The times., 1898-08-17
ENGLAND's COLONIES
With the Philippines We should
Rank as the Fifth P.xxer

Rank as the Fifth Power
II America should decide to annex the
Philippines in any manner in addition to
Hawaiia and Porto Rico. she would rank
fifth in Importance among the colonial
powers. Only Great Britain. France.
Germany. and Holland have extra nation
al possessions more popuIous and vaIua-
BILE. A writer in the Chicago Times
Herald says:
With the annexation of the Hawaiian
Islands the United States increased its
area 6.s97 square miles and added about
ilV'OO5 to its population. The Philippines
would add ll4.S2s square miles to the area
under Uncle Sans dominion ana about
100000 TO the population that claims his
protection Little Porto Rico has an ARA
OF S09o square miles and sO6.7OS people.
Hawaii is now alone on the Iist Of United
States colonial possessions. but there ia
every reason to believe that other islands
ana valuable ones. too. are soon 10 be
added
Great Britain, of course. leads all the
nations OF the world in colonial posses
sions. Indeed. the Queen Of England and
Empress of India rules over a greater CO.
lonial population than is subject to all the
other nations combined Truly enough
may it be said that the sun never sets
on the soil of Great Britain. for in every
ocean and every sea there are islands.
big and little, whose people owe allegiance
70 the queen. She has colonies. dependen-
eies and protectOrates throughout the
world, and collecting all the province of
British India into one group for each,
there are no less than sixty islands and
terri al n fr~f=T
list of Britains colonial possessions Some
Of them are colonies possessing a free
constitution and having a responsible
government, such as the Dominion OF
Canada and most of the Australian PROV
inces; others are provinces IN which the
legislature is partly elective and partly
controlled by the governor. such as Brit
ism Guiana ard Bermuda; others are
crown colonies, ruled directly by ap-
pointees of the imperial government. such
as India. TO watch country young CurzOn
Is soon to be sent as governor general:
some are dependencies subordinate 20 the
government of others. and a few are pro-
tectorates. internally independent, but
subject to British control by treaty or
otherwise
From the latest statistics published II
appears that the British Empire extends
over II. $4,000 square miles. of which only
~. .li5 are in the small islands which are
the home of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland Queen Vie
toria is ruler over 100 $50 60 people. and
only 3s. 1910 of them dwell within the
confines OF the United Kingdom. IN 1897
the revenues OF Great Britain and har
colonies were about Sl125.60J 90. while
the share raised in the United Kingdom
was only half the amount.
''India. Australia and Canada are. Of
course. the richest OF England's posses
sIOns. In the provinces of India the
queens realm extends over more than
10000 square miles of territory. and
through her vicerOy she rules 2ST.j90 20
people. The Canadian possessions cover
g. 80. .Gt1 square miles and the Canadian
subjects number nearly 5,590099 souls. In
Australia the queen has 3.5lao01 loyal sub
jects II Is the largest island in the
world-about 3.G3I 90 square miles-eqgaI-
ing in size the United States. inelud-
ing Alaska and being twenty-siX times
as large as the little England that rules
II.
The -est of Great Britain's colonial
possessions are not. terriJO-illy, so in
portant In the English and Irish chan
n-is ara the Isle Of Man. Jersey and
Guernsey; in the Mediterranean are Gfb-
raltar and Maltese and Cyprus Islands;
in the Cuff of Alden Is a group OF depen-
denotes; in the InGIan Ocean are CeylOn
ard a few minor islands; n Asia are India
and the Straits Se7 lenents; in the
Asiatie archipelago are Hong Kong
North Borneo and Labuan Islands, in the
Pacific the British flag floats over New
Zealand and the FIjis. on the American
continent. besides Canada. Britain holds
sway over Newfoundland. Guiana and
Honduras; in the N0Th h and South AZ
Iantic are a dozen such islands as Ber-
muda Bahama, Jamaica, and Barba-
does. and added TO all these are the mil
lions OF miles OF English territory
and millions OF British subjects
in darkest Africa The smallest of Eng
lands foreign possessions. but al the
same time one OF the most important,
is Gibraltar, which includes only one and
nine-tenths square miles, and is the bSIne
of % GO people"