Empire, containing quite one-fourth of the total population of the Empire, has been acquired within the last generation. This is in tolerably close agreement with other independent estimates.[1]
The character of this Imperial expansion is clearly exhibited in the list of new territories.
Though, for convenience, the year 1870 has been taken as indicative of the beginning of a conscious policy of Imperialism, it will be evident that the movement did pot attain its full impetus until the middle of the eighties, The vast increase of territory, and the method of wholesale partition which assigned to us great tracts of African land, may be dated from about 1884. Within fifteen years some three and three-quarter
- ↑ British Colonies and Dependencies, 1900.
Area. Square Miles. Estimated Population. European Dependencies 119 204,421 Asiatic Dependencies— India (1,800,258 square miles, 287,223,431 inhabitants) 1,827,579 291,586,688 Others (27,321 square miles, 4,363,257 inhabitants African Colonies 535,398 6,773,360 American Colonies 3,952,572 7,260,169 Australasian Colonies 3,175,840 5,000,281 Total 9,491,508 310,833,919 Protectorates— Asia 120,400 1,200,000 Africa (including Egypt, Egyptian Soudan) 3,530,000 54,730,000 Oceania 800 30,000 Total Protectorates 3,651,200 55,960,000 Grand total 13,142,708 366,793,919 (Compiled from Morris' "History of Colonisation," vol. ii. p. 87, and "Statesman's Year-book," 1900.)
