CONSTITUTION AND RESOURCES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. THE British Empire consists of the United Kingdom | free institutions and they were established. A people of Great Britain and Ireland (including a number of minor islands around their shores), and colonies and other dependencies in different quarters of the world. The most remarkable peculiarity in the political condition of the British empire, is the high degree of civil and religious liberty which all classes of subjects practically enjoy. Slavery exists in no quarter of the British dominions: personal freedom, with liberty to come and go, unquestioned and unimpeded, is assured to all, without respect of birth, rank, language, colour, or religion. Britain, while in population and some other respects surpassed by several other nations, possesses a degree of wealth and political influence which may be said to place her at the head of all nations. This unprecedented affluence and power appears to have taken its rise in a fortunate concurrence of favouring circumstances, some of a physical and others of a moral cha racter. The first of the physical causes in importance is unquestionably the insular situation, at once protecting the country from the destructive invasions which have so much depressed and retarded many continental states, and furnishing opportunities for a ready commerce with all the shores of the civilized world. The second of these causes is to be found in the natural fertility of a large portion of the United Kingdom, and the temperate climate enjoyed by it, favouring the production of the food necessary for a large population. A third cause is the large amount of the mineral wealth of England, furnishing her with the means of prosecuting manufactures to an extent beyond all which the world has ever before had experience of. Thus Britain has been naturally qualified to become the seat of a great agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial nation, and must always, from the nature of things, have tended to assume that character. Moral causes, it is true, might have been unfavourable. Had a branch of the Ethiopian or Mongolian races possessed the country, its natural advantages would probably have remained unused. But the stock of the British population chances to have sprung from the Teutonic branch of the Caucasian variety, a race who have in many countries proved the superiority of their intellectual and moral organization. The idea of trial by jury, and of arranging public affairs by a representative body, hit upon at an early period by this race, show that it possesses a natural aptitude for forming improved political institutions. Its concern in the most important modern inventions shows its ingenuity in the arts. so active and so ingenious could not fail to take advan tage of the natural facilities which they enjoyed for manufactures and commerce. They made the best of blades in the days of Cœur de Lion, and in the time of Elizabeth their sails whitened every neighbouring sea. Arts, driven out of other countries by ruthless bigotry, found refuge and flourished among a people who eagerly grasp at every kind of employment which promises to be useful. It is to their persevering industry, exercised by favour of so many natural circumstances, and constantly protected by free institutions, that we are mainly and most immediately to look for the source of the greatness of the British empire. FORM OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. The government of the United Kingdom is constitu. tional, or possesses a regular form, in which the civil rights of all classes are acknowledged and guarantied. The constitution is a monarchy, in which the sovereign accepts of his dignity under an express agreement to abide by certain prescribed forms of government according to the laws of the realm, and to maintain inviolate the Protestant religion, with all the rights and privileges of the church. The sovereign is the head or directing power in the executive of government, the fountain of all honours, and the watchful guardian of the interests of the state: he is held to be incapable of doing wrong; and if an unlawful act is done, the minister instrumental in that act is alone obnoxious to punishment. The legislative part of the government is composed of two deliberating bodies the House of Lords and the House of Commons-both of which consist of individuals be longing to the United Kingdom only, the colonial de pendencies of the empire having no share in the general management. House of Lords.-The persons who compose the House of Lords form a separate class or rank, which is called collectively the Peerage, whose members enjoy certain exclusive privileges and honours. The members of the House of Lords are either lords spiritual or temporal. The spiritual lords are archbishops and bishops, and hold their seats for life in virtue of their ecclesiastical office; the temporal lords enjoy their seats from hereditary right, or in virtue of being elevated to the peerage. In 1837, at the meeting of the first Parliament of Queen Victoria, the number of members of the House of Lords was 641; namely, 3 princes of the blood royal, 2 English archbishops, 21 dukes, 19 marquises, 112 earls, 19 viscounts, 24 English bishops, 6 Irish prelates, 193 barons, 16 representative peers of Scotland, and 28 representative peers of Ireland. The House of Lords is liable at all times to an increase of number by the elevation of commoners to the peerage; but this prerogative of the crown is sparingly used. Its maritime enterprise and mercantile intrepidity were testified at a time when other nations were engaged only in feudal broils. Planted in England in the fifth century, and probably in Scotland many centuries beore, we see this people making a continual advance ever since in political institutions and in the arts of peace. Historians point out the accidents which effected The House of Commons.