388 Our North Land. 



can be no doubt that when a full knowledge of the country is 

 acquired in the old world, and the establishment of the route 

 assured by the Parliament of Canada, there will be inaugurated a 

 volume of immigration from Europe to the fertile prairies of 

 Canada that will overshadow the scenes of Castle Garden in the 

 days of its greatest activity. 



Before further describing the productiveness of the fertile areas 

 of the IN orth- West, I find it necessary to call attention to and make 

 some statements in explanation of recent occurrences in Manitoba 

 calculated to create in the minds of people residing in Europe the 

 impression that the present residents of the North- West were dis- 

 satisfied with the country which they have adopted ; and in the 

 first place, let me say, that however misguided the recent, and to 

 some extent the still existing, agitation in Manitoba may have been, 

 it in no way has its origin, or any part of it, in any dissatisfaction 

 with the North-West as a country. There is nowhere to be found 

 a single resident of the North-West who has been heard to complain 

 of the natural advantages of his location. All agree that, in every 

 respect, the Canadian North-West is unequalled any way as an 

 agricultural district. 



But there has been great discontent in the North-West — a dis- 

 content which, to some extent, still exists. The course of it lies not 

 in anything pertaining to the country itself, but in the political and 

 commercial events affecting it. The policy of the National Govern- 

 ment concerning the Canadian Pacific Railway was the most fruitful 

 source of this discontent. The great anxiety of the Government to 

 secure the completion of the national highway, in order to connect 

 the Canadian Provinces from ocean to ocean, led them to overlook 

 or neglect, for the time being, the necessities of colonization. Mr. 

 Fleming anticipated this in 1878, when he said: — "It may be 

 assumed to be the desire of the Government and people of the 

 Dominion that the great undeveloped interior of Canada should be 

 colonized in the most successful manner possible. It could not be 

 held to be successfully colonized unless peopled by inhabitants like 

 themselves, hardy, self-reliant, vigorous, and determined ; nor unless 

 the many thousand miles of railway required were constructed in 



