Page:The empire and the century.djvu/876

 Siam, of Borneo, of the Philippines, of French Indo-China, and Japan.

These three Eastern Colonies—Hong Kong, the Straits, and Ceylon—with the Malay Protectorate, enjoy a revenue of over £5,000,000 per annum, and their in and out trade is worth at least £160,000,000. They are Crown Colonies; two of them have no debt, and their ports are absolutely free; while the third, Ceylon, has a debt of less than £5,000,000. They all contribute handsomely to the cost of Imperial defence, and, though they are all exceedingly prosperous, an immense proportion of their populations are Asiatics—as peaceful, loyal, and law-abiding subjects of the Crown as are to be found in other parts of the Empire. There are practically no local manufactures to compete with English-made goods, and no hostile tariffs.

Colombo, Singapore, and Hong Kong complete the line of British fortresses, which, with Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden, guard the great ocean highway from Europe to China and Japan. It is natural that an island kingdom, which owes its position amongst the nations to sea-power, to an immense mercantile marine, and to enterprise in exploiting distant markets, should have taken care to secure convenient stations on one of the greatest of the world's trade-routes; but the nation may congratulate itself that there were Englishmen who, before it was too late, had the foresight and courage to seize upon the best, and in some cases the only suitable, positions along the 10,000 miles of water which divide England from China. Until the face of the earth is changed, or until England loses her command of the sea, nothing can alter the fact that vessels of every nationality, on a direct voyage from Europe to China or Japan, must make use of British ports of call. If this country were unfortunately involved in war, and the ports of all British Colonies were closed, trade with the Far East—by the Suez Canal, at any rate—would practically be denied to an enemy's ships. The import-