-This body consists of 658 conspicuous changes; but, while the feebleness and members; of whom 253 are chosen by counties, 6 by wickedness of a John may have been the immediate universities, and 399 by cities, boroughs, and towns. cause of the Magna Charta, and the passion of Henry England returns 471, Wales 29, Ireland 105, and ScotVIII. for a beautiful woman the proximate cause of the land 53. The number of persons entitled to vote in the reformation of religion, there must have also been some-election of these members is probably about a million; thing in the people pressing them irresistibly towards of whom about 600,000 vote for county members, 5000 liberty of person and of conscience, and enabling them for representatives of universities, and 400,000 for memto overcome all obstacles complishment of those bers for cities, boroughs, and towns. The great bulk & objects. It was in the nature of the people to establish the voters, as settled by the Reform, Acts of 1832, is composed of the agricultural tenantry and the occupants of houses of £10 of yearly rent; in other words, the middle classes. The operative classes, from their not in general inhabiting houses of such value, possess little direct influence in the election of members of the House of Commons. A House of Commons cannot legally exist for more than seven years; but, in reality, it rarely exists so long, the death of the sovereign, change of ministry, and other circumstances, causing a renewal on an average every three or four years. Reckoning from 1802 till November 15, 1837, there were thirteen Houses of Commons; as the thirteenth still exists (January, 1841), we have an average of three years for each; those of longest duration were the fourth, from 1807 to 1812, and the fifth, from 1812 to 1818. The Houses of Lords and Commons compose the Parliament. The Parliaments of England and Scotland were united in 1707, and then called the British Parliament. In 1800, the Irish Parliament merged in the British Parliament. The three kingdoms were first represented in one Parliament in 1801. Since that period it has been called the Imperial Parliament, and is always convened at Westminster. The two houses, with the sovereign, compose the three estates of the realm, or legislative body. The sovereign takes no personal concern in the proceedings of Parliament, further than opening or proroguing the sessions; but the interests of the crown in Parliament are intrusted to members of the cabinet council or ministry, and by them are defended and explained. The two houses, with the sovereign, have the power to pass laws, impose taxes, borrow money, make inquiries into the management of the public revenues, or the transactions of the great officers of government, and even to bring the latter to trial, if necessary. Members either house inquire into the manner in which all great public institutions or boards of management are conducted, such as those for education, for purposes of charity, for he erection of lighthouses on the coast, for the construction of harbours, and generally, indeed, into all the business which is intrusted to the executive part of the government; they cannot direct what is to be done, but may always make scrutiny into it afterwards, if any error or mismanagement has taken place. The discussions on these subjects are often very warm and eager, and bring to light facts of great public importance. No act of the two deliberative bodies becomes valid as a law, without the assent of the sovereign; and all propositions relating to money to be raised for the public service, must originate with the House of Commons, the Lords merely giving their assent as a matter of form, without being allowed to alter any thing. This circumstance gives a much larger share of influence to the Commons than is possessed by the Lords; the former having it in their power, whenever they are dissatisfied with the measures of government, to stop the supplies of money, and bring the whole machinery to a stand. Each of the two houses has one presiding member, whose duty it is to preserve order and see that the regulations of the assembly are attended to by the members; he is also the person through whom any communication passes between the house and the queen, he alone having the privilege of addressing her majesty in name of the house. Hence, in the House of Commons, this officer is called the Speaker; in the House of Lords he is commonly known as the Lord Chancellor, from another office which he holds; but the duties of the latter are quite the same as those of the Speaker of the Commons. There are numerous forms established for the regularity of business in Parliament, but of these there are only a few which need be mentioned here. Any proposal which is laid before either of the houses, in order to pass into a law, must be made out by its promoter in the form of an act of Parliament, but is only known by the name of a bill while under discussion; permission must first he obtained to introduce the bill, and it must then be read and considered by the house three several times, besides being once scrutinized more closely by a committee or select number of the members, and, if a public bill, by the whole