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 TRADE AND INDUSTRY. 273

amount of share and loan capital raised for railways in Ireland was 27,143,977/., including 394,800£. subscriptions to other companies. This again did not include the capital of ten authorised companies, also repeatedly requested to make the return. The total amount of capital raised for railways in the United Kingdom, therefore, ap- peared, as far as could be ascertained, to be 511,080,855/., and the amount of subscriptions to other companies 13,920,011/. The total amount of traffic receipts for the year 1808 on railways in England and Wales, on 10,200 miles, amounted to 35,220,880/., not includ- ing the receipts of 13 companies who made no return of their traffic. The traffic receipts for the year 1808 on railways in Scotland amounted, on 2,349 miles, to 4,421,849/. The traffic receipts for the year 1808 on 1,254 miles of railway in Ireland amounted to 1,249,943/., not including the receipts of the Great Southern and "Western, the Irish North- Western, and five other companies, which I were requested by the Board of Trade to make the returns, but did I not comply. The aggregate traffic receipts for the year 1808 onrail- Avaysin the United Kingdom, with the exceptions mentioned, appeared from the return to have been, on 13,803 miles, 40,898,078/.

The total working expenses on railways in England and Wales amounted, as iiir as could be ascertained, to 17,134,795/., and the net receipts to 18,092,091/. The total working expenses on rail- ways in Scotland amounted to 2,234,518/., and the net receipts to 2,187,331/. The total working expenses on railways in Ireland amounted to 045,121/., and the net receipts to 004,822/., with the exceptions mentioned. The aggregate traffic receipts, according to the accounts received from the companies which made returns, amounted for the year 1808 to 40,898,078/., the working expenses to 20,014,434/., and the net receipts to 20,884,244/. In the year 1807, the total receipts stood at 39,479,999/., while the total working expenses amounted to 19,848,952/., leaving the net income at 19,031,047/., or rather less than 50 per cent, of the gross receipts,

Colonial Possessions.

The colonies and dependencies of Great Britain embrace about one-third of the surface of the globe, and nearly a fourth of its population. Official returns state the area of these possessions to be United Kingdom. Of this vast dominion, nearly a million square miles are in Asia, more than two millions and a half in Australasia, and more than half a million in North America. The population, 'according to the latest returns, was 161,111,574, or more than five jtimes the population of the United Kingdom. The following table gives the area and population of each of the colonies and depen- dencies, after the most recent official returns :—
 * ,556,317 square miles, or more than thirty times the extent of the