgh-or a separate court for the marches of Wales, at Ludlow, or Monmouth. What then can be urged to justify the lord-lieutenancy? It has been alleged indeed by Irish secretaries, who receive £4000 a-year, that it is beneficial to the tradesmen of Dublin, among whom the money granted for the vice-regal establishment is expended. So then the community must be robbed of £100,000, that the Dublin shopkeepers may profit the odd farthings. This is the favourite round of arguing by corruptionists; they always deem it a sufficient justification for pillaging the people, if a portion of the spoil be returned to them in the way of alms or Christmas doles. By acting on this principle, the pride and interests of aristocratical government are both favoured; and the people, injured by its rapacity, are insulted by its compassion. But in this way the influence of the lord-lieutenant's salary is, as regards the prosperity of a great city, contemptible: his whole salary, if spent in Dublin, is not equal to half the receipts of one of the ten thousand gin-shops in London.

If, however, the effect was greater, the process is dishonest. If the lord-lieutenancy is necessary as an instrument of government-which has never been satisfactorily proved--it ought to be retained; if not, there is no earthly reason why the shopkeepers of Dublin should be supported by taxing the shopkeepers of the other towns of the empire. The viceroyship is a precious jewel in the eyes of the Aristocracy, and that it will not willingly be abandoned, we believe; but where pretexts are seen through easily, it is, perhaps, prudent to abstain from them. The man who merely robs you, does not offend you so much as the man who both robs you and insults your understanding by an awkward attempt at deceiving you.

Expenses of a Coronation.-The ministers of George IV. asked Parliament for a grant of only £100,000, to defray the expenses of his coronation; but the ceremony turned out something like palace-building, the actual cost greatly exceeding the estimate, amounting to £238,000.* The jewels of the crown were valued at £65,000, and 10 per cent. interest was paid to Rundell and Bridge for the loan of them. Either for the gratification of the monarch or his courtiers, the crown was kept four years, at an annual charge to the public of £6500; and it was only in consequence of a seasonable motion of Mr. Hume the royal bauble was at last divested of its borrowed plumage.

Upon the coronation of William IV. the Whigs certainly curtailed materially both the folly and expense of the feudal pageant, to the no small mortification of the antiquated admirers of chivalry, Punch, and Bartholomew fair. But it is time the oiling and kissing and other tom-foolery, perpetrated in the Abbey by the right reverend bishops, were omitted, and the whole reduced to a simple and economical process of inauguration. The king, the magistrates, and public officers take the needful oaths on the accession, and a coronation confirms nothing; it affords no stronger guarantee either on the part of the king or the people; it is an unmeaning ceremony, fit only to be exhibited among slaves, or a priest-ridden rabble, by an Eastern despot. It is something still more objectionable. Formerly it might be of use, when it was really what it professed to be a solemn compact between the king and his lieges; but it has since degenerated into a mere mockery of sacred things, of religious rites, vows, and pledges.

Kingly governments are sinking fast in general estimation, and it is bad policy to depreciate monarchy lower by obtruding it in its most absurd and revolting forms. Instead of expending a large sum on a senseless spectacle, we would beg in lieu to suggest that the commencement of every new reign be commemorated by the building of a bridge, the construction of a rail-road, the completion of a Thamestunnel, the foundation of an university, or any other undertaking of national utility.

* Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, New Series, vol. ix. p. 1107.