house sitting as a committee, when each member is permitted to speak as frequently as he sees occa sion, whereas in the regular sittings of the house no one is allowed to speak more than once, except to explain where his first statements have been misunderstood. If it is not rejected in any of these three readings, or given up in the committee, the bill is said to have passed. It must then go through the same process in the other house, where it is sometimes adopted, sometimes rejected; but if any alterations are made on it here, they must be reported to the house where it first originated. If the two cannot agree on the changes proposed, the bill falls to the ground; but some modification is generally contrived which satisfies both parties. It still remains to obtain the sanction of the sovereign, which is hardly ever refused, when the bill becomes an act of Parliament or law. The members of both houses have certain personal privileges, which are deemed necessary for enabling them properly to attend to their public duties. In Parliament, they enjoy absolute freedom of speech, and cannot be questioned out of the house for any thing said in the debates; they and their servants are exempted from atrest (except in criminal cases) during their attendance in Parliament. The Executive, as already stated, is reposed in the hands of a sovereign. The dignity of the sovereign is hereditary in the family of Brunswick, now on the throne, and in the person of either a male or female. A queen reigning, therefore, enjoys the same privileges as a king. Besides enforcing the laws of the realm, through the medium of courts of justice, and a variety of functionaries, the sovereign is charged with the office of levying taxes granted for the public service, and of defending the empire at home or abroad against foreign enemies. He, or she (with reference to our present sovereign), also conducts all intercourse with the rulers of other nations, forming treaties and alliances, declaring war or concluding peace. She has the duty of protecting the persons and trade of British subjects in foreign countries. For this purpose, she has the sole appoint ment of the officers who perform these duties; of judges in the several courts of law; of officers in the army aud navy; of public ambassadors, and of consuls at foreign ports for the safety of trade; and of the officers who levy the taxes. She has also large forces, both naval and military, at her disposal, which are stationed in different parts of the empire where she or her advisers think that they are wanted for the time. The task of managing all these extensive concerns, which would fall into confusion in the hands of one person, is deputed by the queen a number of persons, who are denominated her Ministers, and sometimes the Cabinet. These are nominally se lected and appointed by the queen herself; but as her choice would be in vain if it were to fall on men who were disagreeable to Parliament (which might in that case refuse to grant supplies for national business), ministry is generally chosen from among such men as enjoy a considerable share of public confidence. They have all some high state office. The chief is the First Lord of the Treasury, whose nominal duty is the receiving and issuing of the public money, while his actual station is that of leader of the administration; he is the first who is appointed in any ministry, and generally selects all the other members, according to his own views of their abilities, or of the influence they possess in the country or in Parliament; and any changes afterwards made are generally igestion, or at least with his full assent. Next is the Lord High Chancellor, who to the presides in the highest law court of the kingdom, and is Speaker of the House of Lords; he is chief adviser of the sovereign in all that relates to the laws of the country, and has the disposal of a great number of clerical and law offices. After him are the principal secretaries of state, who are five in number, each having a separate charge; the first is Secretary for the Home Department, after whom are the Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and for the Colonies, the Secretary at War, and the Secretary for Ireland. These, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and several others of the high officers of state, form what is called the Ministry, the Cabinet Council, or briefly the Cabinet; and all the measures of the executive government are settled by their deliberations. The regular division of labour which is established in the British gover.ment, is one of its chief excellences; because every secretary, or other officer of state, having a particular department assigned to him, the responsibility for any error or mismanagement is established at once, and may be either rectified or punished. Parliament itself has its duties; and when these are no performed to the satisfaction of the electors, the members can be dismissed at next election, to make way for others who deserve better. The British constitution, thús slightly sketched, may be generally described as an anomaly in political science, being both professedly and in reality a mixture of all the three kinds of government-monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical. Such a government would probably be found totally inapplicable in other societies; but in Britain it answers well, having grown up in conformity with the views and character of the people, and enjoying, in consequence of that conformity and of its long existence, the respect required to enable any system to