The boundary-line which marks the southern limit of British territory divides the continent into two not very unequal portions. On one side stretches out the vast area covered by the United States—the home of fifty million people—the seat of the manifold industries which their energy has called into existence. On the other side there lies a yet wider expanse of territory, whose development is still in the future. Northward and westward of the original line of settlement in the valley of the St. Lawrence the possessions of Great Britain are nearly equal in extent to the whole of Europe. Towards the Atlantic vast pine-forests cover the ground. Towards the Pacific are great mountain-ranges, rich with mineral treasures, destined to yield wealth to the men of future generations. The central portion of the continent is a vast expanse of rich farm-land, where the slightest efforts of the husbandman yield lavish increase.[20] Great navigable rivers, which take their origin in the Rocky Mountains, traverse the continent, and wait, silent and unused, to bear the traffic which coming years must bring. The Saskatchewan, after a course of thirteen hundred miles, and the Red River, whose sources are very near those of the Mississippi, after flowing nearly seven hundred miles, pour their ample floods into Lake Winnipeg—a vast sheet of water, covering an area equal to one-third that of Scotland. The Nelson River carries the waters of Lake Winnipeg into Hudson Bay by a course of three hundred miles, which could easily be rendered navigable for ships of large burden.

Lake Winnipeg is in the latitude of England; but the genial influences of the Gulf Stream do not visit those stern coasts, whose temperature is largely governed by the ice-cold currents of the Arctic Ocean. The climate is severe, the winter is long. During five or six months of the year the country lies under a covering of snow; river and lake are fast bound by frost; the thermometer occasionally sinks to fifty degrees below zero. This stern dominion does not pass gradually away; it ceases almost suddenly. The snow disappears as if by magic; the streams resume their interrupted flow; trees clothe themselves with foliage; the plains are gay with grass and flower. At one stride comes the summer, with its fierce heat, with its intolerable opulence of insect life, with its swift growth and ripening of wild fruits, and of the seeds which the sower has scattered over the fertile soil.

At the coming of Europeans into America this magnificent region was possessed by numerous tribes of Indians, who gained their food and clothing almost wholly by the chase. In course of years the white man found that the Indian would sell, for trivial payment, rich furs which were eagerly desired in Europe. The Indian came to understand that he could exchange his easily obtained furs for the musket which the strangers brought and taught him to use, for the beads with which he loved to ornament himself, for the seductive liquors which quickly asserted a destructive mastery over his savage nature. Out of these experiences there arose trading relations between the Indians of the North-West and the adventurous Europeans who from time to time made their way into those mysterious regions. A sagacious Frenchman perceived the advantage which was to be gained by an organized and systematic prosecution of this lucrative commerce. 1668 A.D. He proposed the enterprise to his countrymen, but it failed to command their support. The baffled projector made his way to England, and obtained access to Prince Rupert, to whom he unfolded his scheme. A quarter of a century had passed since the fierce charges of Rupert’s cavalry swept down the troops of the Parliament at Naseby and Newark, since he himself had been chased from Marston Moor by the stern Ironsides of Cromwell. The prince was now a sedate man of fifty. The vehemence of his youth had mellowed itself down to a love of commercial adventure. He lent a willing ear to the ingenious Frenchman. His influence with the public procured the formation of a company, whose paid-up capital was £10,500. His influence with his cousin, King Charles, sufficed to obtain a charter. 1670 A.D. The liberal monarch bestowed half a continent upon these speculators, on no more burdensome terms than that they should pay two elks and two black beavers to the sovereign whensoever he visited their territory. “The Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson Bay” were endowed by this liberal monarch with “all countries which lie within the entrance of Hudson’s Straits, in whatever latitude they may be, so far as not possessed by other Christian States.” Thus largely privileged, the adventurers entered upon a career of unusual success. In a few years they paid a dividend at the rate of fifty per cent.; a little later they trebled their capital out of profits, and paid to shareholders twenty-five per cent. upon the increased amount; still later the capital was once more trebled from the same source, without diminution of the rate of dividend.

The fur trade was one of the most lucrative of which merchants had any experience. The savages who overthrew the Roman empire had introduced to Southern Europe the beautiful furs of the north. Henceforth the article was in urgent demand. Great ladies sought eagerly, for purposes of ornament, such furs as those with which the northern savage clothed himself and his children—sought eagerly, but often unsuccessfully, for demand outstripped supply. It was certain that Europe would purchase at liberal prices all the furs which the adventurers were able to bring.

