litical power; but it is indispensable that it should make them feel that they have still a duty to discharge and a function to perform, in the name and for the honor of their country. They should be told that France intrusts them-under the Republic as under the Monarchy —with the maintenance of some of her best traditions, with the conservation of her brightnesses and graces, with the guardianship of the qualities which have given to her the first place in social Europe. And they should be assured that, in the execution of the mission which is confided to them, the Republic will resolutely protect them against all the attacks which may hereafter be directed against them.

Nothing of all this, however, is to be expected. Mention must be made of it because it forms part of the possible eventualities of the subject, but the probabilities are not in favor of its realization. They all lie, indeed, the other way, and betoken a constant aggravation of the estrangement between the Republic and society. In such a strife, the vanquished are foredoomed. Democracy will stamp out its victims, and will give no thought to the damage done to France.

The French have not yet quite got to that, but they are fast drifting to it. The decadence of the Frenchwoman has not yet attained the form of a clearly marked decay of capacity. Thus far its symptoms are only a dispossession of

The

place and power, with an accompanying cessation of the utilization of abilities. It is a deprivation, not a total loss; a torpor, not a death. The qualities of the Frenchwoman remain what they were, but they are ceasing to be active, and are becoming latent. Her potentialities are unproductive, her faculties are passive. She is in a state of lethargy, like the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. So far, the harm done is not incurable; it is still quite possible to awake her, provided the Republic will consent to play the part of Prince Charming. But if she remains too long in her present inaction, she will lose her power and unlearn her traditions; her arms will rust, and she will forget how to handle them. present generation may be able, from habit and association, to preserve some portion of its ancient attributes; but its children will not inherit its endowments, because they will not have seen them in full work, and will not have learned either to value them or to apply them. Darwin tells us of some beetles in one of the Atlantic islands, whose ancestors flew there because they had wings, but who have no longer any wings themselves (though the marks of them remain), because, having left off using them-lest they should be blown from their sea-girt home into the waves-they have atrophied and disappeared. So will it be with Frenchwomen, when encaged in the nouvelles couches: their wings will leave them.-Blackwood's Magazine.

As distance is the greatest enemy to human industry, whatever reduces the time and cost of freight is a benefit to mankind—“ It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." Much advantage has, therefore, resulted to all nations from the fact that the carrying-power on land and sea has grown in a higher ratio than commerce. In 1850, for every million sterling of international commerce, there were in the world 52 miles of railway, and a maritime carrying power of 9900 tons; and in 1880 the respective ratios had risen to 77 miles and 12,000 tons. The improvement has not only led to a saving of one-fourth in freight, but also brought producers and consumers into such contact that few, if any, of the earth's products are now wasted. We no longer hear of wheat rotting in La Mancha, of wool being

Ports of

United Kingdom.. Continent... United States.. British Colonies.

used to mend highways in the Argentine Republic, nor of sheep being burnt for fuel in making bricks. It is to Great Britain in especial manner that mankind is indebted for bringing all nations within reach of a market for their products. English engineers and English capital have made most of the railways built since 1850; and English and Scotch dockyards have turned out steamers with such rapidity* that the carrying-power on sea has been quadrupled.

TRAFFIC ON THE HIGH SEAS.

The shipping of the United Kingdom constitutes 49 per cent. of the naval carrying-power of the world, and actually carried, in 1879, about 52 per cent. of all sea-borne merchandise; the port entries of all nations showing as follows:

56,100,000

117,200,000

Pessimists are in the habit of saying that we send our ships to sea shorthanded; but if such were the case our ratio of wrecks would not be (as shown hereafter) less than in French, Dutch, German, or American shipping. If we work with fewer sailors, it is probably for the same reason of skill and efficiency that our cotton-mills have fewer hands per thousand spindles than in other countries. It is indisputable that as our preponderance of steamers increases, so must our economy in sailors. Only ten years ago the average of tons

carried by each British seaman was no more than 278; so that, in fact, two men do now the same work that three did in 1870. The French have at present reached the same degree of efficiency that our men possessed ten years ago. France, moreover, comes next after Great Britain in steam-tonnage on sea, with Germany and Spain following closely upon her. If we examine the relative position of Great Britain in this respect towards the world, we shall find our predominance has grown in every decade-viz.,

British.

Total.

1850.. 1860. 1870. 1880.

own.

It is commonly said that our superiority in the carrying trade is due to the facility with which we can build steamers, more than other nations; but the books of the shipbuilders of the Tyne and the Clyde show that they build vessels as readily for other flags as for our If the Americans had ten years ago repealed their suicidal Navigation Law, and got our builders on the Tyne to launch an American steamer for every British steamer built on the Clyde, they would be to-day in some position to compete with us in the carrying trade, instead of having to deplore their present state of destitution. At the beginning of the nineteenth century," says Yeats, "the commerce of the world seemed

66

270,000

Ratio of British. 59 per cent.

