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 shipping 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 delight 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:
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Australia. Canada. Canada.
Coasting Trade. With Britain.
Tons. Tons. Tons.
1820... 1,291 248,343 343,377
1836.. .19,195 609,111 20,772
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 Britain, at home and in the colonies, from 1814 to 1836, is as follows:
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Great Britain. Tons. Colonies. Tons.
1814 2,414,170 202,795
1836 2,349,749 442,897
Thus you see, gentlemen, that while the shipping of Great Britain and Ireland has declined in the last five-and-twenty years, notwithstanding the prodigious increase of our exports and imports, 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, remains 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 incur 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 patience of our readers by farther statis-