The Hudson Bay Company entered with vigour upon this inviting field. They established a fort near the coast, and made it known among the Indians that they were prepared to trade. With as little delay as possible they pushed their settlement far into the interior. Scattered at great intervals across the continent arose the little trading-stations. They were composed of a few wooden huts, with a strong surrounding palisade or wall; with well-barred gates; with loop-holes, from which, in case of need, the uncertain clients of the Company could be controlled by musketry. These posts were ordinarily established near rivers, accessible to the savages by canoe or by sledge. Their loneliness was extreme. For hundreds of miles on every side stretched the dense forest or the boundless prairie, untrodden by man. At fixed seasons—once or twice in the year—the natives appeared, bearing the spoils of the chase—skins, oil, the tusk of the walrus, feathers, dried fish. Ordinarily the entire tribe come on this great mission. They encamp before the fort. An officer goes forth, and the gate is jealously barred behind him. Gifts are exchanged and speeches effusively affectionate and confiding. Within the fort are stores filled with wares, which the Company has brought from afar,—blankets, beads, scalping-knives, fish-hooks, muskets, ammunition, tea, sugar, red and yellow paints for purposes of personal adornment. These strange traders enter in groups of three or four, for they cannot be trusted in larger numbers. They deposit the articles which they offer; the Company’s servants put a value upon these, and hand over an equivalent, according to the choice of their customer. Money, until lately, would have been worthless to the Indian, and none was offered. At one time spirits were supplied, with frightful results in uproar and violence; but this evil practice has been discontinued or carefully restricted. When the negotiation is concluded, the Indians withdraw and resume their wanderings.

The Company supplied such government as the unpeopled continent required. They had many rivals in the lucrative commerce which they carried on, and it was often needful for them to defend by arms their coveted monopoly. The French strove during many years to drive out the English and possess the fur trade. French ships of war appeared in the bay; French soldiers attacked the posts of the Company. Scarcely had those angry debates been silenced by the victory of Wolfe, when a yet more formidable competition arose. 1784 A.D. Some enterprising Canadians founded a rival Company, and traded so prosperously that in a few years they had established numerous stations, and possessed themselves of much of the trade which had hitherto been enjoyed by the older Company. Perpetual strife raged between the servants of the rival institutions. Battles were fought; much blood was shed; the revenues of the Hudson Bay Company decayed; its rich dividends wholly ceased. 1816 A.D. At length a union of the Companies closed these wasteful feuds, and restored the almost forgotten era of prosperity.

For a century and a half from the formation of the Company there was no attempt to colonize the vast region over which its dominion extended. The Englishmen and Scotchmen who occupied the trading-stations were the only civilized inhabitants of the North-West. The stations were in number about one hundred; the entire white population did not exceed one or two thousand. There were stations on the Mackenzie River, within the Arctic circle, where the cold was so intense that hatchets of ordinary temper shivered like glass at the first blow. There were stations on the Labrador coast, and twenty-five hundred miles away from these there were stations on the Pacific. The Company did not desire to carry civilization into this wilderness. The interests of the fur trade are not promoted by civilization. That industry cannot live within sound of the settler’s axe, or where the yellow corn waves in the soft winds of autumn. It prospers only where the silence of the forest is unbroken; where the fertile glebe lies undisturbed by the plough. The Company gave no encouragement to the coming in of human beings, in presence of whom the more profitable occupancy of beaver and bison and silver fox must cease. At length, and for the only time, the traditional policy was departed from. 1812 A.D. While the struggle with the rival Company still raged, Lord Selkirk, who was then chairman of the Hudson Bay Company, bethought him of sending out a number of Scotch Highlanders to found a permanent settlement, and thus give preponderance to the interests of which he was the guardian. At that time the Duke of Sutherland was in process of removing small farmers from his estates in Sutherlandshire, in order that he might give effect to modern ideas on the subject of sheep-farming. Lord Selkirk collected a band of these dispossessed Highlanders, and settled them in the solitudes of the Winnipeg valley. The point which he selected was near the confluence of the Red River and the Assiniboine, and forty miles from the lake into which these rivers fall. It was many hundred miles from a human habitation; this lonely colony was the only seat of population on all the northern portion of a vast continent. But the soil possessed remarkable fertility; and the Scotchmen were robust and industrious. Gradually they were joined by other adventurers to whom the severity of the climate was without terrors. Ejected Highland crofters, soldiers disbanded after Waterloo, sought in little groups this remote and dimly-known region. The retired servants of the Company came to spend the evening of their days in the settlement. A line of block houses and of cultivated farms stretched for many miles up the valleys of the Assiniboine and Red River. A cluster of wooden huts received the name of Winnipeg, and started upon its career as a prairie town at a rate of progress so leisurely that in 1871 it held no more than four hundred inhabitants. Fort Garry, the chief seat of the Company’s authority, added to the dignity of the colony, which soon became the recognized metropolis of all the north-western region. Its growth has not been rapid, but it has been steady; and the population, if we accept the mean of very diverse estimates, is probably now about fifteen thousand souls. These are largely Scotch; but there are also French and Indians, and there has been a copious admixture of the European and native races. There are Scotch half-breeds and French half-breeds, in whom the aspect and the qualities of both races are combined, and many of whom are not inferior in intelligence and education to their European parentage.

