however, the acquisitions have been made steadily and rapidly— the latest being Burmah, which has a population of four millions and an area of two hundred thousand square miles, and is represented to be fertile, and of special value because it gives an outlet for trade towards China. British India, at this date, contains thirteen provinces and one hundred and fifty feudatory states and principalities, all under English administration. About one-third of the territory, with fifty-five millions of people, is still under the rule of the hereditary rulers, permitted by the English to maintain courts and make a show of authority and sovereignty; the British, meanwhile, being the actual rulers. This enormous dependency is not under any uniform government applicable to the whole and administered in the same way throughout. On the contrary, each province or department has its own laws and civil polity. Aymer, Bevar, Mysore, Coorg are under the direct control of the Viceroy or Governor-General, who is appointed by the Crown. He is assisted by a Council, and they together exercise all legislative and executive powers; they not only make laws, but also execute and administer them. Every executive order and every legislative statute runs in the name of the Governor-General-in-Council. The Viceroy is king and prime minister and, in some sense, the Parliament. The Council, which aids and cooperates with him, is two-fold: 1. The Executive Council, consisting of six, besides the Viceroy, and constituting something like a cabinet. 2. The Legislative Council, of which the Viceroy and the Executive Council are members-the remainder being made up of the governors of the provinces where the Council sits for the time, and official delegates from Madras and Bombay, and certain nominated members, intended to represent non-official communities, both European and native. This body has no fixed time or place of meeting, but assembles wherever and at whatever time legislation is supposed to be needed. The two largest, most populous, and richest departments-Madras and Bombay-are under the control of governors appointed by the Crown, while Bengal, the Northwestern Provinces, and Punjab are governed by lieutenant-governors; and Oudh, the Central Provinces, British Burmah, and Assam have assigned to them officers called Chief Commissioners, who, like the Viceroy, the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors, are appointed by the Crown and have the same class of powers. But besides these, there are, as we have already said, about one hundred and fifty feudatory provinces, each with its own native hereditary ruler, called by different names in different states, and VOL. XI.-29 each, in its own domestic economy, governed by its own laws and customs-all, however, under the general control and supervision of the Viceroy. The native prince or potentate is the nominal governing power, the Viceroy the real, who, however, does not interfere except in case of necessity. As one general system of government does not exist, neither is there a general code of laws. One legislative body and one code are generally considered enough for any people; but British India has no less than three law-making bodies, and no less than five sets of laws: I. And chief of these is, of course, the British Parliament, whose acts, however, do not affect India or any part of it, unless specially named in the law itself. 2. The statutes of the Viceroy and Council. 3. The statutes of each separate division acting for itself alone. 4. The old Hindu and Mahometan laws relating to inheritance, which are of great antiquity and are still preserved and in force. 5. Laws relating to particular castes or races. The religion, if it can be called so, of this region is as various as the laws and governments: 1. Hindu-numbering about one hundred and forty millions. 2. Mahometan-about forty-one millions. 3. Buddhist-about three millions. 4. Sikhs-about one million three hundred thousand. 5. Christians-chiefly Catholics-about nine hundred thousand. This curious and anomalous condition of things is not peculiar to this part only of the British Empire; the same thing applies to every part of it, not excepting the Kingdom itself, for there in that little island we see the same variety of race, of language, of religion, of law, and of government, as in India. The British Isles consist, as we all know, of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, altogether making a small and compact territory; and it would seem that here, at least, the people ought to be content with one uniform government and one general system of laws. But things are almost as variant there as they are in India. England is Episcopalian and Scotland Presbyterian; they have each their own land laws, their own mode of administering justice, and their own judicial system and marriage laws. Ireland is Catholic, and besides being governed as Scotland is by the King and Parliament, it is put under the control and surveillance of a Lord-Lieutenant who resides in Dublin, and there holds a court resembling that of Her Majesty in London, and is in fact the representative of the Crown in Ireland. But the Isle of Man presents one of the most curious and vener able spectacles in the world. Neither it nor the Channel Isles, containing a population of a hundred and fifty thousand, and being parts of the Kingdom, are represented in Parliament. They stand to this day under what is claimed to be one of the freest countries of the earth, and one in which the personal rights of the citizens are protected to a greater degree and with more scrupulous care than anywhere else, monuments of taxation without representation. Perhaps it was the precedent afforded by them that Mr. Gladstone proposed to follow when he brought in his bill for home rule in Ireland, one of the provisions of which was that Ireland should elect no members to the Imperial Parliament, but should nevertheless be liable to taxation by that body. The Isle of Man has a Governor appointed by the Crown. It has a Council which constitutes the upper branch of the legislature, and a lower branch called the House of Keys. These three bodies constitute the Court of Tynwald, and all sit and act together in the deliberations of that tribunal. Acts of Parliament do not affect the Isle at all, unless specially named. The Governor is Captain-General of the forces; he presides in the Council and all courts of Tynwald, and is the sole Judge of the Chancery and Exchequer courts. The Council consists of the Lord Bishop of the diocese, the Attorney-General, the two Deemsters and the Clerk of the Rolls, the Water Bailiff, the Receiver-General, the Archdeacon, and the Vicar General-all except the last appointed by the Crown. The House of Keys has twenty-four members, elected-and here comes in a surprising