A survey of the British Empire at the present moment presents to view some features so strongly resembling those observed in ancient Rome as to warrant calling the attention of the reader to their careful observation. Like Rome, England has desired to establish political centralization by aid of fleets and armies, but to this she has added commercial centralization, far more destructive in its effects, and far more rapid in its operation. Rome was content that her subjects should occupy themselves as they pleased, either in the fields or in the factories, provided only that they paid their taxes. England, on the contrary, has sought to restrict her subjects and the people of the world in their modes of employment; and this she has done with a view to compel them to make all their exchanges in her single market, leaving to her to fix the prices of all she bought and all she sold, thus taxing them at her discretion in both time and money. She has sought to compel all other nations to follow the plough, leaving to her the loom and the anvil, and thus to render it necessary that they should bring to her all their products in the rudest form, at great cost of transportation, and total loss of the manure yielded by them, thus exhausting their soil and themselves; and the consequences of this are seen in the ruin, depopulation, and slavery of the West Indies, Ireland, India, Portugal, Turkey, and other countries that have been partially or wholly subjected to her dominion. Hence it is that she is seen to be everywhere seeking "new markets." Bengal having been in a great degree exhausted, it became necessary to annex the North-west provinces, and thence we find her stretching out her hand at one moment to seize on Affghanistan, at another to force the Chinese into permitting her to smuggle opium, and at a third to expel the Sikhs and occupy the Punjab, as preliminary to this invasion and subjection of the Burman Empire. She needs, and must have new markets, as Rome needed new provinces, and for the same reason, the exhaustion of the old ones. She rejoices with great joy at the creation of a new market in Australia, and looks with a longing eye on the Empire of Japan, whose prosperous people, under a peaceful government, prefer to avoid entering on the same course of action that has resulted in the reduction of the wealthy and powerful Hindostan to its present distressed condition.