There can be no doubt of the resources of Great Britain and Ireland being equal to this additional consumption, and the only difficulty that occurs is, as to the practicable means to be pursued for the purpose of making the productions of the soil and the sea keep pace with the progressive increase of the population. Ireland, in this respect, possessing in proportion to its extent much greater facilities than Great Britain, becomes a greater object of immediate attention." No doubt can be entertained of the productive nature of the fisheries and of the practicability of rendering this nutritious food an article of general consumption, not only in the maritime, but also in all the inland districts of Great Britain and Ireland, to the great comfort and relief of the labouring classes. The object is of vast importance, since the circumstances of the time are developing every year the necessity of new efforts, in order to find food for an increasing population. To effect this object, the produce of the British and Irish fisheries ought to be increased at least five fold. It may not be too much to say, that it is susceptible of an augmentation of more than double that extent, with the certainty of a consumption for the whole. Except in the maritime counties, fish is but little known to the mass of the people, and forms scarcely any part of their food; although under practicable arrangements it could be furnished at 181. a ton with a considerable profit, while other animal food cannot at present be procured under 70l. a ton. It is lamentable to reflect, that while 45,000,000l. sterling is. estimated as the value of butchers' meat and other animal food consumed annually, after a careful investigation, the property created by the labour employed in the coast and river fisheries can only be estimated at 1,500,000l.' In order to remove the difficulties which are opposed to the general consumption of fish, it must be slightly salted, and that species, selected which is best suited to the taste of the people. It must be so prepared as to admit of a transit to every part of the interior of the country, without the risk of spoiling. Large establishments round the coast, invigorated by capitals and skill equal to the object, could not fail to produce a great accession of property, generated every year by the labour of the people employed in this species of industry. On the return of peace, it would prove an immense resource for the employment of the numerous maritime labourers who must be discharged from the navy.' Upon the whole, with the resources which Great Britain possesses, (exclusive of the immense colonial fisheries) it may be fairly presumed, that from this species of aquatic labour in process of time a new property may be acquired from the seas and rivers equal to ten millions a year.' Mr. C.'s second chapter, if not more important, calls for more originality of observation than the first, being nothing less than an attempt to estimate the extent of the public and private property of the empire: an inquiry that affords a wide field to that ardour for calculation which has always marked the writings of this gentleman. He discusses the subject in a variety Z3 variety of ways, (pp. 55, 56, 57. 124, 125, 126, &c.) of which it would much exceed our limits to render an account: but the substance of his laborious details is exhibited in the following abstract: £ • England and Wales: Productive Private Property 1,543:400,000 Unproductive Idem By unproductive property, the author means waste-lands, plate, household furniture, clothes, public buildings, and what some readers will think is a curious addition, the amount of our specie in circulation. Chapter iii. is, like its predecessor, of an original cast, and goes beyond the materials. furnished by official returns; its. object being to exhibit a calculation of the annual reproduction of our land and labour: "Estimate of Property created in Great Britain and Ireland in the Year 1812-13. Agriculture in all its branches Coals, &c. 216,817,624 Mines and Minerals, including } BAE900,0000 114,230,000 31,500,000 Manufactures in every branch Fisheries, exclusive of the Colonial Fisheries of Newfoundland Chartered and Private Bankers Foreign Income remitted 46,373,748 2,000,000 The details of this subject occupy (p. 89. et seq.) a number of pages, and include estimates of the property of several distant possessions, such as our widely spread territories in India, which certainly have no claim to be accounted component parts of the British empire. This desire of adding million to million is par ticularly ticularly exceptionable in the population-returns; where the sober number of seventeen millions (the amount for Great Britain and Ireland) is raised, in a couple of lines, to nearly sixty millions by the short process of taking credit (p. 7.) for forty millions of Hindoos and Mohammedans, on whom the most sanguine calculator would hardly venture to reckon in an hour of public alarm. The reader will view with a more favourable eye the returns connected with our home-navigation: The insular situation of the United Kingdom affords great facilities in the transportation of produce and merchandize from one port to another. The number of vessels employed in the coasting trade of Great Britain and Ireland, including those in the coal trade, are extremely numerous, and cannot be estimated 'at less than 3000 vessels of every description, which may possibly admit of the following division: Vessels. 10700 From the whole of the Out-ports to the Port of London 470 Vessels employed from Whitehaven and other Ports in the } 250 Coasting Coal Trade Vessels employed in conveying Produce and merchandize to and from one Out-port in the United Kingdom to another Total 3,070 The following table comprizes the number of our vessels, their tonnage, and their crews, employed in trade in the year 1812: Great Britain and Ireland :- Vessels. Men. 124,896. Tons. 231,273 16,300 57,104 5,320 Chap. iv. also opens a field hitherto untrodden by the calculator, its purport being to compute the mode of distributing the annual reproduction of our land and labour among the different classes of the community. Mr. Colquhoun divides us all into seven classes, exclusive of the army and navy, and thus apportions our relative number and property: Z4 Ist Class. Beretek Heads of 1st Class. The Royal Family, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, the Great Officers of State, and all above the degree of a Baronet, with their Families 2d. Baronets, Knights, Country Gentlemen, and others having large incomes, with their families 3d. Dignified Clergy, Persons holding considerable employments in the State, elevated situations in the Law, eminent Families. Total persons, comprising their Families. 2,880 576 46,861 234,305 Practitioners in Physic, considerable 12,200 4th. Persons holding inferior situations in 6th. Working Mechanics, Artisans, Han- 61,000 1,168,250 564,799 2,798,475 2,126,095 8,792,800 1,279,923 7th. Paupers and their families, Vagrants, Gipsies, Rogues, Vagabonds, and idle and disorderly persons, supported by 'criminal delinquency In chapter v. we are brought back from these conjectural estimates to official documents, and to conclusions which depend on the grave authority of history; and here Mr. C. has pursued the steps of Sir John Sinclair, in giving an historical sketch of our public revenue from the earliest period to the year 1760. The reign of his present Majesty, having been productive of a very remarkable increase in the amount of our taxes and expenditure, is consigned to a separate chapter, and treated at considerable length. It is indeed curious to observe the rapid augmentation of our annual expence in the four successive wars in this reign; an augmentation originating in two causes, both of very powerful operation, viz. the depreciation of money, and the extension of the force kept in employment.cles In the war which terminated in 1763, the annual averageexpence, after we have made a deduction for what the peaceestablishment would have cost, was nearly £16,000,000 In the American war, after a similar deduc tion, it but was above In the war of 1793-4, above And in the war ending in 1814, above We shall Snail next see in what 17,000,000 33,000,000 -50,000,000 at manner funds these growing expences. The public revenue has increased during the present reign thus: 1761 8,800,000 af1784 £12,905,519 1785 14,871,520 Peace. 1788 18-01 1789 - 15,565,642 1790 15,986,068 |