work. Upon the whole, notwithstanding the Reform Acts, the aristocratic principle predominates, yet fully as much from the spirit of the people themselves, as from any forms of the constitution. An unprejudiced foreigner would probably remark, that the greatest drawback from its happy working now is, the position in which it places the labouring portion of the community. FINANCES. Revenue. The revenue of the British empire has varied exceedingly of late years; from 1761 to 1774, which was a period of peace, it increased from £8,800,000 to £10,285,673; and since that time, from the various wars in which the country was engaged, the immediate expenses, and the interest of public debts, it has continued to augment till within these last ten or twelve years. From 1775 to 1783, which was the period of the American war, it rose from ten millions to twelve millions; and during the peace which followed till 1793, it was increased to seventeen and a half millions a year. After this period the French revolutionary war commenced. That war was by no means unpopular with the nation; and it was besides gilded by the many splendid victories whicl. continued to be obtained by British seamen as long as the enemy had a fleet to appear at sea. Heavy taxes for defraying the expenses of this war were therefore submitted to without remonstrance, and the public revenue rose accordingly to a very large amount. From 1794 to the peace of Amiens in 1801, which only lasted two years, the revenue was increased from seventeen and a half millions to twenty-eight millions: and from 1803 till 1816, the year after the final conclusion of peace, it had risen to £76,834,494, which was the largest sum raised by taxes in one year. The sums thus raised in taxes, large as they were, did not, however, meet the expenditure of the country during these periods of war. In order to defray the great charges which arose, it became necessary also to borrow to a great amount. The following table will show the VOL. II-75 1814 .1816 76,834,494 54,471,464 130,305,958 These sums will appear altogether enormous, and must give the most extraordinary idea of the resources of a government, which, while it raised such a large yearly amount in taxes, had yet credit to borrow the immense additional sums which were wanted. The whole sum which was expended in the wars of the revolution, from 1794 to 1816, amounted to 1700 millions of pounds sterling-a sum so far beyond all ordinary dealings, that we can have little conception of its amount or value. All the mines that are at present wrought in Europe and America would not furnish gold and silver equal to it in less than 310 years. The debt formed by borrowing money at different rates of interest to conduct the warlike operations of the country, has risen from small beginnings towards the conclusion of the seventeenth century, to an unparalleled amount. At the revolution of 1688, the national debt amounted to only £664,263; at the accession of Queen Anne, £16,394,702; of George I., £54,145,363; of George II., £52,092,235; at the end of the Spanish war in 1748, £78,293,312; at the commencement of war in 1755, £74,571,840; at the conclusion of peace in 1762, £146,682,844; at commencement of American war in 1776, £135,943,051; at conclusion of peace in 1783, £238.484,870; at commencement of French revolu tionary war, £233,733,609; at peace of Amiens in 1801 £582.839,277; at peace of (Feb. 1) 1816, £864,822,461; on the 5th of January, 1832, £782,667,224-interest, £28,341,416. Since 1832, the debt has increased, chiefly by the funding of exchequer bills (adding floating obligations to funded stock), and in 1839, the amount was £841,000,000, with an interest of £29,000,000. The revenue which it is necessary to raise for the purpose of paying the interest of the debt, and conducting the business of the country, is derived from taxation upon a great variety of different articles, which are all, however, reduced to the following heads: 1. The Customs. These are taxes levied upon the foreign commerce of the country, being the duties paid upon articles imported from abroad, such as tea, sugar, coffee, spirits, wines, tobacco, &c. They include also a few on some goods exported, such as coals, wool, and skins. Their whole amount, in the year ending October 10, 1840, was £20,152,739. 2. The Excise.-The excise taxes are those which are levied on goods of British manufacture, such as glass, malt, paper, &c. The duty is paid back again to the maker, if the commodity is to be exported to foreign countries. This class of taxes yielded, in the above year, £11,985,467. 3. Stamp Duties.-These consist of the prices affixed to stamp papers, upon which the law makes it imperative that every document for the transfer of property, or other obligation, shall be written. Deeds, settlements, and bills, bills of exchange, receipts (above a certain small amount), and a great variety of other instruments of business, are required to be stamped in this manner; and the prices affixed to the stamps, which are often high, bring a large revenue. Under the head of stamps, are also included newspaper stamps, indentures, dice, duties on plate, and other anomalous items. The whole amounted in the above year to £6,726,31" 1 3 v2 4. Direct Taxes.-These are duties levied on land, on windows (eight or upwards), male servants, riding horses, dogs, use of armorial bearings, hair powder, &c. This class of taxes, which are levied by surveyors and collectors, amounted in the above year to £3,744,372. The principal items are the land and window taxes, each of which was above a million. 