108 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The most recent developments in settlement in the Province are 

 connected with the efforts to open mines ^ in some parts of the Province, 

 notably Newcastle (Grand Lake), w'here a company promises to bring 

 many settlers, and Beersville, in Kent, to which a number of Belgian 

 miners have been brought. Again, the increasing attractiveness to 

 Americans of the Province's natural scenery, fine summer climate, and 

 game supply, is adding to the prosperity of certain settlements, notably 

 iSt. Andrews, CampobeUo, and the Tobique Valley, even if it is not 

 creating any new ones. Further, the completion of the Canadian Pacific 

 line across Maine, and the determination of the people of Canada to 

 keep their export trafRc within their own territory, has led to the 

 development and expansion of St. John as a winter port, apposition it 

 holds only by virtue of the existence of an artificial political boundaiy 

 across the continent. Within a few years past the Government has 

 made renewed efforts to attract im'migration, especially by sending a 

 lecturer to Great Britain to represent the advantages of the ProTince, 

 but the few new settlers who have come bave scattered themselves in 

 the settled parts of the Province. 



8. The Prospects for the Future. 



We have traced somewhat fully the origin of the present settle- 

 ment of New Brunswick; it will be profitable to glance at the promise 

 of the future. In the first place, it seems very certain that the check 

 in New Brunswick's growth is but temporary. In time, the fertile 

 areas of the west will be taken up, and then the expansion of the people 

 of Europe will again seek an outlet in New Brunswick. The filling of 

 the fertile prairies of the west must be followed by a rise in value of agri- 

 cultural lands elsewhere, and those of New Brunswick will again see the 

 day when they will not be offered free to all comers with few acceptances. 

 Settlement will then not only expand into the northern parts of the 

 Province, bni many areas now unprofitable in the southern and central 

 jiarts will, under a more careful and scientific system of cultivation, 

 become profitable, and even valuable. Further, with the inevitable 

 exhaustion of the timber in the United States, New Brunswick's forests 

 will rise in value, and the many areas incapable of other cultivation 

 will be devoted to the raising of forests and their products under an 

 economic system. The coal supply of the world must, in time, dimini^ih 

 and rise in price under the demands upon it, and this will again bring 



* Temporary mining operations have given some local stimulus, now removed, 

 to a few places ; as manganese to Markhamville, iron to Jacksontown, antimony 

 to Prince William, etc. The valuable freestone quarries have been rendered use- 

 less by hostile tariffs of the United States. 



