civilisation owed to the secret of the preparation of these compounds, , already greatly perfected in the seventh century of our era, the maintenance of the national independence during eight hundred years-an independence destined later to play so important a part in the civilisation of Europe. Greek-fire had certainly no pretension to vie with gunpowder, but may be called its precursor. With yet a few more efforts, and the art of purifying saltpetre, combined with other no less ordinary processes borrowed from the alchemists, would transform a compound, destructive, no doubt, but destitute of expansive force, of elasticity, into a formidable agent of dislocation, before which the ponderous armour of the feudals, and the fetters imposed upon liberty of conscience throughout Europe, were alike destined to disappear.

With this enfranchisement, social economy sees the dawn of new destinies, in the apparition, on the stage of the world, of the maritime races of the North, an apparition which would have been impossible without the compass. But the discovery of that instrument, no more than that of the musket, was due to accident. The Mediterranean sailors had long made an unskilful use of it, as, in our own times, the sailors of the yellow race. It was then called the marinet, and required important modifications before it could be available for long voyages across the ocean. We must come down to the fifteenth century to find it perfected and connected into the compass, by an ocean race, the English, who thereby opened out new routes to the Portuguese and Spaniards, of which the political and social importance were incalculable.

All the examples we are acquainted with, of a superior utilisation of the physical forces, bring out in astonishing relief the creative power of our reflective faculties. This highly moral conclusion is strikingly born out by observation of the facts which put us in possession of the sixth and seventh physical forces, steam and dynamical electricity. Before it became transformed by man's intelligence into that powerful agent which we see every day at work-What, for instance, was steam? A substance of vague, æriform essence, already exhausted by the insignificant labour of raising the lid of the kettle? In order to utilise its elastic properties, to make of it a working force, and thus give it value in a social point of view, we might in vain have waited for a fortunate concurrence of accidental circumstances; in order to bring about such a result as this, nothing less was required than the actual process of laborious, humble, patient, and sagacious investigations, carried out by aid of instruments already in existence, themselves the product of careful and skilful combination. What we have said above, touching the fruitful results of the invention of such instruments, dispenses us from again adverting to these well-known facts.

Of all the forces which jointly contribute to the life of European societies, the seventh, dynamical electricity, appears the most feeble, if its power be measured in a direct manner. Such, nevertheless, is the reciprocal influence of man's material conquests over nature, such

their collective action upon the movement and organism of societies, that the apparition of this seventh force, yet in embryo, brings us into presence of the most important modifications that European ideas have undergone since the invention of printing. A new power has come to light; a power of altogether moral essence, but which required for its manifestation that the seven physical forces already named, should be in existence: a power which is irresistible and never again to be extinguished, and which already re-acts favourably upon the material well-being of our race; a power, in short, which has received the name of public opinion, and upon which, on strict analysis, reposes the right of the weak.

The history of the origin and development of this power would no doubt carry us back to a remote age. But the apparition of a true European public opinion, can be said to date only from our own time, for the prior existence of a medium of universal character was required in order to bring to a focus, all the moral and physical forces already assimilated. Now we possess just such a medium in the aggregate of those slender metal wires, which disseminate truth and falsehood amongst us, with the like indifference. Many of those who read the telegraphic intelligence published daily, lament that falsehood should be mixed up with truth on so many questions. But this very circumstance contributes in the highest degree to form public opinion, and to render it supreme. The wicked are only to be feared when they remain silent: compel them to speak, and sooner or later they will throw off the mask. In the same manner the electric telegraph always ends by enlightening. Formerly, established governments monopolised the privilege of rapid information, and could envelop their actions in secresy. But since the humblest citizen of Europe is apprised in a few seconds of what is taking place at the four cardinal points of the earth, the governments can no longer maintain their reserve, they are forced to reply, and to vindicate themselves by addressing the public.

