It may truly be said that this table speaks as to the real interests and manufacturing establishments of Great Brite Britain; and that, if our rulers were not struck with judicial blindness, they would at once perceive where it is that the steady and rising market for British manufactures, and where all our efforts to promote a successful traffic may be regarded as fruitless and unavailing. For fifteen years past our whole commercial policy has been directed to the object of gaining a more ready vent for our manufactures into the continental states of Europe. We have concluded no less than twelve reciprocity treaties with the principal powers; and, in order to propitiate their good-will, we have sacrificed by our treaties all our commercial advantages at least in our intercourse with these states. And what has been the result? Why, that our commerce with them is a perfect trifle when compared with that which we maintain with our own colonies, whom we have maltreated and neglected for their sakes; and that, while the old states take off a few pence per head of their population, our own colonies take off as many pounds. In this instance we have truly verified the old adage, that we have been penny wise and pound foolish, even in regard to our existing interests at the moment. But when, in addition to this, it is recollected that these colonies are part of ourselves

1,180,000

distant provinces of our own empire, whose blood is our blood, whose strength is our strength; that they are increasing in numbers with a rapidity unparalleled in the annals of the world; and that, however fast they may augment, they are by their situation and circumstances chained for centuries to agricultural and pastoral employments, and consequently our export trade with them must increase in the same proportion as their numbers; while, on the other hand, the states of continental Europe are increasing far less rapidly in numbersare actuated for the most part by commercial or political jealousy, and may any moment become our enemies, it may safely be affirmed that the neglect of the colonial provinces to propitiate foreign powers, is of all human absurdities the most absurd.

It is needless to enquire to what cause this marvellous difference between Colonial and European trade is owing. It is immaterial whether it is to be ascribed to the circumstance of the Continental states being in the same state of civilisation with ourselves, or being inhabited by people who have no taste for our manufactures, or no money to buy them; or governed by jealous and hostile fo. reign governments or actuated by similar and rival commercial establishments. It is sufficient to state the fact, that, from one or other, or all of

Nor is the present magnitude of the British trade with these colonies more remarkable than its rapid increase. Some very remarkable facts on this subject were stated by Mr Alison at the public dinner in Glasgow:-"You have already seen how completely our hipping which trades with Northern Europe is withering away under the action of the reciprocity treaties; and you have seen that it is now little more than a fourth of what it was fifteen years ago; while that of the Baltic powers trading with us has quadrupled during the same period. But, gentlemen, turn to the colonies, and you will learn a very different result; and behold with deligh a growth of our shipping as extraordinary, as its decline in our intercourse with Europe is serious and alarming. Gentlemen, it appears from Mr Porter's Parliamentary Tables, that the growth of our shipping employed between Canada, Australia, and the mother country, has been as follows:

Thus the astonishing facts are apparent, that, in conducting the intercourse between Canada, the West Indies, and the mother country, there has grown up a commercial navy of nearly 1,200,000 tons, of which nearly 600,000 belong to Great Britain, and the remainder to her transatlantic offspring; while the tonnage with the Australian Colonies has increased in sixteen years, prior to 1836, from 1200 to 20,000, or nearly twenty-fold. When we recollect that the total commercial navy of Great Britain is only 2,800,000 tons, and that our vast foreign trade with America only employs 88,000 tons of our shipping, the whole remainder being in the hands of the Americans themselves; and that our intercourse with Canada and Australia, the population of which is not sixteen hundred thousand, already gives employment to 600,000 tons, or nearly seven times that employed in our whole immense commerce with the United States of America, the vital importance of colonial trade to maritime independence becomes at once apparent; and the general result of the comparative progress of the vessels belonging to Great

Thus you see, gentlemen, that while the shipping of Great Britain and Ireland has declined in the last five-andtwenty years, notwithstanding the prodigious increase of our exports and im. ports, that employed in conducting the trade with the colonies has more than doubled. More decisive evidence cannot be imagined of the vital importance of the colonial trade, not only to our commercial wealth, but to our national existence. And if any one, after the facts that have now been stated, re. mains blind to our true national interests, and the quarter from which we must look for our wealth, our security, and independence, in future times, I say neither will he be converted though one rose from the dead."

When it is demonstrated by statistical facts like these, concerning which there can be no dispute, that interests so vast both in our colonial possessions and the parent state, are dependent upon the connexion between Great Britain and her Colonies; when it is recollected that the bread and very existence of millions at home depend upon the increasing trade and market with these Colonies; and that our maritime strength and national independence are entirely dependent upon the immediate adoption of such a system as shall extend and increase our colonial expire, it is with feelings of regret too profound to be mingled with bitterness-with sentiments of indignation too deep to exhale in angry words that we look back upon the colonial policy of Great Britain for the last ten years. It may safely be affirmed, that the insane policy of Great Britain to her colonial possessions during that time has been unparalleled in modern times. She has first forced upon the West India Islands the monstrous project of negro emancipation, a step which has already reduced to one-half the produce of those splendid colonies, and given a blow to the prosperity both of the Negro and European population from which neither can ever recover. We have the details lying beside us, and were we not fearful of exhausting the pa. tience of our readers by farther statistical details, we could exhibit a picture from Parliamentary and authentic documents of progressive ruin in those noble establishments, which would amply bear out, and even exceed this ■ statement.