This simultaneous rise has been stimulated by the opening of the Suez Canal, the books of which show that the average of steamers passing through rose from 995 tons in 1871 to 2,146 in 1880. The total of vessels that passed through last year was a little over 4 million tons; and as the canal has reduced the voyage between Europe and the East by fully one-half, it is plain that but for this great work the steamers and men trading last year could only have carried two million tons. It is likewise worthy of remark that if Great Britain has the largest ships, she has also done more than any other country in the construction of docks and harbors. It is notorious that the docks of Southampton have created the trade of that port. We have only to look across the Channel, at the wretched port of Calais, to be reminded how much our neighbors have yet to do in this matter. Frenchmen may doubt it, but it is true, that if France were to restore Calais to England on condition of our building a harbor there, she would gain more every year than the market value of Calais as it stands. Instead of bounties on French bottoms, instead of arsenals like Cherbourg and Toulon, France requires better ports for her merchant-shipping; and French statesmen could not do better than see what we have done on the Clyde, at Holyhead, Liverpool, and our other great ports. Capital is now abundant, the railways of the world are almost completed, and let us hope statesmen in all countries will now turn their NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXIV., No. 6

attention to improving the seaports, upon which depends the easy and secure flow of commerce.

Let us now turn to what may be termed the "vital statistics" of shipping-the death-rate, birth rate, and increase annually. These vary, just as among men; but the average life of a ship is only half that of mankind. Some are lost by the action of wind and waves, some by fire or collision, some are never heard of, and about one-eighth are broken up after long service. The ordinary life of a ship, allowing for all the above contingencies, is 18 years in the United States, 20 in France, 22 in Holland, 25 in Germany, 26 in Great Britain, 28 in Italy, and 30 in Norway. I am indebted to Mr. Kiaer, the Norwegian statist, for the following annual average of wrecks, for seven years, ending 1879 :

Steamers.
British...... 2.94 per cent.
French. 2.47
United States 4.06
Dutch.....
German.....

Sailing Vessels.

3.93 per cent.

66

4.04

5.45

3.84

4.49

2.77

4.04

1.74

2.94 3.20

Italian... Scandinavian 1.96

Assuming three voyages yearly for sailing vessels, and fifteen for steamers, it appears that a sailing vessel is lost once in seventy-two voyages, and a steamer once in 490 voyages; so that the latter has only one-seventh of the risk of the former. The fewest wrecks occur to Italian vessels, perhaps because (as is notorious) in all long voyages every sailor has a share in the ship. Norwegians have likewise a very low ratio of losses, which may arise from the fact that they are a nation of navigators; for Norway has almost a ton of shipping per inhabitant, or five times as much as our ratio in Great Britain.

Between vessels lost and broken up the annual death-rate of the world's shipping is 4 per cent, or 750,000 tons nominal. On the other hand, the birthrate is 5 per cent-the average of new vessels built being 950,000 tons. But this does not convey an exact idea of the increase of shipping, since the substitution of steamers for sailing-vessels gives an augmentation of 4 per cent in carrying power. The vessels lost or broken up represent a carrying power of 1,200,

54

This shows how dependent is the commerce of the world on the shipbuilding yards of the Clyde and Tyne, whose annual earnings exceed six millions sterling. Even if electricity comes to take the place of steam, the vessels will probably still be made of iron; so that there is little chance of this branch of our trade suffering any diminution. The change would perhaps affect our coal trade, for the steamers of the world at present consume 36 million tons of coal, three-fourths of which is obtained from Great Britain.

The march of science, as regards navigation, has been attended with a steady decrease in the rates of casualties and loss of life, as shown by Lloyds Register for the last 15 years, notwith'standing the great increase of collisions. There is no form to accident which has greater terrors for a traveller than this; and withal, it is surprising that collisions are not more frequent, for some of our sea highways are almost as crowded as Oxford Street; no fewer than 1000 vessels enter the ports of the Kingdom, and as many depart, every day in the year. Lloyd's Register supplies us with the bills of mortality of the world's shipping, enabling us to compare the casualties of 1880 with the average for 14 preceding years, thus

609,000

499.000

2.322,000

1870. Appliances for saving life are every year becoming more effective, no fewer than 1295 crews having been saved last year, against an average of 1023 in the preceding years. The number of persons drowned by shipwreck in 1880 was only 1725, compared with an average of 1775 per annum since 1866, being a decline of 3 per cent. It would be unjust here to omit mention of the splendid services rendered by the British Life-boat Associa tion, which has saved 29,400 lives since its establishment in 1824. It is no less gratifying to observe that all countries are building lighthouses, the number of which rose from 1265 in 1840, to 2801 in 1877.

If

Landsmen have such exaggerated ideas of the dangers of the sea that they will scarcely believe the cold logic of statistics on this point. The travelling population on the high seas, including sailors but not fishermen, is never less than one million persons, for the number of sea-going vessels last year was a little over 90,000, one half of which may be supposed in port, the other half at sea. An average of 22 souls to each vessel is a very moderate estimate, and gives us a million persons on sea. we double Lloyd's returns, and suppose 3450 persons were drowned or blown up during 1880, it will give a death-rate of 3 per 1000 as the equivalent of searisks. A person living in London is subject to an annual death-rate of 22 per 1000; if he adopt a seafaring life his death-rate may therefore be put down at 25 per 1000; but if he goes to reside in Dublin, he will find the steady deathrate in that city is 36 per 1000. Thus, his risk in becoming a pilot or ship-captain would be four times less than if he were compelled to take up his residence in Dublin, and the same would be true if he were sent to Naples. For the