Let us suppose that the electric telegraph existed in the time of Philip the Second, or better still, that Philip the Second existed in our own time. Perplexed in the midst of an epoch which demands, as a first necessity, the individual guarantees of Parliamentary rule, that taciturn Prince would vainly attempt to conceal his deeds from the eye of his contemporaries. His wars abroad, his acts at home, would be judged by all, not only by the most restive of his victims, but by the most servile of his followers. His words, for he would not be able to remain silent, would be scrutinised. For a time, perhaps, favoured by the obscurity of facts, he might succeed in deluding the world as to the range of his intelligence, and the rectitude of his intentions. For a few years, perhaps, he might obtain credit for disinterestedness, and for the sincerity of his religious faith. But soon the key of his policy would be discovered, his projects unravelled, his plans disclosed beforehand. From that moment, the political existence of this enemy of public faith might be reckoned. No ally would choose any longer to be associated with

him in great enterprises. Even that reprieve which the irony of destiny will sometimes extend to the wicked, that last privilege of redeeming his fortunes by serving a just cause, would desert him for ever. Finally, his moral credit sinking daily, neighbouring nations eyeing him with ever greater distrust, the weak growing bold to resist him, his own subjects asserting with calm and firmness their right to just guarantees against the abuse of power, the slightest shock would suffice to hurl down this statue with feet of clay, meditating, with melancholy brow, invincible Armadas. What was brought about in favour of England in the sixteenth century by an accidental physical force, the tempest, would at the present day be accomplished by a moral force far more formidable and sure, namely, public opinion, were the interests and aspirations of our race towards universal concord, to suppose an almost impossible case, to be threatened with evil designs!

We think we have sufficiently established the fact in this analysis, that the degree of civilisation of the Indo-European societies, corresponds exactly with the number of the physical forces in operation within those societies, and also to the sum of useful result which they have been able to obtain therefrom. Whilst history bears witness to this proposition, in so far as our own race is concerned, the testimony of travellers confirms it no less in regard to the other branches of the white race, and in regard to the other three races— the yellow, the red, and the black. For it is the pride and just pretension of social economy to be able, better than any other science, to show the unity of the human species, throughout the infinite variety of its material works and moral conceptions. Here behold the unhappy Papou, labouring with two physical forces only, scarcely rising superior in intelligence to the thinly-scattered mammifers which dispute food and possession of the soil with him; crushed down by the double fatality of a scanty vegetation, and a poorly-endowed moral nature, where a few inferior instincts hold dormant the reflective faculties. Under these miserable conditions, he reproduces, without hope perhaps of ever rising out of it, an inferior type of that rudimentary, but more vigorous civilisation of our great ancestors, when they subsisted upon acorns and roots, amid the primitive forests of the Mediterranean shores. There, on the other hand, behold the wild Maori, of white race, who is at once warrior, sailor, and cultivator of the soil; who revives, though with less grandeur and poetry, one of the phases of Pelasgic civilisation. The Hercules and Theseus of this race would doubtless enact once again the same wonderful deeds, if our European civilisation were not already at work amongst them, proceeding with necessary brutality, draining marshes, exterminating monsters, driving fever and witchcraft from the lands and swamps brought into cultivation. In the great archipelagos of the Southern hemisphere, we find tribes of Amazons, less brilliant than those of the Caucasian type, but impassioned, brave, and free, as were our own traditional mothers in the obscurity of past ages. The Southern Cross and the regularity

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of the Monsoon have founded in yonder distant lands, merchant cities which revive the memory of Tyre and Carthage. Madagascar and immense tracts of the Asiatic and African continents, reproduce the aspects of our own feudal mediæval era. Lastly, our seven physical forces, are to be found, though, for the most part, in a mere rudimentary state, existing amongst the Chinese.

At the next Annual Meeting of this Association, I will endeavour, with the permission of the Council, to penetrate more deeply into the present subject, and will beg to call attention to some economical and moral considerations connected with our present researches, initiated with great success at Paris, by a retired officer of the French Navy, M. le Docteur Foley, in his conferences of the winter of 1861, upon the physical geography of the globe.

