adian militia volunteered their services. The resources of Canada in this particular are now looked upon in England with a most favourable eye. Report places our active militia at some 35,000 to 40,000 men, and our fighting reserves at some 400,000 to 500,000 more-a force by no means to be despised, more especially considering the material of which it is composed, even in Imperial considerations. But the expenses of placing any reasonable number of Canadian forces in the field-say of 10,000 men-this, and the manner of doing so, would bring the question of our relations to England into reconsideration, and necessitate their reconstruction upon some more defined and permanent basis.

But

In a war with Russia-which many persons, even since the recent treaty of Berlin, consider as merely postponed-England would be obliged to draw, to a far larger extent than she already does, upon Canada and the United States for her supply of food; but if she were unhappily engaged in war with the United States and Russia, her supply of food from Canada, under present circumstances, would be entirely inadequate. At the same time there is land enough in the Dominion to grow sufficient food for the supply of all England's wants-I refer to the vast regions of the great fertile north-west country. while the subject of the Canada Pacific Railway has been before the Dominion and the world for the past seven or eight years, there is not yet a single mile of it available for traffic, although many millions of dollars have been spent upon it. Even in so far as affording a proper food supply for England, a railway to our boundless western grain fields is an Imperial neces sity, and the immediate construction of this road should be made the basis of all negotiations with England for aid in war, or in any alteration of our present relations towards her. But further, if England wishes permanently

to secure her possessions in the Pacific, a railway through Canadian territory to Vancouver's Island is still more an Imperial necessity. Russia has already advanced and formed a large naval station on the Western Pacific coast at Vladivostock, which has been rendered nearly impregnable by fortification, where she has a sea-going squadron built expressly for speed, each vessel being armed with heavy Gatling guns and torpedoes. These ships would prove so many Alabamas to British commerce in the east and upon the shores of British Columbia, from which Vladivostock is but fifteen days' steaming distance. Besides the squadron at Vladivostock, the Russians have a fleet of nine ships of war and eighteen transports on the Amoor River, in addition to her Pacific squadron. Sir Garnet Wolseley, who is far from being an alarmist, states that nearly all the English coaling stations in that quarter are at the mercy of the first hostile ironclad which reaches them. Thus British Columbia and Vancouver's Island, which, with a railway to the Pacific, could be made the base of supplies for the whole of the British Pacific possessions, is now a source of anxiety and weakness to the squadron for the protection of British interests in that ocean. Mr. Jas. Anthony Froude, the historian, in a recent lecture on Colonies,' stated that he considered, of all the problems which English statesmen had before them, the one of real practical importance was the problem of how the colonies should be attached to England, which was no longer a European but an Asiatic and an ocean power; and to this development they should especially apply themselves.' In this view would not the present time be the most opportune for pressing the immediate construction of our railway to the Pacific upon the attention of the British Government as an Imperial necessity, at least equal in importance to her equi vocal possession in the Suez Canal,

for which England paid some £4,000,000.

With the advent of the Conservatives to power in England, aided by the exertions of various eminent writers, and the practical efforts of numerous societies, among which the Royal Colonial Institute of London stands in the van, the policy of disintegration seems to have been changed for that of a consolidation of the Empire; as witness the confederation of the British American Provinces into the Dominion of Canada, the confederation of the colonies of South Africa, now being carried out, the proposed confederation of the Australian colonies, and the crowning point of all-the creation of India into an Empire.

This consolidation of the British Colonial Empire has long been one of Lord Beaconsfield's favourite projects. While as Mr. Disraeli, in an address delivered to the Conservative Association at the Crystal Palace, on the 24th of June, 1872, he stated that he considered self-government was granted to the colonies as a means to an end, adding

'I cannot conceive how our distant colonies can have their affairs administered except by self-government. But self-government, when it was conceded, ought, in my opinion, to have been conceded as a part of a great policy of Imperial consolidation. It ought to have been accompanied by an Imperial tariff, by securities to the people of England for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the Sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code, which should have precisely defined the means and responsibilities by which the colonies should have been defended and by which, if necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by the institution of some representative council in the metropolis, which would have brought the colonies into constant and contin

uous relations with the home Government.'

