Chapter XIX: Part 19

In 1791, not long after the extension of the range of parliamentary authority in another portion of the empire, by the creation in 1784 of the Board of Control for India, Pitt made the step forward of granting to Canada representative institutions, of which the home government kept the responsible control. Similar institutions were also given at a later period to Australia and South Africa. But the long peace of the early part of the 19th century was marked by great colonial developments; Australia, Canada and South Africa became important communities. Representative institutions controlled by the home government were insufficient, and they reasserted the claim for liberty to manage their own affairs.

Fully responsible government was granted to Canada in 1840, and gradually extended to the other colonies. In 1854 a separate secretary of state for the colonies was appointed at home, and the colonial office was established on its present footing. In India, as in the colonies, there came with the growing needs of empire a recognition of the true relations of the parts to each other and of the whole to the crown. In 1858, on the complete transference of the territories of the East India Company to the crown, the board of control was abolished, and the India Council, under the presidency of a secretary of state for India, was created. It was especially provided that the members of the council may not sit in parliament.

Thus, although it has not been found practicable in the working of the British constitution to carry out the full theory of the direct and exclusive dependence of colonial possessions on the crown, the theory is recognized as far as possible. It is understood that the principal sections of the empire enjoy equal rights under the crown, and that none is subordinate to another. The intervention of the imperial parliament in colonial affairs is only admitted theoretically in so far as the support of parliament is required by the constitutional advisers of the crown. To bring the practice of the empire into complete harmony with the theory it would be necessary to constitute, for the purpose of advising the crown on imperial affairs, a council in which all important parts of the empire should be represented.

The gradual recognition of the constitutional theory of the British empire, and the assumption by the principal [Sidenote: Imperialism.] colonies of full self-governing responsibilities, has cleared the way for a movement in favour of a further development which should bring the supreme headship of the empire more into accord with modern ideas.

It was during the period of domination of the "Manchester school," of which the most effective influence in public affairs was exerted for about thirty years, extending from 1845 to 1875, that the fullest development of colonial self-government was attained, the view being generally accepted at that time that self-governing institutions were to be regarded as the preliminary to inevitable separation. A general inclination to withdraw from the acceptance of imperial responsibilities throughout the world gave to foreign nations at the same time an opportunity by which they were not slow to profit, and contributed to the force of a reaction of which the part played by Great Britain in the scramble for Africa marked the culmination. Under the increasing pressure of foreign enterprise, the value of a federation of the empire for purposes of common interest began to be discussed. Imperial federation was openly spoken of in New Zealand as early as 1852. A similar suggestion was officially put forward by the general association of the Australian colonies in London in 1857. The Royal Colonial Institution, of which the motto "United Empire" illustrates its aims, was founded in 1868. First among leading British statesmen to repudiate the old interpretation of colonial self-government as a preliminary to separation, Lord Beaconsfield, in 1872, spoke of the constitutions accorded to the colonies as "part of a great policy of imperial consolidation." In 1875 W. E. Forster, afterwards a member of the Liberal government, made a speech in which he advocated imperial federation as a means by which it might become practicable to "replace dependence by association." The foundation of the Imperial Federation League--in 1884, with Forster for its first president, shortly to be succeeded by Lord Rosebery--marked a distinct step forward. The Colonial Conferences of 1887 and subsequent years (the title being changed to Imperial Conference in 1907), in which colonial opinion was sought and accepted in respect of important questions of imperial organization and defence, and the enthusiastic loyalty displayed by the colonies towards the crown on the occasion of the jubilee manifestations of Queen Victoria's reign, were further indications of progress in the same direction. Coincidently with this development, the achievements of Sir George Goldie and Cecil Rhodes, who, the one in West Africa and the other in South Africa, added between them to the empire in a space of less than twenty years a dominion of greater extent than the whole of British [v.04 p.0612] India, followed by the action of a host of distinguished disciples in other parts of the world, effectually stemmed the movement initiated by Cobden and Bright. A tendency which had seemed temporarily to point towards a complacent dissolution of the empire was arrested, and the closing years of the 19th century were marked by a growing disposition to appreciate the value and importance of the unique position which the British empire has created for itself in the world. No stronger demonstration of the reality of imperial union could be needed than that which was afforded by the support given to the imperial forces by the colonies and India in the South African War. It remained only to be seen by what process of evolution the further consolidation of the empire would find expression in the machinery of government. A step in this direction was taken in 1907, when at the Colonial Conference held in London that year it was decided to form a permanent secretariat to deal with the common interests of the self-governing colonies and the mother-country. It was further decided that conferences, to be called in future Imperial Conferences, between the home government and the governments of the self-governing dominions, should be held every four years, and that the prime minister of Great Britain should be _ex officio_ president of the conference. No executive power was, however, conferred upon the conference.

The movement in favour of tariff reform initiated by Mr Chamberlain (_q.v._) in 1903 with the double object of giving a preference to colonial goods and of protecting imperial trade by the imposition in certain cases of retaliative duties on foreign goods, was a natural evolution of the imperialist idea, and of the fact that by this time the trade-statistics of the United Kingdom had proved that trade with the colonies was forming an increasingly large proportion of the whole. In spite of the defeat of the Unionist party in England in 1906, and the accession to power of a Liberal government opposed to anything which appeared to be inconsistent with free trade, the movement for colonial preference, based on tariff reform, continued to make headway in the United Kingdom, and was definitely adopted by the Unionist party. And at the Imperial Conference of 1907 it was advocated by all the colonial premiers, who could point to the progress made in their own states towards giving a tariff preference to British goods and to those of one another.

