18 Our North Land. 



there was no prophet to foretell England's glory, nor was there 

 anything in the general appearance of the country upon which a 

 high degree of future greatness could have been predicted. Lati- 

 tude is one of the secrets of Britain's importance. 



History is ever repeating itself, and the political transforma- 

 tions of the Old World may yet, to a great extent, be re-enacted in 

 the New. Here on this continent the trend of all material progress 

 is north-westerly. The flow of immigration is north-westerly, and 

 the Great Creator, as if to make way for the advance, has pushed 

 back, as it were, the cold of the Arctic nearer to the Pole, and spread 

 out the vast fertile belt of the North Temperate Zone from the 

 Great Lakes to the Mackenzie River ; so that may not this England 

 of the New World yet become to the Western Hemisphere all that 

 the England of the Old World is to the Eastern ? 



For many years Canada has held an obscure place among the 

 countries of the globe. Our borders have been pictured as the 

 abode of perpetual snows, and our people as indifferent, easy-going, 

 indolent. But a change is taking place. The narrow, little, rugged 

 country on the margins of the St. Lawrence has extended its 

 borders from Atlantic to Pacific, and to the Arctic Circle of the 

 north ; the harvest-patches of Western. Ontario, once the pride of 

 United Canada, have blossomed into boundless fertile prairies, 

 stretching away toward the setting sun, and pushing their golden 

 fields far above the fifty-fifth parallel. With these changes have 

 arisen national questions of trans-Pacific and transcontinental trade, 

 and Canada is putting on the garment of preparation to enter the 

 race of nations. 



Canada's progress is but another evidence of the strength and 

 productiveness of the north, but another development of power and 

 commercial importance in high latitudes, and it will probably 

 achieve the greatest advancement to which the race has yet 

 attained. Canada has soil enough for the happy homes of a 

 hundred millions of people. Bread and beef may be produced 

 within her boundaries to feed a hundred millions more ; and, aside 

 from all this development of husbandry, the resources of the 

 Dominion will sustain the most gigantic industrial enterprises. 