In course of years political government by trading companies became utterly discredited in England. The government of the East India Company had long been regarded with disapproval; after the great mutiny of 1857 occurred, it was felt to be intolerable. No voice of authority was raised in favour of its longer continuance, and the political functions of the Company were extinguished as inconsistent with the general welfare. The Hudson Bay Company was not more fortunate in its rule than the great sister Company had been. Latterly it had failed to maintain order among the scanty population over which it presided. Occasionally, when its officers pronounced an unacceptable sentence, the friends of the offender forced the prison-doors, and set the prisoner free. The Company was willing to be relieved from the burden of an authority which it was no longer able to exercise. The new Dominion of Canada desired to add to its possessions the vast domain of the Hudson Bay Company. 1869 A.D. A transfer which was sought for on both sides was not difficult to arrange. The Company received the sum of £300,000 and certain portions of land around its trading-stations. All besides passed into the hands of the Canadian Government.

The authorities who negotiated this transaction seem to have thought mainly of the land, and very little of the people who dwelt upon it. The people now claimed to express themselves, and they did so by methods which were rude and inconvenient. The French and French half-breed population refused to concur in a transfer which they regarded as injurious to their rights. They were sensitive on the subject of their title to the properties which they occupied; and with reason, for many of them had no claim excepting that which occupancy may be supposed to confer. It was rumoured among them that their new rulers intended to eject them from their holdings; and the entrance upon the scene of various surveying-parties was accepted as evidence of this purpose. 1869 A.D. The excited people took up arms, and formed a provisional government. Their leader in the rebellion by which they hoped to throw off the authority of Canada and Great Britain, and establish themselves as an independent nation, was Louis Riel, an ambitious but reckless young French Canadian. Riel became President of the new Republic, and gathered an armed force of six hundred men to uphold the national dignity. He turned back at the frontier the newly-appointed Governor; he seized Fort Garry, in which were ample stores of arms and provisions; he imprisoned all who offered active opposition to his rule. The distant Canadian Government looked on at first as amused with this diminutive rebellion. They did not think of employing force to restore order; they sought the desired end by persuasion. The Roman Catholic archbishop of the district was then in Rome, occupied in solving the problem of papal infallibility. He was invited to desist from the absorbing pursuit; to return to the Red River and incline his erring flock to thoughts of peace. He made the sacrifice; he left Rome, and arrived in Canada. But while he was still toiling homewards across the snowy wilderness, events occurred which fatally complicated the position and rendered an amicable solution impossible.

A party of loyal inhabitants made a hasty and ill-prepared rising against the authority of the provisional government. They were easily beaten back by the superior forces under Riel’s command, and some of them were taken prisoners. Among these was a Canadian named Scott, who had distinguished himself by his obstinate hostility to the rule of the usurpers. Riel determined to overawe his enemies, and compel the adherence of his friends by an act of conspicuous and unpardonable severity. March, 1870 A.D. Poor Scott was subjected to the trial of a mock tribunal, whose judgment sent him to death. An hour later he was led forth beyond the gate of the fort. Kneeling, with bandaged eyes, among the snow, he was shot by a firing-party of intoxicated half-breeds almost before he had time to realize the cruel fate which had befallen him.

This shameful murder invested the Red River rebellion with a gravity of aspect which it had not hitherto worn. There arose in Canada a vehement demand that the criminals should be punished and the royal authority restored. The despatch of a military force sufficiently strong to overbear the resistance of the insurgent Frenchmen was at once resolved upon.

Unusual difficulty attended this enterprise. Fort Garry was twelve hundred miles distant from Toronto. One-half of this distance could be accomplished easily by railway and by steam-boat; but beyond the northern extremity of Lake Superior there were six hundred miles of dense and pathless forest traversed by a chain of rivers and of lakes. On these waters, broken by dangerous rapids and impassable falls, no vessel but the light birch canoe of the Indian had ever floated. By this seemingly impracticable route it was now proposed that an army carrying with it the elaborate equipment of modern war should make its way to the valley of the Winnipeg.

Happily there was at that time in Canada an officer endowed with rare power in the department of military organization. To this officer, now well known as Sir Garnet Wolseley, was intrusted the task of preparing and commanding the expedition. No laurels were gained by the forces which Colonel Wolseley led out into the wilderness; for the enemy did not abide their coming, and their modest achievements were unnoticed amid the absorbing interest with which men watched the tremendous occurrences of the war then raging between Germany and France. Nevertheless the Red River expedition claims an eminent place in the record of military transactions. It is probably the solitary example of an army advancing by a lengthened and almost impracticable route, accomplishing its task, and returning home without the loss of a single life either in battle or by disease. And the wise forethought which provided so effectively for all the exigencies of that unknown journey is more admirable than the generalship which has sufficed to gain bloody victories in many of our recent wars.

May 21, 1870 A.D. In little more than two months from the commission of the crime which it went to avenge, the army set forth. It was composed of twelve hundred fighting men, of whom two-thirds were Canadian volunteers, and the remainder British regulars. Two hundred boats, a few pieces of light artillery, and provisions for sixty days, formed part of its equipment. The expedition passed easily along Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and disembarked in Thunder Bay. From this point to the little Lake Shebandowan was a distance of fifty miles. There was a half-formed road for part of the way, and a river scarcely navigable. So toilsome was this stage of the journey that six weeks passed before those fifty miles were traversed. At length the boats floated on the tranquil waters of Lake Shebandowan. In an evening of rare loveliness the fleet moved from the place of embarkation, and the forest rung to the rejoicing cheers of the rowers.

