They occupy a like position in Canada, and in Toronto the Board of Trade—an enthusiastic meeting whereof I had the honour of addressing—has erected a palatial building, where business men meet daily for the mutual exchange of information and views. The turn of the market is recorded from hour to hour from the centres of commerce, and among the members there exists an admirable system of mutual life insurance.
Canada as a Field for British Capital and Immigration.
31.—In conclusion, it is hardly possible to speak of Canada in exaggerated terms as a source from which Great Britain may most readily obtain the larger portion of the supply of corn, meat, and dairy produce, her increased population and diminished agriculture oblige her to purchase from over the sea.
The extremely fertile and virgin soil of the vast region occupied by Manitoba, the North-West Territories, and British Columbia—half the size of Europe, and lying between Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean—has now been provided by British Canadian enterprise with a complete network of railways, bringing it, so soon as Atlantic communication by Nova Scotia and Newfoundland has been improved, to within fourteen days' steam of Liverpool.
Capital and immigration are alone needed for their development.
A better field for the former could not be found if British Commercial Union made the market secure of foreign caprice, while for steady industry under the old flag, under like institutions, under the same law, no wider scope exists in the universe.