The question of self-government is closely associated with the question of self-support. Plenty of good land and the liberty to manage their own affairs were the causes assigned by Adam Smith for the marked prosperity of the British colonies towards the end of the 18th century. The same causes are still observed to produce the same effects, and it may be pointed out that, since the date of the latest of Adam Smith's writings, upwards of 6,000,000 sq. m. of virgin soil, rich with possibilities of agricultural, pastoral and mineral wealth, have been added to the empire. In the same period the white population has grown from about 12,000,000 to 53,000,000, and the developments of agricultural and industrial machinery have multiplied, almost beyond computation, the powers of productive labour.

It is scarcely possible within this article to deal with so widely varied a subject as that of the productions and industry of the [Sidenote: The imperial factor in industry and trade.] empire. For the purposes of a general statement, it is interesting to observe that concurrently with the acquisition of the vast continental areas during the 19th century, the progress of industrial science in application to means of transport and communication brought about a revolution of the most radical character in the accepted laws of economic development. Railways did away with the old law that the spread of civilization is necessarily governed by facilities for water carriage and is consequently confined to river valleys and sea-shores. Steam and electricity opened to industry the interior of continents previously regarded as unapproachable. The resources of these vast inland spaces which have lain untouched since history began became available to individual enterprise, and over a great portion of the earth's surface were brought within the possessions of the British empire. The production of raw material within the empire increased at a rate which can only be appreciated by a careful study of figures, and by a comparison of the total of these figures with the total figures of the world. The tropical and temperate possessions of the empire include every field of production which can be required for the use of man. There is no main staple of human food which is not grown; there is no material of textile industry which is not produced. The British empire gives occupation to more than one-third of the persons employed in mining and quarrying in the world. It may be interesting, as an indication of the relative position in this respect of the British empire to the world, to state that at present it produces one-third of the coal supply of the world, one-sixth of the wheat supply, and very nearly two-thirds of the gold supply. But while these figures may be taken as in themselves satisfactory, it is far more important to remember that as yet the potential resources of the new lands opened to enterprise have been barely conceived, and their wealth has been little more than scratched. Population as yet has been only very sparsely sprinkled over the surface of many of the areas most suitable for white settlement. In the wheat lands of Canada, the pastoral country of Australasia, and the mineral fields of South Africa and western Canada alone, the undeveloped resources are such as to ensure employment to the labour and satisfaction to the needs of at least as many millions as they now contain thousands of the British race. In respect of this promise of the future the position of the British empire is unique.

It is not too much to say that trade has been at once the most active cause of expansion and the most potent bond of union in the development of the empire. Trade with the tropical and settlement in the temperate regions of the world formed the basis upon which the foundations of the empire were laid. Trading companies founded most of the American and West Indian colonies; a trading company won India; a trading company colonized the north-western districts of Canada; commercial wars during the greater part of the 18th century established the British command of the sea, which rendered the settlement of Australasia possible. The same wars gave Great Britain South Africa, and chartered companies in the 19th century carried the British flag into the interior of the African continent from south and east and west. Trading companies developed Borneo and Fiji. The bonds of prosperous trade have kept the Australasian colonies within the empire. The protection of colonial commerce by the imperial navy is one of the strongest of material links which connect the crown with the outlying possessions of the empire.

The trade of the empire, like the other developments of imperial public life, has been profoundly influenced by the variety of [Sidenote: Imperial trade policy.] local conditions under which it has flourished. In the early settlement of the North American colonies their trade was left practically free; but by the famous Navigation Act of 1660 the importation and exportation of goods from British colonies were restricted to British ships, of which the master and three-fourths of the mariners were English. This act, of which the intention was to encourage British shipping and to keep the monopoly of British colonial trade for the benefit of British merchants, was followed by many others of a similar nature up to the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the introduction of free trade into Great Britain. The Navigation Acts were repealed in 1849. Thus for very nearly two hundred years British trade was subject to restrictions, of which the avowed intention was to curtail the commercial intercourse of the empire with the world. During this period the commercial or mercantile system, of which the fallacies were exposed by the economists of the latter half of the 18th century, continued to govern the principles of British trade. Under this system monopolies were common, and among them few were more important than that of the East India Company. In 1813 the trade of India was, however, thrown open to competition, and in 1846, after the introduction of free trade at home, the principal British colonies which had not yet at that date received the grant of responsible government were specially empowered to abolish differential duties upon foreign trade. A first result of the commercial emancipation of the [v.04 p.0613] colonies was the not altogether unnatural rise in the manufacturing centres of the political school known as the Manchester school, which was disposed to question the value to Great Britain of the retention of colonies which were no longer bound to give her the monopoly of their commercial markets. An equally natural desire on the part of the larger colonies to profit by the opportunity which was opened to them of establishing local manufactures of their own, combined with the convenience in new countries of using the customs as an instrument of taxation, led to something like a reciprocal feeling of resentment, and there followed a period during which the policy of Great Britain was to show no consideration for colonial trade, and the policy of the principal colonies was to impose heavy duties upon British trade. By a gradual process of better understanding, largely helped by the development of means of communication, the antagonistic extreme was abandoned, and a tendency towards a system of preferential duties within the empire displayed itself.