Thus far the troops had been toiling up steep ascents. Now they had reached the high land forming the water-shed, from which some streams depart for Hudson Bay, others for Lake Superior and the St. Lawrence. For many days their route led them along a chain of small lakes, on which they rowed easily and pleasantly. But at the transition from lake to lake, there ordinarily presented itself a portage—a name of fear to the soldiers. At the portage all disembarked. The innumerable barrels which held their supplies, the artillery, the ammunition, the boats themselves, were taken on shore, and carried on men’s shoulders or dragged across the land which divided them from the next lake. Forty-seven times during the progress to Lake Winnipeg was this heavy labour undergone. But in the face of all difficulties the progress was rapid. The health of the men was perfect, their spirits were high, and their carrying power so increased by exercise that they were soon able to carry double the load which they could have faced at the outset. No spirituous liquors were served out, and perfect order reigned in the camp. The heat was often oppressive; the attacks of mosquitoes and similar insects were intolerable. But the forethought of the general had provided for each man a veil which protected his face, and each boat carried a jar of mosquito oil to fortify the hands. In the early days of August the boats passed along Rainy Lake, a beautiful sheet of water fifty miles in length, and entered the river of the same name. Rainy River is a noble stream, eighty miles in length, and three to four hundred yards in width. The scenery through which it flows is of great beauty. Oak-trees of large growth, open glades stretching far into the forest, luxuriant grass, flowers in endless variety and rich profusion, all suggested to the men the parks which surround great houses in England. Helped by the current, Rainy River was traversed at the rate of five or six miles an hour, and the expedition reached the Lake of the Woods. Issuing thence, it entered the Winnipeg River.

Here the difficulties of the expedition thickened. The Winnipeg is a magnificent stream, one hundred and sixty-three miles in length—broad and deep, flowing with a rapid current, often between lofty cliffs of granite. In its course, however, there are numerous falls in which boats cannot live. Twenty-five times the stores were unshipped, and the boats drawn on shore. Frequent rapids occurred, down which the boats were guided, not without danger, by the skilful hands of the Indian boatmen. No loss was sustained, and after five days of this toilsome and exciting work the boats entered Lake Winnipeg. For one day they steered across the south-eastern portion of the lake; for one day more they held their course up Red River. They left their boats at two miles’ distance from Fort Garry, and under rain falling in torrents, and by roads ankle-deep with tenacious mud, they advanced to seek the enemy.

Colonel Wolseley had used precautions to prevent any knowledge of his approach from being carried to the fort. He was unable to learn what Riel intended to do, and the men marched forward in the eager hope that the enemy would abide their coming. As they neared the fort, the gates were seen to be shut, and cannon looked out from the bastions and over the gateways. But on a closer view it was noticed that no men were beside the guns, and the hopes of the assailants fell. A moment later, and the fort was known to be abandoned; men were seen at a little distance in rapid flight. Riel, it appeared, had meditated resistance, if he could induce his followers to fight. He had been able to build some hope, too, upon the six hundred miles of almost impassable country which lay between him and Lake Superior. Aug. 24, 1870 A.D. Soothing his anxieties by this dream, the President of the Red River Republic breakfasted tranquilly on this closing day of his career. But just as his repast was ended there were seen from the windows of the fort, at a distance of a few hundred yards, and marching with swift step towards him, the twelve hundred men who had come so far to accomplish his overthrow. The blood of Scott was upon his guilty hands. The wretched man saddled a horse and galloped for life; and the victors did not seek to interrupt his flight. The Red River rebellion was suppressed, and British authority was restored in the valley of the Winnipeg.

Until very recently the vast wheat-field of the North-West was almost worthless to man; even now its development has only begun. It is difficult to over-estimate the influence on the future course of human affairs which this lonely and inaccessible region is destined to exert. In the valleys of Lake Winnipeg and its tributary streams two hundred million acres of land, unsurpassed in fertility, wait the coming of the husbandman. Its average production of wheat may be stated at thirty bushels per acre—more than double that of the valley of the Mississippi, and rather more than can be gained from the soil of England by careful and expensive cultivation.[21] Great Britain imports annually one hundred million bushels of wheat—scarcely more than one-sixtieth part of the production of the Winnipeg valley were its enormous capability fully drawn out. The soil is of surpassing richness, and yields its ample fruits so easily that in an ordinary season the cost of producing a quarter of wheat is on an average no more than thirteen shillings. Port Nelson on the Hudson Bay—the natural shipping point of all this region—is eighty miles nearer than New York is to Liverpool and the markets of England.

The valley of the Winnipeg has been hitherto practically inaccessible. The Red River expedition spent three months on the journey. Many of the settlers had required even longer time to reach the secluded paradise which they sought. To a vast majority of the British people the existence of this territory is still unknown. The boats of the Hudson Bay Company formed its only medium of communication with the outside world. Until the Winnipeg valley has been opened by railway or by steam-boat, it must remain valueless for any better use than as a preserve for the wild creatures which yield fur, and as a home for the Indians who pursue them.

