There exists on the west of Canada a vast region which may, perhaps, become great and flourishing in less time than the districts which, inhabited by red men and wild beasts in 1776, now form some of the most important of the North and South American States.
It is one of the very greatest of the evils connected with our parliamentary system, that small or local interests at home are likely to receive attention in preference to the largest general interests of dependencies. The Colonial Office is a sort of buffer between Parliament and the shocks of colonial aggressions and demands; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer can at any time find easy means of squelching any tendency in the chancellor of a barbarian administration “to dip his finger” into the Imperial purse. Now, when “the People of Red River settlement” address a memorial to the British and Canadian Governments with the view of obtaining a road to open up the wonderfully fine country they inhabit to British subjects and to commerce, without dependency on the United States, it may so happen that at the period in question the smallest claim of a metropolitan borough shall be considered of far greater preponderance; nor will the Government or the Colonial Office at any time be much disposed to irritate a friendly member who is inimical to colonies, or to provoke the animosity of economists, for an object which is as intangible and incomprehensible to the mass of Parliament as a project to run a railway to Eutopia, or to connect Timbuctoo with China. Mr. Sandford Fleming, who has been selected as the agent of these very settlers, has set forth their case with much ability; but he will scarce become the Lesseps of this overland Suez, unless some members of the House, who really look beyond the interests of the day, and take heed for the future of the Empire, can be induced to listen to his facts and arguments. In 1863 a statement was submitted by that gentleman to Lord Monck in elucidation of the memorial of the settlers, which contains most interesting facts and some valuable arguments. Among the works of good Governments the making of roads and securing of easy means of intercommunication among the people subject to them must ever be of paramount importance. The people of Red River ask for the opening of the Lake Superior route to British Columbia, and to have a telegraphic line established, to both of which objects they will contribute to the best of their ability. The point of British territory nearest to the Red River settlement by water is on the northern shore of Lake Superior, 400 miles distant; and the intervening distance can only be traversed by a combined system of “portages” and canoe voyages so difficult and tedious as in effect to bar the access of commercial enterprise, and to chill any spirit but that of adventurous geography, amateur travel, or the search after gold and game—thus, in fact, constituting obstacles which are well described as “practically exiling the settlers for the last two generations.” The route proposed for the links which are to connect the exiles with the world would be a part of the great project to connect the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific within the British possessions; and it is maintained that the favourable character of the Red River district for such a road removes the objections which might be formed on the ground of distance and difficulty. The Hudson’s Bay Company used the Pigeon River route, which runs along by the boundary of the United States, and is therefore not desirable in case of hostilities, and the Kaministiguia route, called so from the river of that name. Mr. Fleming, taking up the suggestions of Mr. Dawson in his report to the Canadian Government, recommends the creation of a territorial road from some point in connection with the railway system, such as Ottawa, to Nipigon Bay on Lake Superior, which would be ample as a trading port, whence a stage and steamboat communication could be established by making 197 miles of roads and two dams—one at the outlet of Dog Lake, and the other at Little Falls; or, by making 232 miles of road, and a couple of locks at Fort Francis, and a dam, the route might be reduced to 273 miles of water, if the road were pushed on to Savanne River. It must be remembered that the Americans have already established a route by Chicago; but an examination of the distances from Toronto shows that the Lake Superior route would save no less than 715 miles of rail, 35 of water, and 58 of road. The American route, however, possesses the advantage of having already 820 miles of rail, of which 514 carry the traveller to Chicago from Toronto, and 306 convey him from Chicago to Prairie La Crosse; whereas there is only a length of 95 miles open in Canada, from Toronto westwards to Collingwood. There is also an American route by Detroit, Milwaukee, and La Crosse to Port Garry, 1696 miles long, but that is still 646 miles longer than the communication which could be made by means of 232 miles of road, the construction of a dam and the locks in question. Labour might be tempted by offering, as is suggested, blocks of 100 acres to settlers on condition of their giving ten days’ work in each year for ten years on the road, and thus preparing it for a railway track; but the settlers must be more patient and easily satisfied than their language now indicates, if they are content with the prospect of such a tedious fulfilment of their wishes. They are willing to open a road 100 miles long to the Lake of Woods if England or Canada will guarantee the rest of the road to Lake Superior; and they believe such a road would rapidly fill Central British America with an industrious loyal people, and counteract the influence of the North American Republics. Whether the grand confederation which they foresee of flourishing provinces from Vancouver’s Island to Nova Scotia, commanding the Atlantic and the Pacific, and keeping in line the boundaries of the Republicans, be ever realised in our day, it is plain that the people will neither be British nor loyal if they are neglected. The Americans have long been turning their eyes in the direction of these regions. Mr. Sibley, the last Governor of Minnesota, ordered Mr. James W. Taylor to obtain reliable information relative to the physical aspects and other facts connected with the British possessions on the line of the overland route from Pembina, viâ the Red River settlement and the Saskatchewan Valley, to Frazer’s River. That gentleman’s report was presented by Governor Ramsay to the Legislature of the State in 1860, with a recommendation to their attention as “relating to matters which concern in a great degree the future growth and development of our State.” Mr. Taylor was received by Mr. McTavish at the Selkirk settlement with every respect and consideration. He found the British colony of Assiniboia prosperous and flourishing. Respecting that colony he says:—
“Of the present community of ten thousand souls, about five thousand are competent, at this moment, to assume any civil or social responsibility which may be imposed upon them. The accumulations from the fur trade during fifty years, with few excitements or opportunities of expenditure, have secured general prosperity, with frequent instances of affluence; while the numerous churches and schools sustain a high standard of morality and intelligence.