She next, practically speaking, shortened by two years the period of negro apprenticeship, and thereby completely disorganized all the plans which the planters had had laid, for

en

abling them to wind up their affairs - during the period of apprenticeship. And when it became manifest that the - negroes would not work, and that a - fresh supply of labourers became indispensable to maintain industry in the West India Islands, we passed Acts of Parliament prohibiting the introduction of free Asiatic labourers, and promulgated regulations in the island, which, by giving the planters no security in the retention of the labour of free European workmen, have in effect cut off all means of supplying the place of the indolent negroes in the cultivation of the land.

What have we done during the same period in Canada? It would appear from our conduct to that noble colony, that we were desirous of disgusting it so completely with the rule of the mother country, as to throw it headlong into the arms of the United ■States. We first winked at and promoted republicanism and sedition to ⚫ such a degree, as to fan them into actual rebellion; and, though aware for years that an insurrection was rapidly approaching, we left the colonies with only 3500 British soldiers to protect them from destruction. When the first revolt was put down by this gallant handful of men, and the strenuous support of the loyal North American British population, we carried the system of conciliation, concession, and dallying with treason to such a length, - as to cause the rebellion to break out a second time under circumstances of still greater horror, and when it required to be extinguished in oceans of blood. While the wintry heavens were illuminated by the light of burning villages, and the wintry forests were strewed with the carcasses of : slaughtered peasants, we submitted quietly to the insulting inroads of hundreds of buccaneers and pirates from the American territory, in a way that never yet was done by the government of any independent state.

When the royal banner of the loyal inhabitants in Upper Canada had surmounted these various evils, and a second time restored peace to a distracted land, the sympathy of our rulers with their old allies the republican party in America-was so strong, that they have never proposed a vote of thanks in either House of Parliament or from the Crown, to the brave soldiers and patriots who saved the empire from dismemberment! Lastly, to show our sympathy with the antinational party in our transatlantic possessions, in our total disregard to their vital interests, we placed at the head of the colonial department Lord Normanby, whose policy in Ireland was graced by the wholesale liberation of felons and anti-national convicts, and placed at the head of the Government in Quebec, Poulett Thomson, the President of the Board of Trade, who is chiefly known by his long established connexion with the Baltic timber trade, and his often avowed predilection for an equalisation of e duties on Baltic and Canadian timber.

Serious as these evils are, we much fear that greater and more heavy blows at our colonial interests are yet in the contemplation of our infatuated Government. Acting on the dictation of the urban constituencies, whose great object is to buy cheap, and still clinging to the blind system of foreign propitiation, there is little room for doubting that they will ere long, perhaps in the next Session of Parliament, bring forward ministerial plans for equalizing the duties on Baltic and Canadian timber, and Foreign and British sugar. Strong indications of these intentions have already appeared in the speeches of many of the supporters of Government, and the appointment of Mr Poulett Thomson to the viceroyalty of Canada may be considered as the official promulgation of their intention. Let no one imagine that these propositions are so obviously destructive in their effects, and bear so obviously the tendency to dismember the empire, that therefore they will not be attempted by a Ministry whose only principle seems to be to prolong their official existence, without any regard to the jeopardy which the means of accomplishing that object may place the existence or independence of the country. It is never to be forgotten, that to procure the support of O'Connell's tail, they have surrendered the government of Ireland and the direction of the nation to the Popish faction, whose bond of cement is the repeal of the Union, that is, the dismemberment of the empire. True, by establishing a free trade in timber, we should annihilate the industry of our North American Colonies, and throw them at once into the arms of the United States, and cut off at once 600,000 tons of British shipping, and altogether extinguish both our maritime superiority and national independence. True, by equalizing the duties on Foreign and British sugar, we should utterly destroy our West India Colonies, and perpetuate that hideous tearing of 200,000 negroes from the shores of Africa, which we have professed ourselves so anxious to prevent. But what does all that signify?-the urban constituencies must be propitiated; a few stray seats at the next election may turn the balance in favour of the Destructive or Conservative party; and the cry of cheap sugar and cheap bread may catch these stray votes and cast the balance.

It is childish to descant always upon the weakness and imbecility of ministers, or suppose that a tortuous policy, so flagrantly dangerous and impolitic as that which we have just been considering, is to be ascribed to the mere recklessness or want of capacity of our present rulers. It is

perversity in the public mind which is the real source of the evil-it is the short-sighted views of the numerous constituencies that have so long rendered a remedy impossible. The colonies are wholly unrepresented in the House of Commons; the ten-pounders have the disposal of the majority of the seats in that Assembly; to buy cheap is their immediate interest, and it matters little to the short-seeing masses what effect that cheap buying may ultimately have upon their own or the national interests. Here is the true secret of colonial misgovernment; we are governed by masses who think only of buying cheap, and the interest of the colonies is to sell dear. Eight years ago we foresaw, and distinctly predicted this effect, as necessarily flowing from the Reform Bill.

All the colonial calamities that have since occurred are but the accomplishment of our predictions in this particular.*

The colonies were not actually represented under the old constitution, but they were virtually so, because colonial wealth found an easy entrance into Parliament through the means of the close boroughs. The Whigs have destroyed that avenue for colonial representation in the House of Commons; time will show whether they have not destroyed with it the colonial empire and national independence of Great Britain.