English;" but that argument won't do. Look at the Canary Islands. They were just as hard hit by aniline dyes supplanting cochineal. Their population is not mainly English; but down on those islands came an Englishman, the Spanish Government had the sense to let him have his way, and that Englishman, Mr. A. L. Jones, of Liverpool, has, in a space of only fifteen years, made those islands a source of wealth to Spain, instead of paupers on an Imperial bounty. "But," you say, "we have other regions under the Crown Colony system that are not West Indian." Granted, but look at them. There are the West African group; a group of three in the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, two fortifications and a failure; away out East another group, which are prosperous from the fact that they are surrounded by countries whose fiscal arrangements are providentially worse than their own, and this seems to be the only condition which can keep a Crown Colony on its financial legs at all. For all our Crown Colonies adjacent to countries who can compete with them in trade matters are paupers, or their efficiency and value to the Empire is in the sphere of military and naval affairs, as posts and coaling stations. These possessions of the Gibraltar, Malta, and Hong-Kong brand should be regarded as being part of our navy and army, and not confused with colonies, though essential to them.
"Still," you say, "you are forgetting Ceylon, the Fiji Islands, the Falklands, and the Mauritius." I am not. Ceylon is part of India and practically an Indian province, so is out of my arguments. I present you with the others wherefrom to build up a defence of the Crown Colony system. Say, "See the Falklands off Cape Horn, with a