But the needful facility of transport is now being gained; the distance which has shut out the human family from this splendid domain is now in course of being abridged. Winnipeg, now grown into a town of about twelve thousand inhabitants, and rapidly increasing, has a direct railway connection with St. Paul, the chief city of Minnesota. The Northern Pacific—a line whose progress was delayed for years by financial disaster—is now advancing westward from its starting-point on Lake Superior, and will soon be opened through to the western ocean. The Canadian Pacific, largely subsidized by Government, is pushing its way westward towards Columbia and the ocean. The obstacles to navigation in the Nelson river have been carefully examined with a view to their removal, so that vessels of large size may pass from Lake Winnipeg to Europe.

These increased facilities of transport have produced their expected result. A large inflow of settlers began two or three years ago, and continues year by year to increase. Many thousand immigrants came to the Winnipeg valley in 1877-78. Up to the present time over four million acres of rich wheat-lands have been taken up—an area capable of adding to the supply of human food a quantity almost equal to the entire British import of wheat. The new settlers are, for the most part, experienced farmers, who have been attracted hither by the superior advantages of the soil. Some of them come from Europe, but a larger number come from the old Canadian provinces and from those States of the Union which lie near the frontier. Most of them are men who have sold the lands which they formerly owned, and come with capital sufficient to provide the most approved agricultural appliances. The price for which land can be obtained is inconsiderable; and while the average holding does not exceed two hundred acres, many persons have acquired large tracts.

The rapid settlement of this central territory of Canada is one of the great social and political factors of the future for Canada and for Europe. The development of the vast resources of Manitoba must hasten the progress of the Dominion to wealth and consideration. To the growers of food on the limited and highly-rented fields of Europe it furnishes reasonable occasion for anxiety. To those who are not producers, but only consumers, it gives, in stronger terms than it has ever previously been given, the acceptable assurance that the era of famine lies far behind—that the human family, for many generations to come, will enjoy the blessing of abundant and low-priced food.

Between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific there lies a vast tract of fertile land, possessing an area equal to six times that of England and Wales. This is British Columbia—the latest-born member of the confederation, which it entered only in 1871. The waters of the Pacific exert upon its climate the same softening influence which is carried by the Gulf Stream to corresponding latitudes in Europe, and the average temperature of Columbia does not differ materially from that of England. Gold is found in the sands of the rivers which flow down from the Rocky Mountains; coal in abundance lies near the surface; large tracts are covered with pine forests, whose trees attain unusual size;[22] many islands stud the placid waters which wash the western shores of the province; many navigable inlets sweep far into the interior—deep into forests, for the transport of whose timber they provide ample convenience. In the streams and on the coasts there is an extraordinary abundance of fish; on the banks of the Fraser River the English miner and the Indian fisherman may be seen side by side pursuing their avocations with success. The wealth of Columbia secures for her a prosperous future; but as yet her development has only begun. Her population is about twelve thousand, besides thirty thousand Indians. Her great pine forests have yet scarcely heard the sound of the axe; her rich valleys lie untilled; her coal and iron wait the coming of the strong arms which are to draw forth their treasures; even her tempting gold-fields are cultivated but slightly. Columbia must become the home of a numerous and thriving population, but in the meantime her progress is delayed by her remoteness and her inaccessibility.

Columbia herself feels deeply this temporary frustration of her destiny. Her recent political history has been in large measure the history of a grievance. 1871 A.D. When she entered the Confederation, the Dominion Government engaged that in two years there should be commenced, and in ten years there should be completed, the construction of a railway to connect the sea-board of Columbia with the railway system of Canada. In that time of universal inflation such engagements were contracted lightly. A little later, when cool reflection supervened, it was perceived that the undertaking was too vast for the time allowed. Canada took no action beyond the ordering of surveys; Columbia, in her isolation, complained loudly of the faithlessness of her sisters. The impracticable contract was reviewed, and a fresh engagement was given to the effect that the work should begin so soon as surveys could be made, and should reach completion in sixteen years. 1874 A.D. The work is now in progress; and Columbia, not without impatience and some feeling of wrong, has consented to postpone the opening of that era of prosperity which she full surely knows to be in store.