At the Colonial Conference held in London in 1887 a proposal was formally submitted by the South [Sidenote: Colonial preference.] African delegate for the establishment within the empire of a preferential system, imposing a duty of 2% upon all foreign goods, the proceeds to be directed to the maintenance of the imperial navy. To this end it was requested that certain treaties with foreign nations which imposed restrictions on the trade of various parts of the empire with each other should be denounced. Some years later, a strong feeling having been manifested in England against any foreign engagement standing in the way of new domestic trade arrangements between a colony and the mother-country, the German and Belgian treaties in question were denounced (1897). Meanwhile, simultaneously with the movement in favour of reciprocal fiscal advantages to be granted within the empire by the many local governments to each other, there was a growth of the perception that an increase of the foreign trade of Great Britain, carried on chiefly in manufactured goods, was accompanied by a corresponding enlargement of the home markets for colonial raw material, and consequently that injury to the foreign trade of Great Britain, while as yet it so largely outweighed the trade between the United Kingdom and the colonies, must necessarily react upon the colonies. This view was definitely expressed at the Colonial Conference at Ottawa in 1894, and was one of the factors which led to the relinquishment of the demand that in return for colonial concessions there should be an imposition on the part of Great Britain of a differential duty upon foreign goods. Canada was the first important British colony to give substantial expression to the new imperial sentiment in commercial matters by the introduction in 1897 of an imperial tariff, granting without any reciprocal advantage a deduction of 25% upon customs duties imposed upon British goods. The same advantage was offered to all British colonies trading with her upon equal terms. In later years the South African states, Australia and New Zealand also granted preferential treatment to British goods. Meanwhile in Great Britain the system of free imports, regarded as "free trade" (though only one-sided free trade), had become the established policy, customs duties being only imposed for purposes of revenue on a few selected articles, and about half the national income was derived from customs and excise. In most of the colonies customs form of necessity one of the important sources of revenue. It is, however, worthy of remark that in the self-governing colonies, even those which are avowedly protectionist, a smaller proportion of the public revenue was derived from customs and excise than was derived from these sources in the United Kingdom. The proportion in Australasia before federation was about one quarter. In Canada it is more difficult to estimate it, as customs and excise form the principal provision made for federal finance, and note must therefore be taken of the separate sources of revenue in the provinces. With these reservations it will still be seen that customs, or, in other words, a tax upon the movements of trade, forms one of the chief sources of imperial revenue.

The development of steam shipping and electricity gave to the movements of trade a stimulus no less remarkable than that given by the introduction of railroads and industrial machinery to production and manufactures. Whereas at the beginning of the 19th century the journey to Australia occupied eight months, and business communications between Sydney and London could not receive answers within the year, at the beginning of the 20th century the journey could be accomplished in thirty-one days, and telegraphic despatches enabled the most important business to be transacted within twenty-four hours. For one cargo carried in the year at the beginning of the 19th century at least six could now be carried by the same ship, and from the point of view of trade the difference of a venture which realizes its profits in two months, as compared with one which occupied a whole year, does not need to be insisted on. The increased rapidity of the voyage and the power of daily communication by telegraph with the most distant markets have introduced a wholly new element into the national trade of the empire, and commercial intercourse between the southern and the northern hemispheres has received a development from the natural alternation of the seasons, of which until quite recent years the value was not even conceived. Fruit, eggs, butter, meat, poultry and other perishable commodities pass in daily increasing quantities between the northern and the southern hemispheres with an alternate flow which contributes to raise in no inconsiderable degree the volume of profitable trade. Thus the butter season of Australasia is from October to March, while the butter season of Ireland and northern Europe is from March to October. In three years after the introduction of ice-chambers into the steamers of the great shipping lines, Victoria and New South Wales built up a yearly butter trade of £1,000,000 with Great Britain without seriously affecting the Irish and Danish markets whence the summer supply is drawn. These facilities, combined with the enormous additions made to the public stock of land and labour, contributed to raise the volume of trade of the empire from a total of less than £100,000,000 in the year 1800 to a total of nearly £1,500,000,000 in 1900. The declared volume of British exports to all parts of the world in 1800 was £38,120,120, and the value of British imports from all parts of the world was £30,570,605; total, £68,690,725. As in those days the colonies were not allowed to trade with any other country this must be taken as representing imperial trade. The exact figures of the trade of India, the colonies, and the United Kingdom for 1900 were: imports, £809,178,209; exports, £657,899,363; total, £1,467,077,572.

