412 Ships, Colonies, and Commerce. [[APRIL, 



It is true that the first of these measures has for the present been 

 defeated, and the second modified ; but nevertheless it shews the animus 

 by which, towards our colonies, ministers are governed ; and as the 

 same attempts will in all probability be renewed, it may be worth while 

 to point out some of the reasons urged against the adoption of the pro- 

 posed measures. 



Sir Howard Douglas, the Governor of New Brunswick, in a very able 

 pamphlet,* points out the value and importance of our British North 

 American possessions, and " the circumstances on which depend their 

 further prosperity, and colonial connection with Great Britain." 



There are two signs (says Sir Howard) under which the statesman 

 may estimate the value and importance of the British North American 

 Colonies. The one is positive, the other relative. The positive, or 

 absolute value, consists in the shipping they employ, the seamen they 

 form, the manufactures they consume, the supplies of which they are 

 the home sources for the British market and our West India Colonies, 

 and the mastings and spars which they ensure for our navy in the day 

 of need. The sign under which the relative importance of the northern 

 provinces may be considered, indicates the effect of placing all these 

 elements of statistical greatness in the opposite scale of the beam, by 

 \vhich the statesm'an should carefully weigh the effects of measures 

 which, though treated as fiscal or finance questions, reach, in fact, into 

 matters of the very highest order of policy. 



The permanency of the colonial connection between Great Britain and 

 the North American Provinces, rests entirely on the manner in which 

 their interests are dealt with by the British Parliament ; it is therefore 

 of the greatest importance to consider what effects are likely to be pro- 

 duced upon the interests of those colonies, by the proposed alteration in 

 the duties on foreign and North American timbers. 



It is stated that the population of the British North American Pro- 

 vinces was in the year 1828 about 1,000,000, and increasing -in a higher 

 ratio than that of the adjoining New England States ; and the British 

 Colonies consume in corresponding augmentations the manufactures and 

 goods of Great Britain and Ireland, and take increasing quantities of 

 West India produce, upon which the United States have laid heavy 

 duties, to encourage the production of their own sugars. 



In 1828, the amount of British manufactures consumed in British 

 North America was about 2,000,000 value, so that those Provinces 

 take about 40s. each person per annum of British goods. 



The amount of British manufactures imported into the United States 

 from the United Kingdom, in 1826 (see Watterston's Statistics), was 

 26,181,800 dollars, which at 4s. 6d. is 5,876,975 ; the population of 

 the United States for that year being 12,000,000,- it follows that the peo- 

 ple of the United States do not take, per person, one-fourth so much of 

 British goods as the people of the British Colonies. 



The whole British tonnage trading to British North America before 

 the revolution, namely, in the year 1772, was only 86,745 tons. The 

 British tonnage trading to the British North American Provinces in the 

 year 1828 was 400,841 tons, navigated by at least 25,000 seamen, which 

 is nearly one-Jifth of the whole foreign trade of the country ; and this pro- 



* " Considerations on the value and importance of the British Nortli American 

 Provinces," &c. &c. Bv Major-General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart. K.S.C., C.B., 

 F.R.S., &c. &c. 



