436 Our North Land. 



might almost say that the scheme of building the Canadian Pacific 

 has resulted in the discovery of nearly half a continent. The 

 territory so lightly thought of at first, stands to-day unrivalled in 

 the world for extent, fertility, and natural resources. Canada at 

 once more than doubles her possibilities, and the Canadian people 

 now stand upon the threshold of a great nationality. Five new 

 Provinces are budding into existence in the prairie region, that 

 must soon become, in commercial, agricultural, and industrial 

 importance, greater than the other six. It reminds one, acquainted 

 with the history of the growth and development of the neighbour- 

 ing Republic, of that era of progress inaugurated in that country 

 by the famous " Ordinance of 1787," by which Connecticut and 

 Virginia ceded to the Congress, on wise and liberal terms, all the 

 territory north-west of the Ohio River, a document which must 

 forever keep the name of its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, 

 fresh in the highest esteem of mankind. This ordinance created the 

 North-West Territory of the United States, and General Arthur 

 St. Clair became its first Governor. In a short time the State of 

 Ohio was carved out of it, and admitted to the Union ; but still the 

 North-West Territory maintained an existence, pushing its seat of 

 Government a little farther north-west. The work of development 

 went forward, until, from the territory embraced in the original 

 grant, were formed the prosperous States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, 

 Illinois, and Wisconsin, five States unsurpass'ed to-day by any of 

 the others in that great nation. 



Our Canadian North- West is rapidly repeating that history; and 

 I am free to state that within the space of time occupied by the 

 growth and admission of those five States to the United States Con- 

 federation, the Provinces of Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskat- 

 chewan, and Athabaska, will have grown equally great, and have 

 been admitted with full Provincial autonomy into the Canadian 

 Confederation. It is pretty hard now to measure the growth of 

 Canada since the Union of 1867 ; and yet, in looking forward, we 

 see plainly that our development so far has been purely elementary. 

 We have been laying foundations, and placing into position a few of 

 the great timbers of state — that is all. These are so few that one 

 can count them on the fingers of one hand. They are 



