place, nobody has any money, nobody buys or
sells, nobody lends or borrows, nobody wants
any workmen, and nobody could find them if
he did;  but everybody wants to go away, unless
the government will continue to support the
place as a penal settlement.

A great many ships of course visit the forty-
six colonies in a year, mostly sent out from the
home country. India doubled the tonnage of
ships, entered and cleared, between 'fifty and
'sixty-three. So did Ceylon, and Mauritius,
and New South Wales, and the North American
colonies; but so did not the West Indies, which,
somehow or other, have never recovered from
the effects of negro emancipation. New Zealand
much more than doubled this item; while
Victoria took a giant stride, despatching and
receiving seven times as many ships, or tons of
shipping, at the end as at the beginning of this
period of fourteen years. Only think of ten
million tons of British shipping, irrespective of
foreign and colonial, entering and leaving our
colonies in a year, all of it having to make
voyages from three to twelve thousand miles to
get there!

Now what have these children bought from
the old country during the fourteen years?
How far have they spent their money or
bartered their goods in a way to benefit her? Here
the importance of the gold discoveries becomes
very manifest. Four of the colonies, at any
rate, have had nuggets and dust to give in
exchange for bonnets, boots, Bass, buttons,
brandy, and brad-awls; and they have shown a
wonderful capacity for appropriating these and
other commodities. India and Ceylon, not
owing to any gold discoveries in those countries,
but owing to the natural development of every
kind of commerce, increased their import of
British cargoes from eight millions to twenty
millions sterling in three years. The North
American colonies increased theirs from three
to six millions. But look at the wonderful
Australian group.  New South Wales bought
fourfold as much from us in 'sixty-three as in
'fifty, Victoria fourteen times as much. Only
imagine that, in one single year, cargoes were
shipped from the United Kingdom, to go eleven
or twelve thousand miles over the ocean, and
landed at some or other of the Australian ports,
to the value of eighteen millions sterling; only
imagine this, and we shall get some remote idea
of the extent of the trade relations between
England and those distant colonies. From the
year when gold was discovered in Australia,
English manufacturers derived almost as decided
and sudden an advantage as if the precious metal
had come to light in our own tiny island. All
the implements for extracting and working the
gold came from hence; and when the nuggets
and dust were exchanged for coined sovereigns,
these were readily and even lavishly exchanged
for comforts and luxuries brought from the old
country.

How strikingly the prosperity of the colonies
tells upon the old country is shown as much by
the negative results in the West Indies as by
the positive results in Australia. In the former
no gold has been discovered, no new industrial
resources developed; the negro will not work
hard, now that he is a freeman; the planters
have not in them the dash and daring of English
capitalists; they are frightened at what Cuba
can do in competition with them; their sugar
and rum and molasses do not bring them in so
much as in bygone years; they have not much
money to spend on English commodities; the
condition of their islands is not such as to
attract emigrants from the old country; and
thus it happens that our dealings with the
West Indies collectively are not advancing.
We actually sent over less to Jamaica, Antigua,
Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbadoes,
Grenada, and Tobago, in 'sixty-three than in
'fifty. There was one enormous exception to
this stagnation; the Bahamas imported thirty
or forty times as much as was her wont. But
Bahama wanted very little of these good things
for herself, and could not have paid for them
if she had; the game of blockade-running
was being played in 'sixty-three; and Bahama
was a house of call for ships whose owners
and crews were quite ready to make profit
out of the troubles between Federals and
Confederates.

Of course it follows naturally that the same
circumstances which enable some of the
colonies to import more largely than heretofore
operate in augmenting their exports likewise.
Victoria, for instance, which exported to the
value of about a million sterling in eighteen
hundred and fifty, rose to the magnificent figure
of thirteen millions in 'sixty-three;  and of this
total more than seven millions were in gold,
actual gold, either already refined, or in a more
or less quartzose or granular state. The other
colonies did not tell up so brilliantly; but still
they showed what gold deposits can do: seeing
that New South Wales raised her exports from
two to seven millions, New Zealand from a
mere drop to three millions, South Australia
from half a million to two millions and a half.
The Australian group altogether made up
thirteen millions sterling of their exports in the
shape of gold. This is a marvellous thing,
certainly, in one year. And even British Columbia,
in America, is beginning to tell upon the gold
market in Europe.

Almost equal in commercial interest to the
Gold question is that which relates to Cotton.
Here have we been, for four years, hungering
and thirsting for those delicate little white
fibres; the planters of the United States were
forbidden to send their cotton to us; and as
four-fifths of our supply had for many years
been obtained from them, the result was a
veritable famine in this commodity. How
nobly the Lancashire operatives bore their
sufferings; how liberally the other classes of
the country came to their assistance; how
wildly the Liverpool merchants speculated on
the rapidly-rising value of the small quantity of
cotton—it is not here to tell. But it may
fittingly be told how astonishingly the calamity