A question of sovereign importance to the continued existence of the empire is the question of defence. A country of which [Sidenote: Imperial defence.] the main thoroughfares are the oceans of the world demands in the first instance a strong navy. It has of late years been accepted as a fundamental axiom of defence that the British navy should exceed in strength any reasonable combination of foreign navies which could be brought against it, the accepted formula being the "two-power standard," _i.e._ a 10% margin over the joint strength of the two next powers. The expense of maintaining such a floating armament must be colossal, and until within the decade 1890-1900 it was borne exclusively by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. As the benefits of united empire have become more consciously appreciated in the colonies, and the value of the fleet as an insurance for British commerce has been recognized, a desire has manifested itself on the part of the self-governing colonies to contribute towards the formation of a truly imperial navy. In 1895 the Australasian colonies voted a subsidy of £126,000 per annum for the maintenance of an Australasian squadron, and in 1897 the Cape Colony also offered a contribution of £30,000 a year to be used at the discretion of the imperial government for naval purposes. The Australian contribution was in 1902 increased to £240,000, and that of the Cape to £50,000, while Natal voted £35,000 a year and Newfoundland £3000. But apart from these comparatively slight contributions, and the local up-keep of colonial fortifications,--and the beginning in 1908-1909 of an Australian torpedo-boat flotilla provided by the Commonwealth,--the whole cost of the imperial navy, on which ultimately the security of the empire rested, remained to be [v.04 p.0614] borne by the taxpayers in the British islands. The extent of this burden was emphasized in 1909 by the revelations as to the increase of the German (and the allied Austrian) fleet. At this crisis in the history of the two-power standard a wave of enthusiasm started in the colonies, resulting in the offer of "Dreadnoughts" from New Zealand and elsewhere; and the British government called an Imperial Conference to consider the whole question afresh.

Land defence, though a secondary branch of the great question of imperial defence, has been intimately connected with the development and internal growth of the empire. In the case of the first settlement of the American colonies they were expected to provide for their own land defence. To some extent in the early part of their career they carried out this expectation, and even on occasion, as in the taking of Louisburg, which was subsequently given back at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle as the price of the French evacuation of Madras, rendered public service to the empire at large. In India the principle of local self-defence was from the beginning carried into practice by the East India Company. But in America the claim of the French wars proved too heavy for local resources. In 1755 Great Britain intervened with troops sent from home under General Braddock, and up to the outbreak of the American War the cost of the defence of the North American colonies was borne by the imperial exchequer. To meet this expense the imperial parliament took upon itself the right to tax the American colonies. In 1765 a Quartering Act was passed by which 10,000 imperial troops were quartered in the colonies. As a result of the American War which followed and led to the loss of the colonies affected, the imperial authorities accepted the charge of the land defences of the empire, and with the exception of India and the Hudson Bay territories, where the trading companies determined to pay their own expenses, the whole cost of imperial defence was borne, like the cost of the navy, by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. This condition of affairs lasted till the end of the Napoleonic Wars. During the thirty years' peace which followed there came time for consideration. The fiscal changes which towards the middle of the 19th century gave to the self-governing colonies the command of their own resources very naturally carried with them the consequence that a call should be made on colonial exchequers to provide for their own governing expenses. Of these defence is obviously one of the most essential. Coincidently, therefore, with the movements of free trade at home, the renunciation of what was known as the mercantile system and the accompanying grants of constitutional freedom to the colonies, a movement for the reorganization of imperial defence was set on foot. In the decade which elapsed between 1846 and 1856 the movement as regards the colonies was confined chiefly to calls made upon them to contribute to their own defence by providing barracks, fortifications, &c., for the accommodation of imperial troops, and in some cases paying for the use of troops not strictly required for imperial purposes. In 1857 the Australian colonies agreed to pay the expenses of the imperial garrison quartered in Australia. This was a very wide step from the imperial attempt to tax the American colonies for a similar purpose in the preceding century. Nevertheless, in evidence given before a departmental committee in 1859, it was shown that at that time the colonies of Great Britain were free from almost every obligation of contributing either by personal service or money payment towards their own defence, and that the cost of military expenditure in the colonies in the preceding year had amounted in round figures to £4,000,000. A committee of the House of Commons sat in 1861 to consider the question, and in 1862 it was resolved, without a division, that "colonies exercising the right of self-government ought to undertake the main responsibility of providing for their own internal order and security, and ought to assist in their own external defence." The decision was accepted as the basis of imperial policy. The first effect was the gradual withdrawing of imperial troops from the self-governing colonies, together with the encouragement of the development of local military systems by the loan, when desired, of imperial military experts. A call was also made for larger military contributions from some of the crown colonies. The committee of 1859 had emphasized in its report the fact that the principal dependence of the colonies for defence is necessarily upon the British navy, and in 1865, exactly 100 years after the Quartering Act, which had been the cause of the troubles that led to the independence of the United States, a Colonial Naval Defence Act was passed which gave power to the colonies to provide ships of war, steamers, and volunteers for their own defence, and in case of necessity to place them at the disposal of the crown. In 1868 the Canadian Militia Act gave the fully organized nucleus of a local army to Canada. In the same year the imperial troops were withdrawn from New Zealand, leaving the colonial militia to deal with the native war still in progress. In 1870 the last imperial troops were withdrawn from Australia, and in 1873 it was officially announced that military expenditure in the colonies was almost "wholly for imperial purposes." In 1875 an imperial officer went to Australia to report for the Australian government upon Australian defence. The appointment in 1879 of a royal commission to consider the question of imperial defence, which presented its report in 1882, led to a considerable development and reorganization of the system of imperial fortifications. Coaling stations were also selected with reference to the trade routes. In 1885 rumours of war roused a very strong feeling in connexion with the still unfinished and in many cases unarmed condition of the fortifications recommended by the commission of 1879. Military activity was stimulated throughout the empire, and the Colonial Defence Committee was created to supply a much-felt need for organized direction and advice to colonial administrations acting necessarily in independence of each other. The question of colonial defence was among the most important of the subjects discussed at the colonial conference held in London in 1887, and it was at this conference that the Australasian colonies first agreed to contribute to the expense of their own naval defence. From this date the principle of local responsibility for self-defence has been fully accepted. India has its own native army, and pays for the maintenance within its frontiers of an imperial garrison. Early in the summer of 1899, when hostilities in South Africa appeared to be imminent, the governments of the principal colonies took occasion to express their approval of the South African policy pursued by the imperial government, and offers were made by the governments of India, the Australasian colonies, Canada, Hong-Kong, the Federal Malay states, some of the West African and other colonies, to send contingents for active service in the event of war. On the outbreak of hostilities these offers, on the part of the self-governing colonies, were accepted, and colonial contingents upwards of 30,000 strong were among the most efficient sections of the British fighting force. The manner in which these colonial contingents were raised, their admirable fighting qualities, and the service rendered by them in the field, disclosed altogether new possibilities of military organization within the empire, and in subsequent years the subject continued to engage the attention of the statesmen of the empire. Progress in this field lay chiefly in the increased support given in the colonial states to the separate local movements for self-defence; but in 1909 a scheme was arranged by Mr Haldane, by which the British War Office should co-operate with the colonial governments in providing for the training of officers and an interchange of views on a common military policy.

