298 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



Railway, and which subject I desire here to refer to in a some- 

 what broad and discursive manner, demanded I think by the 

 present condition of science and the industrial arts in this 

 country. I would in this connection desire to direct your atten- 

 tion to the immense importance of that great public work, and 

 to the effects which would flow from a further extension of similar 

 enterprise in the west. I can remember a time when the isola- 

 tion of the Maritime provinces from Canada proper was almost 

 absolute. There was a nearly impassable wilderness between, 

 and no steamers on the waters, and the few whom business or 

 adventure caused to travel from Halifax or St. John to Quebec 

 or Montreal, had to undertake a costly and circuitous journey 

 through the United States, or to submit to almost interminable 

 staging through a wilderness, or to the delays of some sailing 

 craft on the St. Lawrence. In later times steamboats have 

 supplied a less tedious mode of communication, and now we 

 see placards informing us that the Intercolonial curries pas- 

 sengers from Quebec to Halifax in twenty-six hours. But it 

 has done more than this. The traveller may now see the coal 

 of Nova Scotia travelling upward to Quebec, and the fresh fish 

 of the Atlantic ooast abundantly supplied in our markets, while 

 the agricultural products of the interior travel seawards in re- 

 turn. This is however but the beginning of a great change. A 

 delegation of coal owners was in Ottawa, last month endeavour- 

 ing to attract the attention of members of the Legislature to the 

 fact that Ontario might be cheaply supplied with coal from 

 Nova Scotia in return for her farm products. The representa- 

 tion led to no immediate practical results, but it foreshadows a 

 great future change. Living as we do on the borders of that 

 great nation without any name, except that of America, which 

 does not belong to it, and which builds an almost impassable 

 wall of commercial restriction along its frontier, we cannot long- 

 endure the one-sided exchange of commodities which takes place 

 at present so much to our disadvantage. The Nova Scotian 

 cannot buy flour and manufactured goods from a people who 

 refuse to take his coal and iron in exchange ; and the Ontarian 

 or Quebecker cannot afford to have the commercial connection 

 with the mother country severed in favour of a nation which will 

 not take the products of our fields, our forests, our mines or 

 our granaries in exchange. We shall have in self-defence to 

 cultivate our own internal trade, and even if we must bring the 



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