Deduct British and foreign tons employed in the colonial trade, viz.-- Tons Brit. Tons For. inward. inward. Brit. N. Amer. colonies 953,466 3,274 West Indies 243,388 Channel islands 131,899 3,049 Gibraltar 11,623 Malta 33,554 3,789 Ionian islands 13,101 Africa 203,812 6,983 Asia and Australia 379,529 2,774 Total to colonies 1,970,372 19,847 Thus the British trade to our colonial settlements is about _a hundred times_ the foreign, and constitutes nearly a _third_ of the whole tonnage employed in carrying on our commerce, and about two-fifths of the total British tonnage,--(1,970,372 out of 4,942,094.) But it is important to discover what proportion the British tonnage employed in conducting our trade with all the world, _except our colonies_, bears to the foreign tonnage employed in the same work. That is easily found:-- Tons Brit. Tons For. 1847. Total British Tonnage, 4,942,094 Total For. ton. 2,253,939 Deduct British colonial tonnage, 1,970,372 Foreign do. 19,847 Remains in trade with all --------- --------- the world except colonies, 2,971,722 2,233,092 So that, setting aside our colonial trade, the British tonnage is to the tonnage with all the rest of the world as 29 to 22, or as 4 to 3 only! Considering the rapid strides which, under the reciprocity system established only with a limited number of countries in 1823, the foreign shipping is making in encroachment upon the British, this fact affords room for the most serious reflections. It is clear, from the great advance of foreign over British shipping in the single year of temporary suspension of the Navigation Laws, under the pressure of famine in 1847--viz. from 1,735,679, to 2,253,979; while the British in the same period advanced only from 4,310,639, to 4,942,094,--that two or three years of free trade in shipping will bring the foreign vessels employed in conducting our trade, exclusive of those engaged in the colonial, to an _equality with the British_. The moment that period arrives, our maritime superiority, and with it our national independence, hang entirely on our colonial trade, which, and which alone, strikes the balance at present in our favour. And yet, the colonial trade is the precise thing which it is the object of the repeal of the Navigation Laws to throw open to foreign nations! In their anxiety to cheapen every thing, the Free-traders would gladly expose our shipping interest engaged in the colonial trade to the same competition, which has already proved so disastrous to that part of it which is engaged in the traffic with foreign nations.