Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

"NO. 1.—SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF PRODUCE BROUGHT BY THE ST. LAWRENCE TO THE CITY OF MONTREAL, IN THE YEAR 1845:—

"Pork, 6,109 barrels; beef, 723 barrels; lard, 460 kegs; flour, 590,305 barrels; wheat, 450,209 bushels; other grain, 40,781 bushels; ashes, 33,000 barrels; butter, 8,112 kegs.

"NO. 2.—SHOWING THE QUANTITY OF PRODUCE CARRIED THROUGH THE ERIE CANAL IN THE YEAR 1844:—

"Pork, 63,646 barrels; beef, 7,699 barrels; lard, 3,064,800 lbs.; flour, 2,517,250 barrels; wheat, 1,620,033 bushels; corn, 35,803 bushels; flax-seed, 8,303,960 lbs.; ashes, 80,646 barrels.

"From the foregoing statements it will be seen that the quantity carried through the latter channel is enormous as compared with the former. It becomes then a question of vital importance whether a portion of this trade can be attracted through the St. Lawrence. We believe that it can, because the cheapest conveyance to the seaboard and to the manufacturing districts of New England must win the prize; and who will deny that the securing of this prize is not worth both our best and united exertions?

"The cheapening of the means of transit is the great object to be obtained; and our best practical authorities are firmly of opinion that the St. Lawrence will be made the cheapest route, as soon as our chain of inland improvements is rendered complete. They affirm that the cost of transporting a barrel of flour from Detroit to Montreal will not exceed 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. The difficulty will then be to secure a port of constant access to the sea, and that difficulty will be overcome by the early completion of the projected Portland railway: a road that will place us within a day's journey of that city, the harbour of which may be made the safest and cheapest on the continent of America. By that route we shall avoid the occasional dangers and inconveniencies of the St. Lawrence, from Montreal outwards, practically secure a long season for trade in the fall of the year, and safely reckon on freights to Liverpool as low as those from New York. But what is equally important to the transit trade to England is this: that by rendering our charges cheaper than those through the Erie Canal to Boston, we shall secure the transit trade to that great city, and all other eastern markets, as well as the supplying of our sister colonies, commonly known as the Lower Ports. This picture may appear too flattering to those who have not investigated the subject; but to such we say, examination will convince them that, with the St. Lawrence as a highway, and Portland as an outlet to the sea, we shall be enabled, successfully, to struggle for the mighty trade of the West, and bid defiance to competition on the more artificial route of the Erie Canal. But there is no time for slumbering; inactivity, at this crisis, would be fatal to our hopes; even the very produce of Western Canada may be carried, in spite of us, through American channels, unless we immediately carry out the completion of our own.

"We may here also remind the Canadian farmer, at whatever place he may be situated, that every saving effected in the means of bringing his produce to market adds in the same degree to the value of his wheat and every other marketable product of the soil he cultivates.—And here it may not be out of place to add that, repudiating all sectional proceedings, we seek no advantage for classes, no peculiar advantage for Montreal over other parts of the province; we advocate, on the contrary, the general interests of producers and consumers—the general welfare of the community."

People of enlarged views in Canada do not, however, fancy, with the anti-free-traders, that Sir Robert Peel's measures will prove so very destructive to colonial interests; on the contrary, they clearly see that new energies will be called into operation, and that Canada will be opened by railroads, and no longer monopolized by extensive landholders of waste and unprofitable forests.

Having now arrived at the termination of this volume, I have only to add that, if a war is forced upon Great Britain by the United States, the British dominion here will be sustained without flinching; and that the old English aspiration of the militia will be

FOR THE HONOUR AND GLORY OF BRITAIN,