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 steamboat, 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 disasteris 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 im port 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 lowpriced 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;* 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. 1871 A. D. Columbia herself feels deeply this temporary frustration of her destiny. Her recent political history has been in large measure the history of a grievance. 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 seaboard 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 * In presence of Lord Dufferin a pine tree was felled whose height was two hundred and fifty feet, and whose rings gave evidence of an age which dated from the reign o Edward IV. 1874 the work should begin so soon as surveys could be made, and should reach completion in sixteen years. 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. A. D. 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 seaboard ; 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.] CHAPTER XVI. THE PROGRESS OF THE CANADIAN NATION. ANADA 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 same 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 |