The important questions of justice, religion and instruction will be found dealt with in detail under the headings of separate [Sidenote: Justice, &c.] sections of the empire. Systems of justice throughout the empire have a close resemblance to each other, and the judicial committee of the privy council, on which the self-governing colonies and India are represented, constitutes a supreme court of appeal (_q.v._) for the entire empire. In the matter of religion, while no imperial organization in the strict sense is possible, the progress made by the Lambeth Conferences and otherwise (see ANGLICAN COMMUNION) has done much to bring the work of the Church of England in different parts of the world into a co-operative system. Religion, of which the forms are infinitely varied, is however everywhere free, [v.04 p.0615] except in cases where the exercise of religious rites leads to practices foreign to accepted laws of humanity. It is perhaps interesting to state that the number of persons in the empire nominally professing the Christian religion is 58,000,000, of Mahommedans 94,000,000, of Buddhists 12,000,000, of Hindus 208,000,000, of pagans and others 25,000,000. Systems of instruction, of which the aim is generally similar in the white portions of the empire and is directed towards giving to every individual the basis of a liberal education, are governed wholly by local requirements. Native schools are established in all settled communities under British rule.

LITERATURE.--In recent years the subject of British imperialism has inspired a growing literature, and it is only possible here to name a selected number of the more important works which may usefully be consulted on different topics: Sir C.P. Lucas, _Historical Geography of the British Colonies_ (1888, et seq.); H.E. Egerton, _Short History of British Colonial Policy_ (1897); H.J. Mackinder, _Britain and the British Seas_ (1902); Sir J.R. Seeley, _Expansion of England_ (1883); _Growth of British Policy_ (1895); Sir Charles Dilke, _Greater Britain_ (1869), _Problems of Greater Britain_ (1890), _The British Empire_ (1899); G.R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_ (1892); Sir John Colomb, _Imperial Federation, Naval and Military_ (1886); Sir G.S. Clarke, _Imperial Defence_ (1897); Sidney Goldmann and others, _The Empire and the Century_ (1905); J.L. Garvin, _Imperial Reciprocity_ (1903); J.W. Welsford, _The Strength of a Nation_ (1907); _Compatriots Club Essays_ (1906); Sir H. Jenkyns, _British Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas_ (1902); Bernard Holland, _Imperium et libertas_ (1901); (for an anti-imperialist view) J.A. Hobson, _Imperialism_ (1902). See also the Reports of the various colonial conferences, especially that of the Imperial Conference of 1907; and for trade statistics, J. Holt Schooling's _British Trade Book_. For the tariff reform movement in England see the articles FREE TRADE and PROTECTION.

(F. L. L.)

[1] The census returns for 1901 from the various parts of the empire were condensed for the first time in 1906 into a blue-book under the title of _Census of the British Empire, Report with Summary_.

[2] The white population of British South Africa according to the census of 1904 was 1,132,226.

[3] Or "Board," as it became in 1605.

BRITISH HONDURAS, formerly called BALIZE, or BELIZE, a British crown colony in Central America; bounded on the N. and N.W. by the Mexican province of Yucatan, N.E. and E. by the Bay of Honduras, an inlet of the Caribbean Sea, and S. and W. by Guatemala. (For map, see CENTRAL AMERICA.) Pop. (1905) 40,372; area, 7562 sq. m. The frontier of British Honduras, as defined by the conventions of 1859 and 1893 between Great Britain and Guatemala, begins at the mouth of the river Sarstoon or Sarstun, in the Bay of Honduras; ascends that river as far as the rapids of Gracias à Dios; and thence, turning to the right, runs in a straight line to Garbutt's Rapids, on the Belize river. From this point it proceeds due north to the Mexican frontier, where it follows the river Hondo to its mouth in Chetumal Bay.