5. Post-Office. In the year ending October, 1839, the revenue derived from the tax on letters passing through the post-office was £2,390,764. But, by the reduction of postage to one penny per letter (if under half an ounce) at the beginning of 1840, the amount of revenue derived from this source in the year ending January, 1840, was only £441,000. The great advantage derived by the country from cheap postage more than compensates the deficiency. 6. The income derived from rentals of crown property, and the sale of timber, bark, &c., from the crown lands (with other incidents), yielded a revenue, in the year ending October, 1840, of £167,500. 7. Miscellaneous. These include duties on hackneycoaches, hawkers' licenses, offices, pensions, &c.; and amounted to £84,479. 8. Some incidental revenues are derived from matters connected with the regular taxes; such as duties collected at the Isle of Man, fines, and goods seized for taxes; these, with a number of other casual receipts, amounted, in the above year, to £454,784. Besides this, there was a sum entitled Repayments of Advances, amounting to £656,140. The total of the income for the year ending October, 1840, was £44,665,798; and it will be observed that of that sum fully thirty-two millions were raised from customs and excise, or duties on foreign and British manufactures, and nearly seven millions on stamps. Thus, the great bulk of taxation is indirect, and the really direct taxes are a mere trifle in comparison. The chief burden of the taxes evidently falls on the consumers of tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, soap, spirits, and wines, and these consumers are the great body of the people. As the land-tax amounts to no more than £1,300,000 annually, proprietors of lands contribute but a small direct aid to the public income. The customs duties are levied on nearly 1700 articles imported into the country, but a few leading articles raise nineteen-twentieths of the entire amount, and the insignificant sum raised from the remainder acts merely as a prohibition on foreign commerce. The following were the duties levied on ten articles in the year ending January 5, 1840: £4,826,917 1,668,584 368,560 £20,871,126 levied in the rear ending January 5, 1840, were as follows: 1. Seeds of all kinds, 2. Oils of all kinds, 3. Spices of all kinds, 4. Hides and skins, 5. Tallow, 6. Wool (cotton and sheep's), Which added to the duties levied on the ten articles in the preceding list, namely, £145,712 The whole question of import duties, with reference to an improvement in the mode of levying them, has lately been considered by a committee of the House of Commons; and it is likely that a very great alteration will speedily be adopted, for it appears that the prohi bitive duties act injuriously on British manufactures, and induce foreigners, by way of retaliation, to exclude our goods from their markets. Expenditure. The total annual revenue, as above mentioned, is at present between forty-four and forty-five millions, and we have now to see how this large sum spent. The first great item in the expenditure is in the form of interest on the national debt: in the account rendered of the expenditure during the year ending O tober, 1840, the following statements are made :-Amount applied to consolidated fund, £31,836,088; amount ap 98,261 plied as advances, and to pay off exchequer bills issued 94,987 as advances, £559,592; amount paid as part of ways 181,999 and means of year, £12,270,118. It is difficult to obtain 556,225 an exact idea of this complicated statement; but we may £1,147,148 be certain of the general fact, that about £31,000,000 are paid annually as interest of debts due, or partial liqui 20,871,126 dation of debts, and that the whole business of the coun £149,035 144,355 193,570 49,692 55,234 49,469. 5,726 64,112 uy—civil, military, and naval, including charges for royal Expenses attending the two houses of Par- Special justices in West India colonies, Establishing steam-navigation to India, Indian department in Canada, instruction of emancipated negroes, and support of captured negroes, 57,418 India Board, 22265 Amount of Salaries. No. of 92 £56,346 14 7,005 20 7,529 18 9,958 for Trade, 29 11 331 Secretary of State Home Department, 30 19,678 21,584 Civil List. The expense incurred for the personal support of the sovereign and royal family and household, is but a small item in the general expenditure of the nation. Formerly, the crown possessed private revenues from lands, duties, &c., but all such are now'abandoned to the country (chiefly under management of the Board of Woods and Forests), and the sovereign in requital is voted a civil list, or certain fixed sums, by Parliament. On the accession of William IV., the civil list was voted under five different classes, amounting in the aggregate to £510,000 per annum, as follows: Class 1. For the king's privy purse, £60,000; for the and Public Works Office, Exchequer and other Departments IRELAND. Chief Secretary's Office, Office of Public Works, 171,500 manding, 23,200 Army Medical Office, 75,000 £510,000 On the accession of Queen Victoria, a civil list in six classes was voted, amounting in the aggregate to £385,000, with a power to the crown to grant pensions to an amount not exceeding £1200 in any one year. Salaries in Civil Departments.—The number of persons employed in the various civil departments of government was reduced to 3787, causing a saving of £976,822, between 1815 and 1835. In 1835, the following state Deputy Judge-Advocate-General's Provost Marshal-General's Office, |