The preceding tables have been compiled from the following authorities, viz. :—The Report of the Foreign Trade Committee of 1821; the papers printed for the sole use of the Finance Committee in 1828; Parliamentary Papers of the present year, Nos. 388, 252, and 253; and from Colonial Returns and Gazettes containing the official documents for the respective periods and years. To understand the subject fully, it is necessary to state, that the value of the trade above given, is THE VALUE IN PRODUCE ALONE, and includes no specie or bills, except the specie ex

Expenditure. L.20,675,550 1,769,854

L. 22,445,404

ported and imported in the trade between India and China. The given amount also is exclusive of all freights and charges, and which to the country will render the total value about ONE FOURTH MORE!!

Is it possible, my Lord, that the affairs of an empire can be prosperous, where such enormous interests as are concerned in a commerce yielding L.75,000,000 sterling annually, are either despised and sacrificed, or neglected, disorganized, insulted, oppressed, and placed in jeopardy?

It will be observed, that some re

turns for the Eastern Colonies are wanting, but these are of less importance, as the exports from these places, from Gibraltar, for example, consist principally of goods imported from Great Britain. I have had considerable difficulty in ascertaining the trade of the British North American colonies, and have been obliged to take it, for different provinces, in different years, say 1826, 1828, and 1830. Thus, Quebec is taken for 1828, though the trade of that port is increased from L.1,324,550 imports, and L.825,386 exports, in 1828, to L.1,617,749 imports, and L.1,316,000 exports, in 1830; but in the exports the returns cannot be separated. The trade of these colonies greatly exceeds, for this year, what I have been obliged to take it at, particularly with the West Indies and Great Britain. The imports from the latter, for the year ending 1st July last, were, to Quebec, L.1,147,345, and to Montreal, L.549,209. The trade also to the Eastern Colonies, viz.-New South Wales, &c., is greatly increased. According to the previous statement, the British tonnage employed in the colonial trade, amounts to nearly 1,400,000 tons, while, by Par. Pap. No. 252, dated 21st September, 1831, the whole British tonnage employed in the trade, to every quarter of the world, except our own dominions, was, for 1829, 1,074,171 tons outwards, and 1,176,867 tons inwards; and, by Par. Pap. No. 253, of the same date, the imports into Great Britain and Ireland, from our transmarine possessions, for 1829, amounted to L.19,863,840, and exports to these possessions, L.17,299,961 sterling, and nearly all British produce and manufactures; while it may be remarked that the imports from these possessions are exclusive ly the productions of the soil and agriculture of these countries. By the same paper, we find that the imports into Great Britain, for 1829, from all other parts of the world, amounted to L.24,139,183, (almost one half of it carried in foreign ships!) L.10,600,000 of which were from the United States, and Russia; and the exports of British manufactures, L.40,683,080, L.18,000,000 of which were to Germany, the United States, and Brazils; but which exports of L.40,000,000, when they are

reduced to the fair value from the extravagant rate which the official scale fixes upon cotton goods exported, namely, 2s. and 2s. 2d. for each yard which is not worth above 4d., will bring the actual value of British produce and manufactures exported to all quarters of the world, except to our own dominions, to be about L.16,000,000 to L.17,000,000, and to the level of the exports to our own transmarine possessions. All these points must be kept steadily in view, in order to appreciate correctly the value and importance of these transmarine possessions to the trade, to the wealth, to the finances, and to the strength of Great Britain. By encouragement, also, and proper care extended to the cultivation of cotton in the East Indies, this country might quickly supply the raw material for her cotton manufactures from that quarter, and thus give to the inhabitants of Hindostan, our own subjects, L.6,000,000 sterling per annum, which we at present give to the United States of America for the same article; and, by the same means, we would give employment to 130,000 tons additional of British shipping, and we would also enable the popu lation of India to take British produce and manufactures to the amount of L.6,000,000 sterling per annum additional from us.

Such, my Lord, is the extent and the amount of the trade and commerce of the British colonial empire -a trade and commerce exceeding that of the most powerful empires. It exceeds the whole foreign trade of France, and it also exceeds the foreign trade of the whole Russian empire, which, in 1818, amounted to 184,910,632 roubles imports, and to 256,075,059 roubles exports. The capital necessarily engaged in carrying on this trade and commerce, it is evident, must be great indeed. The replacing, the tear, the wear, and the outfits of the tonnage employed, taking these only at L.7 per ton, will occasion an expenditure in this country of near ten millions annually, in articles almost exclusively the productions of British soil, British capital, and British labour. The wealth which this trade and commerce throws into the coffers of the state, is great and undeniable; the productions of the West India

colonies alone yield government a revenue of nearly seven millions ayear. The various branches of this extensive trade and commerce, also give profitable and constant employment, not to many thousands, but to many millions of people in Great Britain and in her transmarine possessions, while the value of the whole, and the profits upon the whole, are spent in our own dominions. The value of these transmarine possessions also is prodigiously enhanced, when it is remembered that almost all the articles of trade are the productions of the soil of the respect ive possessions, and, moreover, of a description which give employment to the greatest number of labourers, and to the greatest quantity of tonnage; the latter, of itself, a point of vast importance to a naval power like Great Britain.