British Honduras differs little from the rest of the Yucatan peninsula. The approach to the coast is through the islets known as cays, and through coral reefs. It is both difficult and dangerous. For some miles inland the ground is low and swampy, thickly covered with mangroves and tropical jungle. Next succeeds a narrow belt of rich alluvial land, not exceeding a mile in width, beyond which, and parallel to the rivers, are vast tracts of sandy, arid land, called "pine ridges," from the red pines with which they are covered. Farther inland these give place, first, to the less elevated "broken ridges," and then to what are called "cahoon ridges," with a deep rich soil covered with myriads of palm trees. Next come broad savannas, studded with clumps of, trees, through which the streams descending from the mountains wind in every direction. The mountains themselves rise in a succession of ridges parallel to the coast. The first are the Manatee Hills, from 800 to 1000 ft. high; and beyond these are the Cockscomb Mountains, which are about 4000 ft. high. No less than sixteen streams, large enough to be called rivers, descend from these mountains to the sea, between the Hondo and Sarstoon. The uninhabited country between Garbutt's Rapids and the coast south of Deep river was first explored in 1879, by Henry Fowler, the colonial secretary of British Honduras; it was then found to consist of open and undulating grasslands, affording fine pasturage in the west and of forests full of valuable timber in the east. Its elevation varies from 1200 to 3300 ft. Auriferous quartz and traces of other minerals have been discovered, but not in sufficient quantity to repay the cost of mining. The geology, fauna and flora of British Honduras do not materially differ from those of the neighbouring regions (see CENTRAL AMERICA).

Although the colony is in the tropics, its climate is subtropical. The highest shade temperature recorded is 98° F., the lowest 50°. Easterly sea-winds prevail during the greater part of the year. The dry season lasts from the middle of February to the middle of May; rain occurs at intervals during the other months, and almost continuously in October, November and December. The annual rainfall averages about 81½ in., but rises in some districts to 150 in. or more. Cholera, yellow fever and other tropical diseases occur sporadically, but, on the whole, the country is not unhealthy by comparison with the West Indies or Central American states.

_Inhabitants._--British Honduras is a little larger than Wales, and has a population smaller than that of Chester (England). In 1904 the inhabitants of European descent numbered 1500, the Europeans 253, and the white Americans 118. The majority belong to the hybrid race descended from negro slaves, aboriginal Indians and white settlers. At least six distinct racial groups can be traced. These consist of (1) native Indians, to be found chiefly in forest villages in the west and north of the colony away from the sea coast; (2) descendants of the English buccaneers, mixed with Scottish and German traders; (3) the woodcutting class known as "Belize Creoles," of more or less pure descent from African negroes imported, as slaves or as labourers, from the West Indies; (4) the Caribs of the southern districts, descendants of the population deported in 1796 from St Vincent, who were of mixed African and Carib origin; (5) a mixed population in the south, of Spanish-Indian origin, from Guatemala and Honduras; and (6) in the north another Spanish-Indian group which came from Yucatan in 1848. The population tends slowly to increase; about 45% of the births are illegitimate, and males are more numerous than females. Many tracts of fallow land and forest were once thickly populated, for British Honduras has its ruined cities, and other traces of a lost Indian civilization, in common with the rest of Central America.

_Natural Products._---For more than two centuries British Honduras has been supported by its trade in timber, especially in mahogany, logwood, cedar and other dye-woods and cabinet-woods, such as lignum-vitae, fustic, bullet-wood, santa-maria, ironwood, rosewood, &c. The coloured inhabitants are unsurpassed as woodmen, and averse from agriculture; so that there are only about 90 sq. m. of tilled land. Sugar-cane, bananas, cocoanut-palms, plantains, and various other fruits are cultivated; vanilla, sarsaparilla, sapodilla or chewing-gum, rubber, and the cahoon or coyol palm, valuable for its oil, grow wild in large quantities. In September 1903 all the pine trees on crown lands were sold to Mr B. Chipley, a citizen of the United States, at one cent (½ d.) per tree; the object of the sale being to secure the opening up of undeveloped territory. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to establish sponge fisheries on a large scale.

_Chief Towns and Communications._--Belize (pop. in 1904, 9969), the capital and principal seaport, is described in a separate article. Other towns are Stann Creek (2459), Corosal (1696), Orange Walk (1244), Punta Gorda (706), the Cayo (421), Monkey River (384) and Mullins River (243). All these are administered by local boards, whose aggregate revenue amounts to some £7000. Telegraph and telephone lines connect the capital with Corosal in the north, and Punta Gorda in the south; but there are no railways, and few good roads beyond municipal limits. Thus the principal means of communication are the steamers which ply along the coast. Mail steamers from New Orleans, Liverpool, Colon and Puerto Cortes in Honduras, regularly visit Belize.