feature-by the male owners and occupiers of property and the female owners of property. While the woman's rights people in this country have been agitating and haranguing and petitioning Congress and State legislatures to give the ballot to women, these have been voting from time immemorial in the Isle of Man. What are called Deemsters are judicial officers having peculiar and exceptional functions. Exactly when or how they originated, who made them and who gave them their name and jurisdiction, cannot be ascertained. The order has existed so long that no authentic records can be found of its beginning or origin, but they. are claimed, and believed, to be successors of the Druids, and are regarded by the simple people with something of the same veneration supposed to have been felt for that order. We are sure the reader will agree that all this exhibits a most remarkable and interesting spectacle. Here is an island, close to the shores of Great Britain, forming an integral part of the Kingdom, paying its taxes for the support of the whole nation, and yet not represented in the body which imposes taxes upon it. The same man is Governor-General, President of the Council and of the Court of Tynwald, Judge of the Court of Exchequer, Chancellor, and Commander-in-Chief of the army. Guernsey and the other Channel Islands stand to the Empire very much as does the Isle of Man. Alderney, Sark and Herm, and the smaller adjacent islands, are in the same bailiwick with Guernsey; and they, like the Isle of Man, have no representation in Parliament, though they have home rule, but still of a different variety. They, of course, have a Governor appointed by the Crown, and their Parliamentary Assembly is of very mixed material, consisting as it does of a Bailiff, twelve Jurats, an Attorney-General, the beneficed clergy and twelve delegates elected by the people. No other legislative body ever brought together anywhere is like it, for in it are men appointed by the Crown, men who are members by virtue of some other official position, parsons sent there from England by their bishops or designated by some layman who holds a benefice, and, lastly, delegates chosen by the people. But this body, made up of what seems to be such discordant elements, must be, nevertheless, a wise and prudent one, and those islands must be good places to live in, for the whole revenue raised by taxation is only £10,000 a year, and the population is as peaceful, quiet, kind, and law-abiding as is to be found anywhere on the globe. Although the Channel Islands have belonged to Great Britain for many centuries, yet the old Norman French is the prevalent language, while English is taught in the schools and modern. French used in the courts. The old Norman system of land tenure is still in force, the land being divided into very small parcels, five acres constituting a pretty good farm. While the Channel Islands still use the old Norman French, the Manx language continues to prevail in the Isle of Man, and is used almost entirely by the peasantry. The possessions already mentioned, extensive as they are, constitute by no means the greatest and most important of the British Empire. To give a detailed account of them would be almost as tedious as is the list which Homer furnishes of the ships that brought the Greeks to Troy. Nevertheless, a list of them, together with some sketch of the manner in which the larger part are governed, is essential to the proper development of the idea attempted to be enforced in this article. As we have already given some account of India, it may be well enough here to add that it is not all that Britain owns in Asia, and we will continue the descriptive list with the other territories in that country or adjacent to it. There are, in addition to India, Aden, Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Labrian, Perim, and the Straits Settlements. These are not insignificant, since Ceylon has a population of two millions eight hundred thousand, the Straits Settlements of five hundred and twenty-five thousand, and Cyprus of two hundred thousand. Perim has but one hundred and fifty men, women, and children, all told, and is probably the smallest and most insignificant place upon which England has set her foot. But we may be sure that there was some special reason for seizing that little island, for the rulers of the British Empire are not content alone with land of agricultural, mineral or commercial value, but want as well all places that may be of service as military posts, where supplies can be stored for army and navy, and ships of war or trade can touch with convenience and profit. It has been less than ten years since Lord Beaconsfield acquired Cyprus, which is financially an expense, but of incalculable value to Great Britain whenever the great war in the East, which may blaze out any day and is sure to come at last, takes place. There her ships can find harbor, water and supplies; there her troops can be stationed within easy reach of Egypt and the Suez Canal on the one side, and Asia, the Dardanelles, the Black Sea, and Constantinople on the other. Perim may have some such smaller value, and may be a Cyprus on a diminished scale. In Europe, besides Great Britain itself and Ireland and the adjacent Islands, the Empire has Gibraltar, Heligoland, Malta, and Gozo. Gibraltar is nothing but a fortress maintained at considerable cost, and Malta was obtained and held for the same reasons as Cyprus is, and is of much the same importance and value in military affairs. It was seized less than a hundred years ago, and, though it is only about seventeen miles long and nine broad, it has remarkably fine and safe harbors, and is convenient to all parts of the Mediterranean and the countries surrounding it. In the new growth of Africa and the scramble of all nations for it, we may be sure that Great Britain has not been idle or procrastinating, but has got a good share. She has held some positions in that country for more than two centuries, and has continued to add to her original foothold whatever she could take and was found valuable. Her mode of proceeding is simple and summary. She sees something, she covets, and forthwith an Act of Parliament is passed making it a part of Her Majesty's dominion and establishing over it such form of government as seems to suit the country, the people and the situation. Her first acquisitions were of course on the coast, but she has recently annexed, in the usual manner and in a very quiet and matter of fact way, a great part of the interior, and has called it by the general name of Bechuanaland. Her provinces in Africa are Cape Colony, Ascension, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Gambia, Gold Coast, Lagos, Mauritius, Natal, Sierra Leone and St. Helena. Cape Colony, which embraces the extreme south of the continent |