1881 A.D. [With a view to the prospective development of the Hudson Bay route, a charter was recently obtained for the construction of a railway, to follow the line of the Nelson River, from Norway House on Lake Winnipeg to York Factory on Hudson Bay, thus connecting the over-sea navigation available from the latter point with steam-boat lines plying inland from the former. There would still, however, seem to be considerable diversity of opinion among people on the spot, as to whether the route in question can successfully compete, at least for a good many years to come, with the facilities which will soon be offered by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The line now being built by that enterprising body of capitalists has already been carried about 250 miles west of Winnipeg, and is expected, by the close of next year, to have reached the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. At present, there is an outlet from Manitoba, by rail, to Duluth on Lake Superior and to Chicago on Lake Michigan; but the opening, which cannot now be long delayed, of the Canadian Pacific line between Winnipeg and the west end of the former lake, in conjunction with the enlargement of the Welland Canal, so as to enable large vessels to pass the Falls of Niagara, will provide a new rail and water route to Montreal, by which, it is believed, wheat may be carried that distance for something less than the nine shillings and sixpence per quarter which it now costs by Duluth. The construction of the railway along the north side of Lake Superior, which the Canadian Pacific Company is taken bound to complete within ten years, will ultimately afford all-rail communication right through to the eastern sea-board: and it remains to be seen whether, with such means of transit at command, any considerable proportion of traffic will follow a route which, it is alleged, can only be depended upon for three months in the year, and which, in the opinion of some seafaring men, may occasionally be found difficult to work even during that period from the presence of ice in Hudson Strait. On the other hand, there comes, of course, the consideration that, if the development of the north-west should answer the expectations generally entertained, there may by-and-by be sufficient surplus produce for exportation to keep a Hudson Bay railway and steam-boat line, as well as all the other practicable outlets of that vast region, in remunerative operation.—Ed.]

Canada is, in respect of extent, the noblest colonial possession over which any nation has ever exercised dominion. It covers an area of three million three hundred and thirty thousand square miles. Our great Indian Empire is scarcely larger than one-fourth of its size. Europe is larger by only half a million square miles; the United States is smaller to nearly the same extent. The distances with which men have to deal in Canada are enormous. From Ottawa to Winnipeg is fourteen hundred miles—a journey equal to that which separates Paris from Constantinople: the adventurous traveller, who would push his way from Winnipeg to the extreme north-west, has a farther distance of two thousand miles to traverse. The representatives of Vancouver Island must travel two thousand five hundred miles in order to reach the seat of Government. The journey from London to the Ural Mountains is not greater in distance, and is not by any means so difficult. From Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, to New Westminster, the capital of British Columbia, there is a distance of four thousand miles—about the distance as that which intervenes between London and Chicago, or between London and the sources of the Nile.

The people on whom has devolved this vast heritage are in number about four million. It is greatly beyond their powers, as yet, to subdue and possess the continent upon whose fringes they have settled. Nevertheless, their progress is now so rapid in numbers and industrial development, and the wealth which lies around them is so great, that year by year they must fill a larger place in the world’s regard, and exercise a wider influence upon the course of human affairs. At the beginning of the century they numbered scarcely a quarter of a million—the slow growth of two hundred years of misgovernment and strife. Twenty-five years thereafter their numbers had more than doubled; in the following quarter of a century they had trebled. During the ten years from 1851 to 1861 the annual increase was one hundred and twenty thousand; in the following decade it was at the rate of sixty thousand, of which less than one-half was by immigration. The increase is mainly rural; there are no very powerful influences favouring the growth of great cities. Montreal has a population of one hundred and seven thousand; Quebec, of sixty thousand; Toronto has grown to fifty thousand; Halifax to thirty thousand. All European nations are represented on Canadian soil. Of English, Scotch, and Irish there are over two million; of Frenchmen over one million. Germans, Russians, Dutchmen, Swiss make up the remainder. The fusion of races has yet made imperfect progress; the characteristic aspect and habits of each nationality remain with little modification.

The Canadian people maintain a large and growing commerce, one-half of which is with the mother country. Their exports are £18,000,000; their imports are £26,000,000. They purchase iron largely in England, the time having not yet come when their own abundant stores of this article can be made available. They import annually four million tons of coal; but the approaching close of this traffic is already foreshadowed by the circumstance that they also export the product of their own mines to the extent of four hundred thousand tons. Textile manufactures are steadily gaining importance in Canada; but as yet the people clothe themselves to a large extent in the woollen and cotton fabrics of the old country.

Canada sells annually the produce of her forests to the extent of five million sterling, and of her fields to the extent of four million. The harvest of the sea yields a value of over two million, of which one-half is sent abroad; the furs which her hunters collect bear a value of half a million. She extracts from the maple-tree sugar to the annual value of four million; her frugal cottagers gather annually two million pounds of honey from the labours of the bee.

The lumber trade is the most characteristic of Canadian industries. On the eastern portion of the Dominion, stretching northwards towards the Arctic regions, illimitable forests clothe the ground. For the most part these are yet undisturbed by man. But in the valleys of streams which flow into the St. Lawrence, notably in the valley of the picturesque Ottawa, the lumber trade is prosecuted with energy. Year by year as autumn draws towards its close numerous bands of woodsmen set out for the scene of their invigorating labours. A convenient locality is chosen near a river, whose waters give motion to a saw-mill, and will in due time bear the felled timber down to the port of shipment. A hut is hastily erected to form the home of the men during the winter months. The best trees in the neighbourhood are selected, and fall in thousands under the practised axe of the lumberman. When the warmth of approaching summer sets free the waters of the frozen stream, the trees are floated to the saw-mill, and cut there into manageable lengths. They are then formed into great rafts, on which villages of huts are built for the accommodation of the returning woodsmen. The winter months are spent in cutting down the timber; the whole of the summer is often spent in conducting to Quebec or the Hudson the logs and planks which have been secured. The forests of Canada are a source of great and enduring wealth. They form also the nursery of a hardy, an enduring, and withal a temperate population; for the lumberman ordinarily dispenses with the treacherous support of alcohol, and is content to recruit his energies by the copious use of strong tea and of salted pork.