Before concluding, permit me to render homage to the memory of the late illustrious French economist, Charles Dunoyer, recently lost to science. Some of my reflections upon the relations of moral science to social economy, will probably have recalled to the memory of many present, the words of that savant, whose life was so disinterested, so useful and courageous. We are indebted to his work on the freedom of labour, for a complete and rigorous demonstration of the great social fact, that in proportion as a nation progresses in the path of material labour, she perfects by that very process, her moral science. When, in studying the laws of labour, we attach supreme importance to the physical forces, the object we have principally in view, is to co-operate in the demonstration of that other social fact, the inverse of the preceding, that all moral progression taking effect in the heart of societies, carries with it a corresponding improvement in the domain of material labour.

In the speculative order, nothing is more desirable than a rigorous and absolute demonstration of the reciprocal relations of ethics with social economy. New light would thus be thrown upon the problem of our destinies. From the moment that a moral effort creates, so to speak, matter, and that this matter in its turn intensifies the faculties of the mind, the continuity of the forward movement of societies is assured. That ideal of justice and of happiness, which man carries within himself, becomes henceforth an attainable ideal. The natural philosopher who, in his study, untroubled by reflections of the kind, brings to perfection the theories relating to heat, to movement, to electricity, and who thereby prepares the advent of some formidable eighth physical force, should be honoured henceforth as one of the spiritual emancipators of his race. To conclude, the theory of progress, so often denied for want of proofs, would henceforth become an established doctrine, fraught with impulsive virtues; and human societies would henceforth labour joyfully, in the certainty that no incompatibility exists between the useful and the beautiful, between the acquisition of wealth and the practice of right.

579 EMIGRATION.

On the Relations between Great Britain and her Possessions Abroad. By R. R. TORRENS.

IAM induced to offer a paper upon the economic relations between Great Britain and her possessions abroad, in the belief that as this question has hitherto been treated almost exclusively by the statesmen and economists of the mother country, and from the British point of view, the conclusions arrived at by one who has observed and taken part in the entire procedure of converting a wilderness into a thriving colony, may be heard with interest, and not altogether without profit.

Upon this important subject we find extreme conflict of opinion. One section of politicians represented by Professor Goldwin Smith, pronouncing all possessions beyond the limits of these islands to be simply a source of weakness and expense, would reduce the empire to the limits of Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. Herman Merivale, representing more liberal opinions, recognises in our colonial possessions a source of wealth and power, and would therefore retain them so long as that may be done without resort to coercion. He, however, regards the ultimate secession of the larger colonies as an event inevitable, but which it is expedient to postpone as long as possible. Again, the economists whom Mr. Merivale designates "the advocates of systematic colonisation," regarding the colonies as so many counties annexed to the area of these islands, maintain that under an enlightened and liberal policy, the union may be continued indefinitely with the greatest advantage to both parties.

Such extreme contrariety of opinion amongst speculative philosophers argues on one side or the other a very partial knowledge of facts, or a very partial mode of regarding them. The history and statistics of the colonial empire furnish abundant and sufficiently authenticated facts, and as the question at issue is of vital import, the time of this Association can scarcely be more advantageously occupied than in applying them to test the soundness of these opposing theories.

For this purpose it will be convenient to divide the British possessions abroad into three classes-1st. Military posts, such as Gibraltar, Aden, and St. Helena, maintained as strategic positions conducive or essential to our supremacy at sea. 2nd. Plantations or territories, such as India, unsuitable from climate or other conditions for colonisation by the British race. 3rd. Colonies in the true sense of the term, such as British North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

As Professor Goldwin Smith advocates the dismemberment of the empire chiefly on account of the drain of men and money arising from the necessity of maintaining numbers of troops in distant dependencies, we might reasonably expect to find him pressing his conclusion principally against the retention of those territories in which, owing to the presence of hostile native powers, or the unhealthiness of the