416 A. D. EMIGRATION AND COLONIZATION. Ch. 30 abolish the duty altogether. Thus things continued till 1843, when, partly in consequence of prevailing distress occasioned 1845. by the rapid decline of trade, and partly owing to constant pressure from without, concessions were made in favor of Canada, and grain from that country was allowed to enter at Repeal a low rate of duty. The failure of the harvest in 1845; commercial collapse, occasioned by inordinate speculation; Laws. and Irish distress, all combined to strengthen the arguments of the Corn Emigration and of those who still clamored for unconditional repeal and after the great Irish famine in 1845, Sir Robert Peel, in defiance of his party, carried a bill to that effect, and soon after retired from office. While this great struggle was pending, the attention of the had been more than once directed to the importance country coloni- of promoting emigration, especially to the Australias, where zation. the foundation of new empires was now beginning to be laid. The settlement at Swan River had been made as early as 1820, but the colonies of South Australia, of Victoria, and of New Zealand, all of which sprang into existence between 1830 and 1837, were exhibiting a rapidity of progress in the increase of their population, and the extension of their commerce, hitherto without example. Char tist The distresses of 1838, and the Chartist riots which followed, Riots. issuing sometimes, as at Newport in Wales, in serious loss of life, served to direct the attention of restless and disturbed spirits to these new countries, where profitable scope might be found for the energies of men who fancied themselves wronged by the wealthier classes, and debarred from the exercise of political rights. The repeal of the Navigation Laws; the discovery of gold; and the liberal manner in which the colonies have been dealt with by the home government, have all tended to increase the impulse then given; and these valuable dependencies of the British Crown are now a most important field for the employment of capital, for commercial enterprise, and for the settlement of unemployed portions of the home population. FINANCIAL POLICY OF SIR ROBERT PEEL. 417 During the ministry of Sir Robert Peel various financial Ch.30 measures of the utmost importance to the country were A. D. carried. A property and income tax upon all incomes ex- 1845. ceeding £150 was imposed in 1842, and at the same time a repeal of duties on 750 articles in the tariff was effected. The impulse given to trade was immediate; and this spirited legislation, which was accompanied by the amendment of the Finan→ laws on bankruptcy, and by judicious enactments for regu- changes lating the employment of women and children in mines and factories, was received by all classes with satisfaction and hope. To the RAILWAY MANIA, as it was termed, which raged so furiously during the years 1844 and 1845, attention must now be specially directed. The extravagance and madness which characterized this period can scarcely be exaggerated. It commenced, as such speculative follies generally do, in envy and covetousness-passions which were excited by the apparent success which attended railway enterprise at its commencement. cial mania. "The first consequence was a rage for shares in the earlier Railway lines; and the few fortunate speculators who held them soon sold out, at prices which enabled them to realize large fortunes, sometimes in a few days." The effect of this was electric. "The passion for gain, now thoroughly awakened, seized upon all classes, pervaded both sexes, and swept away all understandings. The few who ventured to withstand the torrent were ridiculed as alarmists." "Every one concerned, however remotely, in forming the net-work which was to overspread the country was now worked to death, so great was the universal anxiety to get new lines formed. Surveyors, with theodolites and chains, were incessantly travelling the country in every direction; and when the proprietor refused his consent to their entry, it was stealthily obtained at night, or openly asserted in daylight Multiby large bodies of men. Nothing could resist the universal plica mania. "As the season passed on, and the 30th of November tion of com panies. 418 A. D. mous sums THE RAILWAY MANIA. Ch. 30 (1845), the last day for lodging plans with the Board of Trade, approached, the pressure and excitement became un1845. paralleled. Lithographers by hundreds were brought over from Belgium and France, to aid in making the plans; the engineers and their clerks sat up all night, and several of Enor- them, in two years, made large fortunes. On the evening of the closing day the doors of the Board of Trade were besieged needed. by a clamorous crowd, contending for admission, as at the pit doors of the Opera when a popular actress is to perform; above six hundred plans were thrust in before the doors closed at midnight on the 30th November. The capital required for their construction was £270,950,000, and above twenty-three millions of money was required to be deposited before the acts could be applied for. Cost of "It was computed that no less than sixteen millions was litigation. expended in surveys, legislation, or litigation, connected with the bills got up during the railway mania, before they got into Parliament. Of the three hundred millions, in