The occupation of about one-half of the Canadian people is agriculture. In the old provinces there are nearly five hundred thousand persons who occupy agricultural lands. Of these, nine-tenths own the soil which they till; only one-tenth pay rent for their lands, and they do so for the most part only until they have gained enough to become purchasers. The agricultural labourer—a class so numerous and so little to be envied in England—is almost unknown in Canada. No more than two thousand persons occupy this position, which is to them merely a step in the progress towards speedy ownership. Land is easily acquired; for the Government, recognizing that the grand need of Canada is population, offers land to every man who will occupy and cultivate, or sells at prices which are little more than nominal. The old provinces are filling up steadily if not with rapidity. During the ten years from 1851 to 1861 the land under cultivation had become greater by about one-half. During the following decade the increase was in the same proportion. Schools of agriculture and model farms have been established by Government, and the rude methods by which cultivation was formerly carried on have experienced vast ameliorations. Agriculture has become less wasteful and more productive. Much attention is given to the products of the dairy. Much care has been successfully bestowed upon the improvement of horses and cattle. The manufacture and use of agricultural implements has largely increased. The short Canadian summer lays upon the farmer the pressing necessity of swift harvesting, and renders the help of machinery specially valuable. In the St. Lawrence valley the growing of fruit is assiduously prosecuted; and the apples, pears, plums, peaches, and grapes of that region enjoy high reputation. Success almost invariably rewards the industrious Canadian farmer. The rich fields, the well-fed cattle, the comfortable farm-houses, all tell of prosperity and contentment.

The fisheries of the Dominion form one of its valuable industries. The eastern coasts are resorted to by myriads of fishes, most prominent among which is the cod-fish, whose preference for low temperatures restrains its further progress southward. Sixty thousand men and twenty-five thousand boats find profitable occupation in reaping this abundant harvest. A Minister of Fisheries watches over this great industry. Seven national institutions devote themselves to the culture of fish, especially of the salmon, and prosecute experiments in regard to the introduction of new varieties.

The Mercantile Navy of the Dominion is larger than that of France. It comprises seven thousand ships, of the aggregate tonnage of one million and a quarter; while the tonnage of Great Britain is six million. Canada has invested in her shipping a capital of seven and a half million sterling. She uses the timber of her forests in building ships for herself and for other countries. The annual product of her building-yards is considerably over a million sterling.

The burden laid by taxation upon the Canadians is not oppressive. Taxation is raised almost entirely in the form of custom and excise duties, and amounts to four million sterling. This is an average rate of one pound for each of the population; not differing appreciably from the rate of taxation in the United States, but being considerably less than one-half of that which now prevails in Great Britain.

Canada trusts for her defence against foreign enemies to her militia and volunteers, of whom she has nominally a large force. But only a handful of these are annually called out for a few days of drill, and the Dominion spends no more than £200,000 upon her military preparations. Her fleet is equally modest, and consists of a few small steamers which serve on the lakes and rivers, and mount in all about twenty guns.

Besides the outlays incurred in carrying on the ordinary business of Government, large sums, raised by loan, are annually expended on public works. Navigation on the great rivers of Canada is interrupted by numerous rapids and falls. Unless these obstructions be overcome, the magnificent water-way with which Canada is endowed will be of imperfect usefulness. At many points on the rivers and lakes canals have been constructed. The formidable impediment which the great Fall of Niagara offers to navigation is surmounted by the Welland Canal, twenty-seven miles in length, and on which, with its branches, two and a half million sterling have been expended. Much care is bestowed, too, upon the deepening of rivers and the removal of rocks and other obstructions to navigation. The vast distances of Canada render railways indispensable to her development. The Canadian Government and people have duly appreciated this necessity. They have already constructed seven thousand miles of railway, and are proceeding rapidly with further extension. The cost of railways already made amounts to eighty million sterling, of which Government has provided one-fourth. Very soon Canada will have a length of railway equal to one-half that of Great Britain. But the disposition to travel has not kept pace with the increased facilities which have been provided. The average number of journeys performed annually by each Englishman is seventeen, while the Canadian average is not quite two.