“The people of Selkirk fully appreciate the advantages of communication with the Mississippi River and Lake Superior through the State of Minnesota. They are anxious for the utmost facilities of trade and intercourse. The navigation of the Red River by a steam-boat during the summer of 1859 was universally recognised as marking a new era in their annals. This public sentiment was pithily expressed by the remark: ‘In 1851 the Governor of Minnesota visited us; in 1859 comes a steamboat; and ten years more will bring the railroad!’”
The persons who expressed that sentiment differed entirely from the memorialists already mentioned; but it must be that the Selkirk people, if neglected, will incline towards the hand which is stretched out to them across the waste, no matter whence it comes. “Most amicable relations” do no doubt “exist between the trading-post at Port Garry and Kitson’s Station at St. Boniface;” but long as they may endure—and I trust they may be perpetual—they will not amount to a preference for Republican institutions, if the mother country seeks to secure the settlers by the most tender or subtle link of interest or regard. What change may be made in respect to the jurisdiction and powers of the Hudson’s Bay Company by the home authorities must depend for the time on circumstances; but the actual settlers seem to hope that the rumours which attributed to Lord Derby’s Government the intention of organising a colony, bounded by Lakes Superior and Winnipeg on the east, by the Rocky Mountains on the west, by the American frontier on the south, and by lat. 55 deg. on the north, may yet be justified. The Canadian Government, Palliser’s expedition, Noble’s explorations, Mr. J. W. Hamilton’s surveys, and a considerable number of public and private investigations conducted in the interests of politics, commerce, religion, and geographical science, have all contributed their share to our knowledge of this vast territory; and the more we know of it the more eligible it seems as a field for individual enterprise, and an area for the exercise of legitimate Imperial ambition.
From Lake Winnipeg to the highest navigable point of Red River, which flows into the lake with a course from north to south, there is a distance of 575 miles, only interrupted by some very insignificant shoals at the mouth of Goose River and the Shayenne. Red Lake River and the Assiniboina extend the area of “coast” navigable by steamers in the Red River Valley to 900 miles—much more than is enjoyed internally by the United Kingdom and France together. Throughout the districts thus permeated by navigable rivers, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, grass, and wheat, grow as well as they do in Minnesota; and to these wild regions must be added the country along the great north Saskatchewan, and even the region which lies between it and the Rocky Mountains in a northerly direction. When Mr. Taylor wrote his Report, there was no reason to believe that “an adjustment of the future relations of the British Provinces and of the American States on a basis of mutual good-will and interest” might not be practicable; but Fort Sumter changed all that, we fear, and there seems little chance of such an international compact as he anticipates for a customs and postal union. In reference to such an adjustment he says:—
“It should, at all events, stipulate that the Reciprocity Treaty, enlarged in its provisions and renewed for a long period of years, shall be extended to the Pacific Ocean, and, in connection therewith, all laws discriminating between American and foreign built vessels should be abolished, establishing freedom of navigation on all the intermediate rivers and lakes of the respective territories. Such a policy of free trade and navigation with British America would give to the United States, and especially to the western States, all the commercial advantages, without the political embarrassments, of annexation, and would, in the sure progress of events, relieve our extended northern frontier from the horrors and injuries of war between fraternal communities.”
It is little to be doubted that the people of Minnesota are very well-disposed to remain on friendly terms with their neighbours; but the Federal Government at Washington, no matter for what party or section it acts, must, by the very necessity of its being and conditions of power, conduct the policy of the United States in a very different spirit. It is true, our friends have, even so early, given some indications that they are prepared for eventualities.
Whilst they have not been indifferent to the erection of a military post at Pembina, some of their politicians, with a ludicrous pretence of fear from the colonists, in case of war, have called for the creation of frontier forts; and the Indians in the north-west of Minnesota, who had a reservation, are to be treated with the usual measure of justice used by the white skin in dealing with the red skin, and to be exterminated or driven into space as soon as convenient or practicable. Mr. Taylor, in reference to the existence of coal near the sources of the Saskatchewan, which is undoubted, admits the uncertainty of carboniferous strata in the ridges between the Minnesota and the Red River north of the Mississippi and Saskatchewan, though there are geological reasons to hold that they will be found there. In justice to the spirit in which this Report is conceived, I quote the concluding passages:—