The British North American colonies, so little known, and so much despised in Great Britain, are, nevertheless, of the greatest importance to her strength and prosperity. Their trade and population are increasing in an astonishing manner. They give unlimited scope to the employment of British capital, and to the productive labour of the numerous emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, who are daily seeking refuge on their shores. The number of emigrants this year gone out to British North America, amounts to 60,000. In the course of next year, these will require imports from this country, of British articles, equal to L.6 sterling each. The timber and the lumber trade gives them, in various ways, immediate employment. The lofty primeval forests in North America are hewn down, exported, and converted into cash. The land thus cleared is, by agricultural labour, rendered productive in all kinds of grain and vegetables, whether for the food of man or of beast. The forests of Canada, by the application of labour, are turned into agricultural capital, and the history of every country shows, that a prosperous and productive agriculture must precede manufactures. There can be no manufactures where the soil is not cultivated, and where there is not a superabundant agricultural population to turn their efforts to manufactures. Experience has also shewn, that an

agricultural population is always the most industrious and contented, and hence the great advantage of having such possessions as our North Ame rican provinces, to which the superabundant population of Great Britain and Ireland can emigrate. The fisheries around the shores of these provinces, are really mines of wealth, if attentively worked. The province of New Brunswick has abundance of excellent coal, which the United States are without, at least such as is most valuable and best adapted for steam navigation; and accordingly the trade in coals from New Brunswick to the United States, has already become a trade of importance, and hence the propriety and policy of encouraging and protecting these colonies, instead of bestowing our favours upon Norway, and the States round the Baltic, which neither take our manufactures nor our pauper population from us. In case of need, the coal of New Brunswick may furnish steam to shut up the Gulf of St Lawrence from every hostile attack, and thus render the Canadas invincible and invulnerable.

Besides the immense command which, as naval and military stations, our various colonies afford us, they are placed in such a variety of climate that each yields those productions which are most wanted to supply the wants and the deficiencies of the other; and thus Great Britain possesses within her own dominions, in peace and in war, inexhaustible fields for commerce with which no foreigner has a right to interfere, and which are or ought to be placed completely beyond their control.

We have only to contrast the colonial commerce alluded to, with the whole commerce which Great Britain carries on with every foreign power, in order to shew how much the former ought, in preference to the latter, to engage our attention, to command our care, and to receive our protection. But it is a lamentable fact, that, for several years past, Great Britain has pursued a course directly the reverse. These transmarine possessions have not only been despised, but a theoretical system of legislation has been applied to them in all things, and which is not merely retarding their improvement, and crippling their energies, but fast un

dermining the strength of each, and threatening to bring ruin on the whole. Error succeeds to error in the government of the colonies. The Canadian timber trade is threatened to be undermined, to benefit Norway and Prussia. The sugar trade of the West Indies is about to be thrown away, to benefit the Brazils and Cuba. The East Indian cotton trade has long been despised, while the United States have risen on its ruin; and the wine-growers at the Cape of Good Hope, after having vested their property in vineyards under the faith of Parliament, are about to be sacrificed to the winegrowers of France, which country sends us every thing she can, and takes as little from us as possible! The mismanagement of our colonial empire is always reprehensible, sometimes distressing, and at other times ludicrous. Thus, the mother country sent to the Mauritius, where the French language alone is spoken, as chief judge, an individual who did not understand a word of French, and who was moreover perfectly deaf! Early this year, it was determined to send all the old pensioners that could be mustered to settle in Canada. Their pensions for three years were advanced to them to supply them with funds, and when arrived there they were told they would have lands allotted to them by the local government. The pensioners came from all places to London, where they got the cash; but as no rendezvous was appointed for them, nor authority to direct them, they were quickly deprived of their money by sharpers and by gin; and when the days of sailing came, not a half could be mustered! The missing were afterwards returned to their parishes, to be supported as paupers for life! A portion sailed, and reached Quebec. They applied to the governor for the lands which had been promised them; but, to their surprise and mortification, they were informed that the Colonial Office had never written a word upon the subject! They were accordingly left in want: some of them

spent their money, and became paupers at Quebec; the remainder found their passage home, after expending the funds they had remaining; and, arrived in this country, they are thrown as paupers upon the parishes to which they belonged! A more disgraceful and heartless job scarcely stands upon record in the history of Colonial Office negligence and folly.

During the last eight years in particular, the Ministers who have composed the Cabinet of Great Britain, have been so busily engaged in concocting measures to keep themselves in power when they had got possession of it, or to get hold of it again when they had lost it, that they have not had time to attend to any thing else. The consequences of this state of things have been, that the welfare, the prosperity, the interests, and the peace, of all our transmarine possessions, have been shamefully neglected, and given up to be directed and ruled by a band of theoretical boys in the secondary ranks of the government offices, who are set apart to superintend colonial interests, and who, by patronage and hypocrisy, like

have got themselves advanced from a three-legged stool to an easy-chair, and who imagine that, because they have been so, they may, "while blowing the trumpet of Liberty, tell their equals they are slaves." By statesmen such as these our colonial empire is now ruled, and all the enormous property, capital, and commerce, dependent upon these possessions, are endangered and rendered unsettled and unprofitable. Napoleon, my Lord, would not have acted thus; nor does any nation in the world act in this manner but Great Britain; and if she will continue to persevere in such a pernicious course, she must expect to reap the fruits of her folly, namely, severe national loss, and deep national humiliation and degradation. I am, &c.

JAMES M'QUEEN.

Glasgow, 10th October, 1831.