There still remain in the various provinces of the Dominion about ninety thousand Indians, to represent the races who possessed the continent when the white man found it. Two-thirds of these are in the unpeopled wastes of Manitoba and British Columbia; the remainder are settled in the old provinces. The Indian policy of Canada has been from the beginning just and kind, and it has borne appropriate fruits. The Governments of the United States have signally failed in their management of their Indian population. Faith has not been kept with the savages. Treaties have again and again been made by the Government and violated by the people. Lands have been assigned to the Indians, and forcibly taken from them so soon as possession was desired by any considerable number of white men. Large grants of food and clothing have been given by the Government, and shamelessly intercepted by dishonest traders. Out of transactions such as these have sprung bitter hatreds, ruthless massacres, inflicted now by the red man, now by the white, and a state of feeling under which a Western American will, on slight provocation, shoot down an Indian with as little remorse as he would slay a stag. Canada has dealt in perfect fairness with her Indians. She has recognized always the right of the original occupants of the land. She has fulfilled with inflexible faith every treaty into which she has entered. The lands allotted to the Indians have been secured to them as effectively as those of the white settler, or have been acquired from them by fair process of sale and purchase. The Indians have requited with constant loyalty the Government which has treated them with justice. While the French ruled Canada there was perpetual strife with the Indians, as there is to-day in the United States. Canada under the British has never been disturbed by an Indian war.

The Indians of the older provinces have adopted settled habits and betaken themselves to agriculture. In Ontario they are steadily increasing in numbers and intelligence. Drunkenness diminishes; education is eagerly sought; hunting gives place to farming; the descendants of the barbarous Iroquois have been transformed into industrious and prosperous citizens. In Quebec there is also progress, but it is less rapid, and the old drunken habits of the people have not yielded so completely to the influences which surround them. The Indians of British Columbia are still very drunken and debased, and their numbers diminish rapidly. In Manitoba and the whole North-West the condition of the Indians is very hopeful. Drunkenness is almost unknown; crime is very rare; the demand for schools and for persons who can teach how to build houses and till the soil is universal and urgent. The buffalo has been the support of the North-Western Indian. Its flesh was his food, its skin was his clothing, the harness of his horse, the property by whose sale all his remaining wants were supplied. The innumerable multitudes of buffalo which frequented the plains maintained in the Indian camp a rude affluence. But the buffalo gives place before advancing civilization, and the Indians in alarm hasten to find new means of subsistence.

The problem which savage occupants present to the civilized men who settle on their lands has been solved in Canada by the simple but rare device of friendly and perfectly fair dealing. The red men of Canada live contentedly under the rule of the strangers, and prove that they are able to uphold themselves by the white man’s industries. They adopt his language, often to the disuse of their own, his dress, his customs, his religion. Not only do the two races live in concord; their blood has been largely mixed. The native race is probably doomed to disappear, but this will not be the result of violence or even of neglect. The history of the Indian race in Canada will close with its peaceful absorption by the European races which possess the continent.

Thirty years ago the Canadians, borrowing largely from their neighbours of the United States, perfected their common-school system. Schools adequate to the wants of the population are provided. A Board chosen by the people conducts the school business of the district. The costs are defrayed by a local tax, supplemented by a grant from the treasury of the province. In general, no fees are charged; primary education is absolutely free. The French Canadians manifest less anxiety for education than their British neighbours, and have not yet emerged from the ignorance which they brought with them from Europe, and in which they were suffered for generations to remain. In Toronto and the maritime provinces the means of education are ample, and are very generally taken advantage of by the colonists.

A noble heritage has been bestowed upon the Canadian people. Treasures of the sea and of the soil, of forest and of mine, are theirs in lavish abundance. Their climate, stern but also kindly, favours the growth of physical and mental energy. They enjoy freedom in its utmost completeness. Their peaceable surroundings exempt them from the blight of war and the evils of costly defensive preparation. For generations these inestimable advantages were in large measure neutralized by the enfeebling rivalries which divided the provinces. But internal dissension has been silenced by confederation, and Canada has begun to consolidate into a nation. Differences of religion and of race still hold a place among the forces which are shaping out her future, but the antipathies which they once inspired have almost passed away. The distinctions of Catholic and Protestant, Englishman and Frenchman, are being merged in the common designation of Canadian, which all are proud to bear. The welfare of Canada, her greatness in the years of the future, are assured not merely by the vastness of her material resources, but still more by the spirit which animates her people. The destiny towards which the Canadian people are hastening is fittingly indicated by the eloquent words of one of the ablest of their Governor-Generals. 1875 A.D. “However captivating,” said Lord Dufferin, “may be the sights of beauty prepared by the hands of Nature, they are infinitely enhanced by the contemplation of all that man is doing to turn to their best advantage the gifts thus placed within his reach. In every direction you see human industry and human energy digging deep the foundations, spreading out the lines, and marking the inviolable boundaries upon and within which one of the most intelligent and happiest offsets of the English race is destined to develop into a proud and great nation. The very atmosphere seems impregnated with the exhilarating spirit of enterprise, contentment, and hope. The sights and sounds which caressed the senses of the Trojan wanderer in Dido’s Carthage are repeated and multiplied in a thousand different localities in Canada, where flourishing cities, towns, and villages are rising in every direction with the rapidity of a fairy tale. And better still, pari passu with the development of these material evidences of wealth and happiness is to be observed the growth of political wisdom, experience, and ability, perfectly capable of coping with the difficult problems which are presented in a country where new conditions, foreign to European experience, and complications arising out of ethnological and geographical circumstances, are constantly requiring the application of a statesmanship of the highest order.”