_Commerce and Finance._--Between 1901 and 1905 the tonnage of vessels accommodated at the ports of British Honduras rose from 300,000 to 496,465; the imports rose from £252,500 to £386,123; the exports from £285,500 to £377,623. The exports consist of the timber, fruit and other vegetable products already mentioned, besides rum, deerskins, tortoiseshell, turtles and sponges, while the principal imports are cotton goods, hardware, beer, wine, spirits, groceries and specie. The sea-borne trade is mainly shared by Great Britain and the United States. On the 14th of October 1894, the American gold dollar was adopted as the standard coin, in place of the Guatemalan dollar; and the silver of North, South and Central America ceased to be legal tender. Government notes are issued to the value of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 dollars, and there is a local currency of one cent bronze pieces, and of 5, 10, 25 and 50 cent silver pieces. The British sovereign and half sovereign are legal tender. In 1846 the government savings bank was founded in Belize; branches were afterwards opened in the principal towns; and in 1903 the British Bank of Honduras was established at Belize. The revenue, chiefly derived from customs, rose from £60,150 in 1901 to £68,335 in 1905. The expenditure, in which the cost of police [v.04 p.0616] and education are important items, rose, during the same period, from £51,210 to £61,800. The public debt, amounting in 1905 to £34,736, represents the balance due on three loans which were raised in 1885, 1887, and 1891, for public works in Belize. The loans are repayable between 1916 and 1923.

_Constitution and Administration._--From 1638 to 1786 the colonists were completely independent, and elected their own magistrates, who performed all judicial and executive functions. The customs and precedents thus established were codified and published under the name of "Burnaby's Laws," after the visit of Admiral Sir W. Burnaby, in 1756, and were recognized as valid by the crown. In 1786 a superintendent was appointed by the home government, and although this office was vacant from 1790 to 1797, it was revived until 1862. An executive council was established in 1839, and a legislative assembly, of three nominated and eighteen elected members, in 1853. British Honduras was declared a colony in 1862, with a lieutenant governor, subject to the governor of Jamaica, as its chief magistrate. In 1870 the legislative assembly was abolished, and a legislative council substituted--the constitution of this body being fixed, in 1892, at three official and five unofficial members. In 1884 the lieutenant governor was created governor and commander-in-chief, and rendered independent of Jamaica. He is assisted by an executive council of three official and three unofficial members. For administrative purposes the colony is divided into six districts--Belize, Corosal, Orange Walk, the Cayo, Stann Creek and Toledo. The capital of the last named is Punta Gorda; the other districts take the names of their chief towns. English common law is valid throughout British Honduras, subject to modification by local enactments, and to the operation of the _Consolidated Laws of British Honduras_. This collection of ordinances, customs, &c., was officially revised and published between 1884 and 1888. Appeals may be carried before the privy council or the supreme court of Jamaica,

_Religion and Education._--The churches represented are Roman Catholic, Anglican, Wesleyan, Baptist and Presbyterian; but none of them receives assistance from public funds. The bishopric of British Honduras is part of the West Indian province of the Church of England. Almost all the schools, secondary as well as primary, are denominational. School fees are charged, and grants-in-aid are made to elementary schools. Most of these, since 1894, have been under the control of a board, on which the religious bodies managing the schools are represented.

_Defence._--The Belize volunteer light infantry corps, raised in 1897, consists of about 200 officers and men; a mounted section, numbering about 40, was created in 1904. For the whole colony, the police Dumber about 120. There is also a volunteer fire brigade of 335 officers and men.

_History._--"His Majesty's Settlement in the Bay of Honduras," as the territory was formerly styled in official documents, owes, its origin, in 1638, to log-wood cutters who had formerly been buccaneers. These were afterwards joined by agents of the Chartered Company which exploited the pearl fisheries of the Mosquito coast. Although thus industriously occupied, the settlers so far retained their old habits as to make frequent descents on the logwood establishments of the Spaniards, whose attempts to expel them were generally successfully resisted. The most formidable of these was made by the Spaniards in April 1754, when, in consequence of the difficulty of approaching the position from the sea, an expedition, consisting of 1500 men, was organized inland at the town of Peten. As it neared the coast, it was met by 250 British, and completely routed. The log-wood cutters were not again disturbed for a number of years, and their position had become so well established that, in the treaty of 1763 with Spain, Great Britain, while agreeing to demolish "all fortifications which English subjects had erected in the Bay of Honduras," insisted on a clause in favour of the cutters of logwood, that "they or their Workmen were not to be disturbed or molested, under any pretext whatever, in their said places of cutting and loading logwood." Strengthened by the recognition of the crown, the British settlers made fresh encroachments on Spanish territory. The Spaniards, asserting that they were engaged in smuggling and other illicit practices, organized a large force, and on the 15th of September 1779, suddenly attacked and destroyed the establishment at Belize, taking the inhabitants prisoners to Mérida in Yucatan, and afterwards to Havana, where most of them died, The survivors were liberated in 1782, and allowed to go to Jamaica. In 1783 they returned with many new adventurers, and were soon engaged in cutting woods. On the 3rd of September in that year a new treaty was signed between Great Britain and Spain, in which it was expressly agreed that his Britannic Majesty's subjects should have "the right of cutting, loading, and carrying away logwood in the district lying between the river Wallis or Belize and Rio Hondo, taking the course of these two rivers for unalterable boundaries." These concessions "were not to be considered as derogating from the rights of sovereignty of the king of Spain" over the district in question, where all the English dispersed in the Spanish territories were to concentrate themselves within eighteen months. This did not prove a satisfactory arrangement; for in 1786 a new treaty was concluded, in which the king of Spain made an additional grant of territory, embracing the area between the rivers Sibun or Jabon and Belize. But these extended limits were coupled with still more rigid restrictions. It is not to be supposed that a population composed of so lawless a set of men was remarkably exact in its observance of the treaty. They seem to have greatly annoyed their Spanish neighbours, who eagerly availed themselves of the breaking out of war between the two countries in 1796 to concert a formidable attack on Belize. They concentrated a force of 2000 men at Campeachy, which, under the command of General O'Neill, set sail in thirteen vessels for Belize, and arrived on the 10th of July, 1798. The settlers, aided by the British sloop of war "Merlin," had strongly fortified a small island in the harbour, called St George's Cay. They maintained a determined resistance against the Spanish forces, which were obliged to retire to Campeachy. This was the last attempt to dislodge the British.