round numbers, which the lines were computed to cost, nearly a third has never paid anything in the shape of dividend, and on the remaining two-thirds the net receipts, after deducting the working expenses, would not, on an average, exceed three per cent. "From the extravagant speculations and unbounded gains and losses of these years," says Sir Archibald Alison, to whom we are indebted for this graphic account of the mania, “ may Moral be dated a great change, and one materially for the worse, in effects the mercantile character of the country. In the Joint Stock mania. Companies, which succeeded the individual direction of the of the old English merchant, facilities to fraud were multiplied, and inducements to probity taken away. Every species of fraud,— false balance sheets, false dividends, cooked accounts,-was perpetrated, in some cases with long continued concealment, and immense profits. When at length the perpetrators of the iniquity had in general escaped, it was found that, aware of what was coming, they had in time disposed of their shares to FOREIGN AND COLONIAL RELATIONS. 419 the widow and orphan, who, deceived by their representations, Ch. 30 bore the penalty of their sins."* A. D. The Foreign and Colonial relations of the country, from 1846. 1830 to 1846, with the exception of Indian conquests, which have been already described, underwent no great change. An unfortunate Caffre war was happily terminated by the submission of the chiefs, and a second rupture with the Chinese also came to an end without much fighting. TURKEY, after the battle of Navarino, less able than ever State of to contend with Russia on the one hand, and her rebellious Turkey. Pachas on the other, was subjected to new troubles. Egypt, under Mehemet Ali, broke altogether with her nominal lord in 1831; openly defied the Porte by marching an army into Syria; and would, unquestionably, have occupied Constantinople, had not Russia, in 1833, interfered to prevent the prey from falling into other hands than her own. A second war was commenced in 1840, and again Russia hindered the EgypEgyptians from occupying Turkey. This time, however, the tian inother powers of Europe acted with her. In the year 1841 Beyrout and Jean d'Acre were taken by the allied fleet; Ibrahim Pacha was obliged to vacate Syria; and Egypt, as an hereditary sovereignty, was guaranteed to Mehemet Ali, on condition of the payment of an annual tribute. vasion. States. The history of the UNITED STATES since the French Revolu- The tion, vast and varied as are the interests involved, must United be compressed into few lines; for the principle laid down by Washington, that America should interfere as little as possible with European politics, has, in the main, been adhered to. Under the successive presidencies of the elder Adams, of Jefferson, of Madison, of Monroe, of John Quincy Adams, of Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk, this great country, up to the period we are describing, made rapid progress in territory, population, and political influence. * Alison's "History of Europe, from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852." 8 vols. 8vo. Blackwood, Edinburgh. Ch.30 At the death of Washington the States of the Union were sixteen in number; in 1802 Ohio was added; in 1803 1846. Louisiana was purchased from France, and in 1812 recognized A. D. In crease as a separate State; Indiana was created in 1815, and Mississippi the year following; Illinois was added in 1818, Alabama in 1819, and Maine in 1820. In 1821 Florida was ceded by Spain, and Missouri was added during the same year; Michigan and Arkansas followed in 1836, and Texas was annexed in 1845. Since then California and New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Iowa, have swelled the list, and of population. so doubled the number of States which submitted to the first President. The population, then probably under two millions, now exceeds twenty millions, and every year vast accessions take place, not only from natural increase, but from the constant tide of emigration which for many years has steadily set in from Germany and Ireland. the Union. Wars of The wars of the Union, since the country became free from British control, have not been either numerous or important. From 1812 to 1815, a struggle with England, arising out of the refusal of American ships to submit to be searched, led to conflicts at sea which issued in the practical abandonment of the claim. Subsequent disputes, chiefly relating to boundaries, have been amicably settled, and there is now every reason to hope that contests so unnatural as those between English and Americans will never be repeated. The war with Mexico, which resulted in the utter defeat of the more Southern Republic, scarcely comes within the scope of European history. Political parties in the United States correspond to a great extent with our own. Federalists on the one side, and Democrats on the other, in the main divide the country, and represent the respective principles of conservatism and of progress. The one dark spot on the escutcheon of America is negro slavery, which in the South seems to be regarded as a settled institution. The inconsistency of such a bondage with the celebrated declaration of the rights of man is obvious enough, and the danger to which it exposes the Union is every year political parties |