APPENDIX. 



125 



The Rideau Canal,* begun two years ago by government, is 

 cutting, to avoid the rapids of the river St. Lawrence, above 

 Montreal, and is expected to be completed in two years. These 

 two canals will give to the river St. Lawrence the greater part of 

 the trade of upwards of 6000 miles of coast, by the admission of 

 schooners (and probably steamboats, ultimately), from the ocean 

 through Lakes Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, and Huron, with a trifling 

 expense by locking a short rapid, to Lake Superior and Michigan. 

 A canal is also completed on the States side from Lake Erie, 

 through Ohio State to Ohio River, which, with the Canals on the 

 Canada side, will open a water communication between Quebec 

 and New Orleans, through the centre of America. 



The Welland Canal will unlock the energies of the west, the 

 granary of America! The greater part of the improvements in 

 the province have been made since the war (Canada was hardly 

 known in England before, and not now as it deserves). The 

 influx of money at that period was a great, but short-lived, 

 stimulus to its prosperity, as by it, and the derangement of trade 

 and industry occassioned by the war, idleness and profusion were 

 for a time induced. It is from the want of money (in conjunc 

 tion with a liberal emigration from home) being introduced in a 

 proper, and of course a profitable manner, that this province is 

 slower in its progress than any other new settled state. 



Ohio was settled about the same time as Canada, yet that 

 State contains near five times the number of inhabitants, with 

 towns of ten to twenty thousand each. Is it better situated for 

 trade, or has it greater water communication ? Not any, and will 

 not be equal to Canada when the canals are completed. Is it 

 superior in healthiness of climate ? On the contrary, those who 

 have been at both places allow Canada has the advantage, and 

 its soil fully equal, if not superior for general produce ; and 

 that its markets are much superior I will shew, by an extract of 

 the market prices in Ohio, compared with those of Canada: 



* Farm labourers, who may emigrate to Upper Canada this summer, 

 and the next, get immediate employment on the Rideau Canal, as 

 they are more used to digging and shovelling, than the Americans. 

 Wages are generally from 45s., to 58s. 6d. per month, with board, and 

 work more moderate than on English Canals. 



