Navigation of Hudson's Bay and Strait. 277 



settle in that country. They are beset by these agents with equal 

 freedom in passing through Quebec and Ontario, and even on board 

 ship on the voyage out ; and there is no means of preventing this 

 great loss except by bringing the immigrants direct to the land of 

 their adoption. There is every probability that a great emigration 

 to our North-West Territories will take place in the near future- 

 We see, on the one hand, most of the countries in Europe overcrowded 

 with redundant populations, and on the other almost unlimited 

 quantities of fine land ready for the plough, inviting them to come 

 over and take possession. All that is now wanted is a cheap and 

 direct means of transporting the people to the land. By the proposed 

 route immigrants from Europe may reach their destination on the 

 Saskatchewan or Peace River almost as soon and as cheaply as they 

 could reach Western Ontario via Quebec, and much more cheaply 

 and expeditiously than they could arrive in the Western States via 

 New York. 



" This independent route may also prove of value for military 

 purposes. Troops have already been sent to the Red River settle- 

 ment on two or three occasions by way of York Factory, traversing 

 in safety the intervening wilderness. By the aid of a railway from 

 Churchill to the foot of Lake Winnipeg, a whole army might be 

 transported easily and expeditiously." 



General Sir J. H. Lef roy, President of the Geographical Section 

 of the British Association, in his address at the Swansea meeting 

 (1880) said : " Hudson's Bay itself cannot fail at no distant date to 

 challenge more attention. Dr. Bell reports that the land is rising at 

 the rate of five to ten feet in a century, that is, possibly, an inch a 

 year. Not, however, on this account will the hydrographer notice 

 it, but because the natural seaports of that vast interior now thrown 

 open to settlement, Keewatin, Manitoba, and other provinces unborn, 

 must be sought there. York Factory, which is nearer Liverpool 

 than New York, has been happily called by Prof. H. Y. Hind the 

 Archangel of the West. The mouth of the Churchill, however, 

 although somewhat farther north, offers far superior natural advan- 

 tages, and may more fitly challenge the title. It will undoubtedly 

 be the future shipping port for the agricultural products of the 



