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* GREAT BRITAIN". 179 GREAT BRITAIN. the hands of the elected local overseers, the valuation list being made to include every class of property. The rates for real properly are, based upon the annual value of the property as dfter)nined by the amount it will rent for. The town councils, boards of guardians, and school boards are the local spcndinf; liodies. In recent j'ears local expenditure and indebtedness have in- creased rapidly. British nuuiicijjalities have be- come noted for their activity in assuming the ownership and control of productive properties, ofttimes receiving the net revenue from this source. National Debt. Great Britain sustains the burden of a heavy debt which is exceeded only by those of France and Russia. It is three times as great as that of the United States. The beginning of the debt dates from the reign of Charles II.. and in 1088 amounted to £604,263. The wars of William III. raised it to £12,767,- 225, and by the commencement of the American war in 1775 it had increased to £126,842,811. The war with the American colonies almost doubled this figure, leaving it in 1784 at £243,- 063,145. This was followed by the enormously expensive Napoleonic wars, which augmented the debt until in 1815 it was £861,039,049. At the commencement of the Crimean War in 1854 it had been reduced to £804,226,354, and at the end of that war it stood at £830,144,597. From that time it decreased rapidly until 1899, when it stood at £627,562,685; but the expenditure for the Boer War raised it again until it reached £690,922.622 in 1901. Of this the funded debt amounted to £551,182,153, the tenninal annuities (estimated capital value) £61,677,409, and the unfunded debt £78,133.000. A large part of the national debt is in the form of the famous British consols, or consolidated annuities, the principal of which is payable only at the pleasure of the Government. Weights, Measures," and Coinage. Two sys- tems of weights and measures are legal not only in Great Britain, but throughout the British Km- pire, namely, the Imperial and the metric. The Imperial system is constituted from a variety of ancient, and of customary, trade denomina- tions, and was legalized in 1824. The metric sys- tem was permitted to be used for retail trade in 1897, though it had been employed for many years prior to that by chemists, physicists, and manufacturers. Standards of weight and meas- ure are kept at the standards department. Old Police Yard, Westminster, under the custodj of the Board of Trade ; with these standards other standards must be compivred and verified. In practice the ancient native weights, measures, and coinage are still in common use in India. See India. Defense. The system of defense and the mili- tary and naval arrangements of Great Britain are peculiarly distinctive of that country. The predominating factors in the situation are the insular position of the country and the vast extent of foreign domains that need protec- tion. Both of these conditions unite in making England's safety dependent upon the strength of its navy, and accordingly this has long re- ceived the chief attention from the Government. The general plan is to keep the navy at least as powerful as the combined navies of any other two countries. The strength of the navy more than doubled in the last fifteen years of the nineteenth centurj'. The pcrsoiuiel is recruited by voluntary enlistment. Preparation for the service begins between the ages of fifteen and sixteen and one-half years, a term of two years being served in the training-ships, at the end of which period the recruit may be drafted into the Heet to serve for a period of twelve years, when he may leave the service or reengage for an additional period of ten years. The mercan- tile marine is depended ujjou to supply a naval reserve, the State having made arrangements whereby a certain number of merchant seamen may secure a given number of days' drill an- nually, and engage themselves to join the navy if an emergency should make it desirable. In the last decade of the nineteenth century the colonies began of their own free will to sluue in the expense of the maintenance of the Im- l)erial na'V'. In 1901-02 the total number of men and officers serving in all the ranks was 118,625. The administration of the navy is vested in a Board of Admiralty, the head of which, the First Lord of the Admiralty, is a Cabinet officer. (For the details of the organization, administration, and the statistics of the British Navy, see the article Navies.) In case of attempted attack or invasion, the navy is depended upon to prevent a landing, and the importance of forts and their garrisons is therefore less than in the Continen- tal countries. Some sort of defense is provided for all the principal ports of Great Britain and Ireland, including London, Hull, Newcastle, Leith, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff, Bristol, Plj-mouth, Portsmouth, Dover, Chatham, and Belfast. The efficiency of the navy is greatly strengthened by the establishment of numerous naval bases and coaling stations which its widely distributed possessions have made possible. The following enumeration does not include a large number of small coaling stations. In North Amer- ica and the West Indies there are Saint .Johns (Halifax), Bermuda, Port Royal, Port Castries, Port an Spain, Saint .John (Tobago) ; and on the Pacific, Esquimalt on Vancouver Island. In South America there are Port Stanley (Falkland Islands), and Coquimbo in Chile, while vessels are also permitted to coal in the Rio de la Plata and at Rio de .Janeiro. On the west coast of Africa and in Cape Colony there are Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, Cape Town, and Si- mon's Bay. besides the islands of Ascension and Saint Helena. In Australia there are Sidney, ^Melbourne, Albany, and Hobart (Tasmania), and in New Zealand, Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch besides. In the Fiji Islands there is Sviva. Belonging to the East Indian naval station are Aden. Bombay, Colombo. Trincomali. Port Louis, Zanzibar, and Port Victoria. In the Jlediterranean are Gibraltar and Malta and a coaling station at Port Said. While Great Britain overshadows all other countries in the strength di its navy, its stand- ing army is greatly surpassed by those of its principal Continental neighbors. In 1901-02 the total number of men and officers in all ranks was 219,800. The main function of the British stand- ing anny is the defense and control of the exten- sive colonial possessions, and it is considered ne- cessary that forces sent to distant possessions be enlisted for longer terms than could be reason- ably demanded for conscripts. Consequently, un- like other European countries, enlistment is vol- untary, and the average term of active service is