Should the present warlike crisis be safely and peacefully surmounted by Lord Beaconsfield, it is generally thought that he will strive to crown his pre-eminently successful political career by turning his wonderful energies to the adoption and development of a scheme for the consolidation of the whole of Britain's colonial possessions into an united Empire. That it is a subject in which he feels the deepest interest, and to which he attaches the utmost importance, is evident through all the speeches in which he has had occasion to allude to colonial affairs, but in none more so than in the following quotation from his utterances at a banquet given to Her Majesty's Ministers, by the Lord Mayor of London. There he stated, 'that we should develop and consolidate our colonial Empire; that we should assimilate not only their interests but their sympathies to the mother country, and that we believe they would prove ultimately not a source of weakness and embarrassment, but of strength and splendour to the Empire.'

The significance of the apointment of a son-in-law of the Queen as Governor-General of Canada, with all the attributes and insignia of royalty which accompany his advent, point to the Dominion as the colony on which this great experiment will first be tried, and which will prove a test question with the Canadians as to whether Monarchical or Republican principles are to prevail.

If in case of war with Russia, the United States should, unhappily, be also added to England's open enemies, the absolute necessity for the Canada Pacific Railway, not only for the preservation of Canada to the English crown, but also for the subsistence of the British nation itself in the way of a sufficient food supply, would become sadly apparent. And if, though, how

ever, improbable it may seem at present, these two routes should come together before the construction of this great back-bone of the Dominion, then Britain will rue the policy which had prevented her from offering to Canada the aid she requires for constructing those links which would not only indissolubly connect Canada to the Empire, but also render that Empire able to defy the world.

The cause of the undisguised sympathy of the United States for Russia in all cases where war, and questions of war, have occurred between that power and Great Britain, has been a source of inexplicable mystery to intelligent Englishmen. It may be found, I think, in the commercial interests of the American Union acting on the principle that England's difficulty is their opportunity. For, if Russia and England could be kept at perpetual war, the United States can then supply England with bread, and Russia with arms and munitions of war.

The following statements from the New York Tribune, of November 12th (1878), may throw some little light upon this subject:

'England's dependence upon foreign fields for bread supplies is a source of increasing anxiety on that "tight little island." For several years the limit of 100,000,000 bushels has been passed, and last year the deficit was greater than ever before; but the present year (in the nine months already past) has seen an advance upon the record of 1877. Already thus early the equivalent of 86,000,000 bushels has been received. It is a matter of pride that this country is still able to retain the lead in furnishing the needed supply, and even attain unprecedented prominence, not only equalling the united contributions of all other countries, but sending 60 per cent. of all the wheat imported, and about 58 per cent. of the wheat and flour together, for the first nine months of the present year. Leaving out the details of minor

'The receipts of maize in Great Britain for similar periods of the past three years are respectively 31,677,857 cwts., 23,676,794 cwts., and 34,603,433 cwts., showing great activity in the corn trade, which is mainly with this country.

'There has been a marked change in the American sources of wheat supply this year. So far, the receipts from the Pacific coast have been scarcely more than half as large as in 1877, while the Atlantic coast advanced its shipments from 4,773,593 to 18,437,966 cwts. The small figures of last year were due to the scarcity in the spring-wheat region-the section from which exports are mainly drawn --and not from a general failure of the Atlantic States' crop, which was in several districts unusually abundant.

The average price of the wheat of the Pacific coast has been about 10 per cent. higher than that of the Atlantic coast, except for the poorer quality of last year, which averaged nearly 5 per cent. higher. The average for both sections was lowest in 1876, and for present year is midway between 1876

and 1877. The average price for the present season is $2.88 per cwt. (112 pounds) for Atlantic, and $3.18 for Pacific wheat. British wheat has declined from 52 shillings per quarter (8 bushels) in May to 40 in October (5 shillings since September 1st), the recent fall being due to the poor quality of the new crop, a deterioration caused by rain in August. American red Winter brings 42 to 43 shillings; Michigan, 43 to 44 shillings, and California, 44 to 45 shillings.'

Though we may be all familiar with the vast and fertile extent of our north-western empire, yet in England it is but comparatively unknown, and the Government of the Dominion should lose no opportunity of bringing the greatness of our common heritage to the full knowledge of the British nation. Even Canadians have feeble perceptions of this late ferra incognita which a few years ago was generally supposed to be a sterile and inhospitable region-the perpetual abode of ice and snow-but now known to be one of the most extensively fertile regions of the continent.

