THE BRITISH EMPIRE, 1897. British possessions shaded or underlined. Views of the principal Colonial towns are given on subsequent pages. * Egypt under British occupation since 1882.] [Sidenote: Repeal of the Transportation Act.] In 1853 an important change in the penal code of Great Britain was effected by the Act altering the punishment of transportation of convicts into that of penal servitude. The Lord Chancellor admitted, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, that transportation answered the end of punishment better than anything else which could be devised; it was the strongest deterrent, short of a capital sentence, which could be employed without the infliction of physical pain, and, had the United Kingdom only been concerned, no alteration in the law would have been proposed. But the interests of the Colonies must be taken into account also; the strong representations laid before the Government by the Colonists, coupled with the extraordinary discoveries of gold in Australia, made it imperative that these growing communities should cease to be the slumping ground for the refuse of British civilisation, and other provision must be made for the disposal of criminals. The measure became law, and the Australasian settlements, relieved from the slur which had become wellnigh intolerable, entered on a career of expansion and profitable industry of which no man can yet foretell the ultimate result. Besides British India, of which the growth and consolidation is described elsewhere, the chief expansion of the Empire and its protectorate during the present reign has taken place in South Africa. The Cape Colony was ceded to the British Crown in 1814; the Colony of Natal was added to it in 1843, was erected into a separate Colony in 1856, and was made self-governing in 1893. Basutoland was annexed to the Cape Colony in 1871, but in 1884 it was constituted a separate Crown Colony, and neither it nor Bechuanaland, which, having been annexed in 1885, is governed from the Cape, have yet developed representative institutions. [Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Gregory & Co., Strand._ TORPEDO STORES AT PORTSMOUTH. Containing Torpedoes to the value of £150,000.]