ABSTRACT
Victorian England stood at the centre of a far-flung and ever-growing empire. 1 In 1871 its total population (including that of the United Kingdom) amounted to some 235 million people, spread across 7,770,000 square miles in five continents. It was literally 'an empire upon which the sun never sets'. It made Britain uniquely a world political power, at the same time as she was the world's leading industrial power. In forms of government overseas the British Empire ranged from self-governing white colonies of settlement (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) to dependent black, brown, and yellow colonies, protectorates, and protected states of many sizes and many races - with India as the greatest dependency of all. The white colonies were being peopled by a great emigration from the United Kingdom (see above, p.8). The motives behind emigration varied - to find a better life, to make money, to employ skills (for example in railway building), to escape disgrace at home, even (it has been suggested) to sublimate frustrated sexual drive. Admittedly, the majority of emigrants travelled not to the empire but to the United States, for the thriving and diversified American economy - particularly the lure of free land - offered better prospects than any British colony. But great numbers remained under the British flag. The population of British North America increased from 1,282,000 in 1838 to 3,689,000 in 1871; of Australia from 52,000 in 1825 to 1,647,000 in 1870; of New Zealand from 59,000 in 1858 to 256,000 in 1871. 2 This high rate of growth was expected to continue far into the future.
