190 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



tary interest to insure promotion. What inducements had our young men to 

 enter either service ? He had five boys, but he would as soon throw one of 

 tbem overboard as s<3id him to compete whei'e the chances wiere all ag-ainst 

 him ; to break his heart in a strugg'le where mon'ey and friends, not merit, 

 would rend:T emulation vain.*) 



The statesmen of England, sir, may be assured, that if they would hold 

 this groat empire together, Ihey muist give the outlying portioais of i't some 

 interest in the naval, military and civil services ; and I will co-operate with 

 any man who will impress upon them the necessiity for lengthening the ropes 

 and strengthening the stakes, that the fabric which shelters us all may not 

 tumble about our ears. 



I new turn, Mr. ChaijTnan, to a topic upon which it may readily be 

 supposed I feel keenly— 'the negotiations touching our intefrcolonial railToads. 

 To impres'S the minds of ImperiaJ statesmen with the truly national charac- 

 ter of the vMorks we had projected, I spent six months in England. Here 

 was a noble scheme of internal improvement, requiring about £7,000,000 

 sterling to cari-y out. Had it been a question about holy places in Turkey, or 

 some wretched fortress on the Danube, seven millions would have been risked 

 or paid with slight demur. The object was, however, to stren^gthen and com- 

 bine four or five noble Provinces, full of natural resources and of a high- 

 Bpirlted people ; but, unfortunately, -with no representation in the National 

 Council of the Empire to which they belong. The single guarantee of Eng- 

 land would have saved us nearly half the cost of this operation, or £200,000 

 a y^ar. The Queem's name would have ibeen stamped upon every engine 

 running through one thousand five hundred miles of her dominions. On the 

 hearts of two millions five hundred thousand people would have been stamped 

 the grace of the act, which, while it cost nothing — for our revenues were 

 ample enough to pay princaipaa and intereist had the roads been unproductive 

 — would have awaicened gratctful recollections and a sense of substantial obli- 

 gation for a cenitury to come. At last, by the true nobility of the enterprise, 

 rather than by the skill of its advocate. Her Majesty's Government consented 

 to give the guarantee. The Provinces were proceeding to fulfil the con- 

 ditions, when, unfortunately, two or three members of the Imperial Parlia- 

 ment took a fancy to add to the co&t of the roads as much more as the 

 guarantee would have saved. It wias for their interest that the guarantee 

 should not be given. It was wi'thdrawn. The faith of England^till then 

 regarde^ as something sacred — was \iolated ; amd the answer was a criticism 

 on a phrase — a quibble upon the construction of a sentence, which all the 

 world, for six months, had read one way. The secret history of this wretched 

 tran.'^action I do not seek to penetrate. Enough is written upon stock-books, 

 and In the records of courts in Canada, to give us the proportions of that 

 scheme of jobbery and corruption by which the interests of British America 

 WiTi' overihroiwn. But, sir, who belieA-es, that if these Provinces had ten 

 members in the Imperial Parliament ? who believes — and I say it not boast- 

 ingly — had Nova Scotia had but one, w'ho could have stated her case before 

 Blx hundred English gentlemen, that the national faith would have been 

 sullied or a natiiinal pledge withdraiivn ? 



There are other quesitlons of equal magnitude and importance to the 

 empire and to us. Ocean steamers, carrying BritLsih mails past British Prov- 

 inces to reach their destination, through a foreign State ; emigration 

 uncared for and undireotod flowing past them, too ; or, when directed, sent 

 at an enormous cost to Australia, fourteen thousand miles away, while mil- 

 lions of acres of unsurpassed fertility remain unimproved so much nearer 



* Two CailptBhips in the Navy, annually, have Binoe been giTcn to Canada : one to Nova Scotia 

 and one to New Brunswick. TliiB is a move in the right directioa, for which the ministers deserve much 

 credit. 



