The significance of Canada's geographical position, facing and commanding the two great northern oceans at the points nearest to the opposite continents of Europe and Asia, is supplemented by geological facts of extreme national interest. At the very point where the Dominion stretches out furthest towards Europe, {118} and where the maritime provinces furnish open harbours all the year round, we find in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton inexhaustible supplies of excellent coal. The coal areas of this region are the only sources: of supply in Eastern America northward of Pennsylvania, and the only sources directly upon the eastern coast of the continent, where they seem to give a singular advantage for both transatlantic and transcontinental trade. Crossing now the 3800 miles which measure the breadth of the continent, we come to the Pacific coast, and the excellent harbours with which it also is everywhere indented. The importance to the Empire of these harbours is manifest, since they are the only ports under the British flag on the whole Pacific coast of America from Cape Horn to the Behring Sea, the only base of naval supply, the only means the Empire has of matching the Russian depot, Vladivostock (soon to be in direct connection with St. Petersburg itself), over which they have the great advantage of being open all the year round. They furnish the base from which the trade of the North Pacific is, and must be, protected. For the defence and prosecution of trade, still more important than the harbours themselves is the fact that in the Island of Vancouver, where Canada stretches out so as to give the shortest route to Japan and China, we have again an abundance of coal. The importance of these deposits is enhanced by the circumstance that all other coal found on the Pacific coast from Cape Horn northward to Puget Sound is of an inferior quality, {119} and limited in quantity. San Francisco itself obtains a large part of its coal from Vancouver Island in the north, or from the British colony of New South Wales on the other side of the Pacific.
Looking East and West, then, the Dominion has its maritime position confirmed by its supplies of coal. This is not all. Deposits extending over thousands of square miles have been discovered midway in the great prairie region, at once solving the fuel problem for a treeless country and supplying the force that carries trade and population across the continent. Later discoveries in the Rocky Mountains indicate the presence there of an anthracite coal peculiarly adapted to naval use, and likely to supply our ships in the Pacific with fuel of a quality equal to any that British mines can furnish.
The facts of Canada's maritime position thus broadly stated will, I think, leave on most minds the impression that should the country pass under a foreign flag, so that British ships could claim only the rights of aliens in the harbours of the Atlantic and Pacific, or even under an independent flag, when they could enjoy only the rights of neutrals, the change would mean a complete revolution in the conditions under which British commerce is protected, and the influence of the nation maintained on the two oceans.
There is, again, a military as well as a naval aspect from which to regard Canada's geographical relation to the Empire.
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The energy of the Canadian people has within a few years linked together the Pacific and Atlantic frontages of the Dominion by a great railway system. The new line has the advantage of being shorter than any other transcontinental route, and crosses the Rocky Mountains at a level 1500 feet below any line further south. The anticipated obstacle of snow blockade in the mountain district has been effectually overcome; in the Eastern or Intercolonial section, where alone this difficulty recurs from drifting snow, it is being reduced to a minimum. Practically it now amounts to the possibility of one or two days' delay twice or thrice during the winter months, and apparently even this might be obviated by the more liberal use of snow-sheds. A winter often passes without any obstruction worth mentioning. The line is unquestionably the most effective among those which cross the American continent. It has enabled English letters to reach Japan in twenty-one days instead of the forty required by the old routes. Military authorities pronounce it a valuable addition to the Empire's means of communication with the East. Its climatic advantage over the Cape of Good Hope and Suez Canal routes at some seasons of the year may yet add strength to its other recommendations. Compared with these routes it is also the safest, since furthest removed from the possibility of European attack. Of its military efficiency there can be no reasonable doubt. The manager of the Canada Pacific Railway told me that his company had made representations {121} to the Imperial Government that it would undertake to transport men in blocks of 5000 from troop-ships at Halifax to troop-ships at Vancouver within seven days. His statement is justified by the fact that a single train has already carried 600 marines and blue-jackets with their officers from the Pacific to the Atlantic within that time. Such trains can be indefinitely multiplied. Thus a squadron at Vancouver could be reinforced from Portsmouth in about a fortnight by this route, a squadron in the China Seas in a little more than three weeks. A fifty days' voyage in the first case by Cape Horn, a forty days' voyage in the latter by the Suez Canal, has hitherto been the rule. Such facts illustrate the greatness of the changes which are taking place in the conditions of our naval defence. The swift steamships which complete the Eastern connection are constructed for immediate transformation in case of necessity into armed cruisers for the transport of troops and for the protection of the commerce which they are themselves creating. Supplemented by ships of a corresponding character on the Atlantic, such a route might in a national emergency prove an immense addition to the military resources of the Empire, and especially for the defence of India. The mere fact of its existence adds to the nation's military prestige, and the consequent hesitation of any other power in making attack.
A word should be added about Canada's geographical relation to the telegraphic system of the {122} Empire. The existing lines of communication between the United Kingdom and the Australasian colonies and India have never yet been tested by the chances of a European war. In all cases they pass over foreign countries or through shallow seas whence they could be easily fished up and cut. What an entire break of this connection would mean in the commercial world may be judged from the fact that even now more than a thousand pounds a day are spent on cablegrams between Britain and the Australasian colonies alone.
What it would mean in the emergencies of war may be left to the imagination. The panic caused in Australia a few years since by an accidental break in the line at a time when war with Russia seemed imminent clearly proved the importance of the question.
These considerations sufficiently indicate the immense advantage and greater security which would come from an alternative route across Canada. The case was clearly stated by Mr. Sandford Fleming, the distinguished Canadian engineer, in an address to the Colonial Conference of 1887, to which he was a delegate: 'The western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway—Vancouver—is in telegraphic communication with London. Communications have passed between London and Vancouver, and replies returned within a few minutes. From Vancouver cables may be laid to Australasia by way of Hawaii or they may be laid from one British island to {123} another, and thus bring New Zealand and all the Australasian colonies directly into telegraphic connection with Great Britain, without passing over any soil which is not British, and by passing only through seas as remote as possible from any difficulties which may arise in Europe.
'Again, India can be reached from Australasia by the lines of the Eastern Telegraphic Company; South Africa can be reached through the medium of the Eastern and South African Company: and thus, by supplying the one link wanting, the Home Government will have the means provided to telegraph to every important British colony and dependency around the circumference of the globe, without approaching Europe at any point.'