Beginning with the valley of the Red River, which takes its rise in the neighbouring State of Minnesota, there are three vast steppes or prairies, the one rising above the other until they reach their western limits at the base of the Rocky Mountains. There are, in what is called the Red River Valley, alone, about 12,000,000 acres of land, of which it is safe to say that more than nine-tenths are among the very best wheat lands in America— capable ordinarily of producing from 25 to 30 bushels per acre for many years in succession without materially subtracting from the exhaustless stores of fertility which have been treasured up for centuries in the soil. If all were put under plough and sown to wheat, the Red River Valley is capable of producing at 20 bushels per acre from 200,000,000 to 240,000,000 bushels of wheat-equal to more than

half of the entire wheat products of the United States for the last year. But crossing the boundary at the 49th parallel, and following the isothermal line up in a northwesterly direction through the valleys of the Assiniboine and Little and Big Saskatchewan Rivers, the more fertile the soil and milder the climate becomes. Here we have opened up a vast fertile region of over 300,000 square miles, capable of supporting a population of 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 of people, and of producing more than double the quantity of wheat now raised in the whole of the United States. some parts of the soil the rich black loam extends to a depth of even twelve feet, and seventy bushels of wheat have been produced from one bushel sown.

In

The Province of Manitoba is but a small part of this immense region, but its rapid growth within the few years of its existence rivals anything hitherto known in the way of progress on the American continent. The city of Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, and situated at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, con tained but some 300 inhabitants in 1870, and those mostly half-breeds or employes of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Garry, now a portion of the city. At present Winnipeg has a population of some 12,000 people, and a trade out of all proportion to that number, since it is the headquarters for supplies not only for the Province of Manit ba but for the whole North-western territory stretching to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and far up north into the val leys of the great rivers with which that region abounds. From 5,000,000 pounds of goods transported, chiefly up the Red River by steamer, into the Province in 1870, the importations are now close on to 100,000,000 pounds, which with the railway facilities now about being completed between St. Paul and Winnipeg, must increase in still greater proportion.

Imagination would almost fall to conceive the great future of the Northwest when the Canadian Pacific Railway will have opened up the whole of this immense region, and its future millions of hardy, industrious population will have added a new AngloSaxon nation to the world's defenders of liberty and right!

After the glowing accounts which have been spoken and written of this great region of the North-west by crators like Lord Dufferin, *and writers of world-wide fame, it would be impertinent in me to endeavour to add to what they have said of its tremendous resources; but perhaps after a three months' sojourn, during the past summer (1878), in Manitoba, I may be pardoned for giving my humble testimony to their fuller revelations of this wonderful world.

The question of Colonial Confederation, or even of Canadian Confederation with the Empire is one with which, in detail, I do not pretend to deal. That there are difficulties connected with such a consummation no one can deny; but that they are insuperable I do not believe. In the confederation of the disjecta membra of the British North American Colonies, we have already accomplished a greater difficulty; and towards the larger confederation of Canada with Britain it is only now the first step that is wanting. That I believe to be the enunciation of a joint official declaration, by the Imperial and Canadian Governments, that Canada is an inseparable portion of the British Empire. Such a procedure would allay the nightmare which now broods over colonial existence, and at once attract British enterprise, population and capital in an unprecedented and unthought of extent to the Dominion. It is this dread of Canada's becoming some day an independent, if not a hostile nation, in

*See Lord Dufferin's reat speech at Winnipeg, in Mr. Stewart's valuable and interesting volume, 'Canada under the Administration of the Earl of Dufferin,' pp. 540-58.

tariffs at least, which, at present, prevents English capital and Englishmen from flowing more freely into our country. Declare her an integral portion of Great Britain, that feeling ends, and the locked up capital of England, thus assured of being as se cure in Canada as in London, would be absorbed to a large extent into our Pacific Railway, and the development of our vast North-western country. The great fact of Canada's being, with her pronounced approval and consent, declared an integral portion of the Empire to be maintained at all haz ards, the British nation, which is now dependent for more than one-half of its food supply upon foreign countries, would then feel that it possessed its own feeding ground within itself, and the immediate means for its development and secure protection would be speedily forthcoming. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte. Rome was not built in a day, and in Lord Beaconsfield's sketch, referred to, we have a programine which would form the skeleton of a plan for the long-talked of confederation of the whole British colonies with the Empire.

After the annunciation of Canada as an integral portion of Britain would come, as surely as the dawn follows the darkness, the construction of our railway to the Pacific. Indeed the carrying into effect of this great work would necessarily be made the basis of the contract of confederation. It is urged that the Canada Pacific Railway will not pay. But for years though, it may never declare a dividend, and even cost something to keep up, that it will not pay two countries like Britain and Canada to be thus united, is an argument fitted only for the stock exchange or the usurer. For what has England spent her hundreds of millions during the past century in Europe? In wars to uphold her trade, her freedom, her existence. Has not this paid? But in the peaceful triumphs of this closer union of Canada to the realm, even at the cost of the