The defeat of the Spanish attempt of 1798 has been adduced as an act of conquest, thereby permanently establishing British sovereignty. But those who take this view overlook the important fact that, in 1814, by a new treaty with Spain, the provisions of the earlier treaty were revived. They forget also that for many years the British government never laid claim to any rights acquired in virtue of the successful defence; for so late as 1817-1819 the acts of parliament relating to Belize always refer to it as "a settlement, for certain purposes, under the protection of His Majesty." After Central America had attained its independence (1819-1822) Great Britain secured its position by incorporating the provisions of the treaty of 1786 in a new treaty with Mexico (1826), and in the drafts of treaties with New Granada (1825) and the United States of Central America (1831). The territories between the Belize and Sarstoon rivers were claimed by the British in 1836. The subsequent peaceful progress of the country under British rule; the exception of Belize from that provision of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (_q.v._) of 1850 which forbade Great Britain and the United States to fortify or colonize any point on the Central American mainland; and the settlement of the boundary disputes with Guatemala in 1859, finally confirmed the legal sovereignty of Great Britain over the whole colony, including the territories claimed in 1836. The Bay Islands were recognized as part of the republic of Honduras in 1859. Between 1849, when the Indians beyond the Hondo rose against their Mexican rulers, and 1901, when they were finally subjugated, rebel bands occasionally attacked the northern and north-western marches of the colony. The last serious raid was foiled in 1872.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For all statistical matter relating to the colony, see the annual reports to the British Colonial Office (London). For the progress of exploration, see _A Narrative of a Journey across the unexplored Portion of British Honduras_, by H. Fowler (Belize, 1879); and "An Expedition to the Cockscomb Mountains," by J. Bellamy, in _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, vol. xi. (London, 1889). A good general description is given in the _Handbook of British Honduras_, by L.W. Bristowe and P.B. Wright (Edinburgh, 1892); and the local history is recounted in the _History of British Honduras_, by A.R. Gibbs (London, 1883); in _Notes on Central America_, by E.J. Squier (New York, 1855); and in _Belize or British Honduras_, a paper read before the Society of Arts by Chief Justice Temple (London, 1847).

(K. G. J.)

BRITOMARTIS ("sweet maiden"), an old Cretan goddess, later identified with Artemis. According to Callimachus (_Hymn to Diana_, 190), she was a nymph, the daughter of Zeus and Carme, and a favourite companion of Artemis. Being pursued by Minos, king of Crete, who was enamoured of her, she sprang from a rock into the sea, but was saved from drowning by falling into some fishermen's nets. She was afterwards made a goddess by Artemis under the name of Dictynna ([Greek: diktuon], "a [v.04 p.0617] net"). She was the patroness of hunters, fishermen and sailors, and also a goddess of birth and health. The centre of her worship was Cydonia, whence it extended to Sparta and Aegina (where she was known as Aphaea) and the islands of the Mediterranean. By some she is considered to have been a moon-goddess, her flight from Minos and her leap into the sea signifying the revolution and disappearance of the moon (Pausanias ii. 30, iii. 14; Antoninus Liberalis 40).

BRITON-FERRY, a seaport in the mid-parliamentary division of Glamorganshire, Wales, on the eastern bank of the estuary of the Neath river in Swansea Bay, with stations on the Great Western and the Rhondda & Swansea Bay railways, being 174 m. by rail from London. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6973. A tram-line connects it with Neath, 2 m. distant, and the Vale of Neath Canal (made in 1797) has its terminus here. The district was formerly celebrated for its scenery, but this has been considerably marred by industrial development which received its chief impetus from the construction in 1861 of a dock of 13 acres, the property of the Great Western Railway Company, and the opening up about the same time of the mining districts of Glyncorrwg and Maesteg by means of the South Wales mineral railway, which connects them with the dock and supplies it with its chief export, coal. Steel and tinplates are manufactured here on a large scale. There are also iron-works and a foundry.

The name La Brittone was given by the Norman settlers of the 12th century to its ferry across the estuary of the Neath (where Archbishop Baldwin and Giraldus crossed in 1188, and which is still used), but the Welsh name of the town from at least the 16th century has been Llansawel.