Meanwhile, whether from an economic point of view England is gaining
or losing at home, there can be no question as to her colonial
expansion. A glance at the accompanying maps of the world (see double
map opposite and map facing p. 420) in 1837 and in 1911 shows the
marvelous territorial growth of the British Empire.
When Victoria was crowned it had an area of less than three million
square miles; to-day it has over eleven million, or more than one
fifth of the entire land surface of the globe. England added to her
dominions, on the average, more than one hundred and forty-five
thousand square miles of territory every year of Victoria's reign.
Canada's wonderful growth in population and wealth is but one
example. Australia began its career (1837) as a penal colony with a
few shiploads of convicts; now it is a prosperous, powerful, and loyal
patr of the Empire (S545). Later than the middle of the nineteenth
century, New Zealand was a mission field where cannibalism still
existed (1857); now it is one of the leaders in English civilization.
Again, when Victoria came to the throne (1837) the greater part of
Africa was simply a geographical expression; the coast had been
explored, but scarcely anything was known of the country back of it.
Through the efforts of Livingstone and those who followed him (1840-
1890), the interior was explored and the source of the Nile was
discovered (1863). Stanley undertook the great work on the Congo
River and the "dark continent" ceased to be dark. Trade was opened
with the interior, and the discovery of diamond mines and gold mines
in South Africa (1867, 1884) stimulated emigration. Railways have
been pushed forward in many directions (S622), new markets are
springing up, and Africa, once the puzzle of the world, seems destined
to become one of the great fields which the Anglo-Saxon race is
determined to control, if not to possess.
On the other hand, the British West Indies have of late years greatly
declined from their former prosperity. The English demand for cheap
sugar has encouraged the importation of beet-root sugar from Germany
and France. This has reduced the market for cane sugar to so low a
point that there has been but little, if any, profit in raising it in
the West Indies;[1] but fruit is a success.
[1] See Brooks Adams's "America's Economic Supremacy."