464 Our North Land. 



bility of opening the Hudson's Bay route, and the Parliament of Canada 

 should commit the nation to the establishment of the route within a certain 

 date. This alone will revive immigration and restore prosperity in the 

 Canadian North-West. 



There is no obstacle to this undertaking. We may be told that 

 already Parliament has chartered a company and subsidized it with an 

 immense land grant, and cannot now interfere with that franchise. I do 

 not propose that the existing franchises shall be interfered with, I do not 

 even say that the road cannot be successfully built and the route properly 

 opened by a private company. It is not the question of how the route is 

 to be established or by whom, but a consideration of quite another kind. 

 We want the Dominion Parliament to say to the world, by solemn enact- 

 ment, that Canada undertakes that a railway from Manitoba to Hudson's 

 Bay shall be commenced (by somebody) within eighteen months, and com- 

 pleted (by somebody) within four years, or other reasonable time, and that 

 a steamboat line shall be established in connection therewith. 



It is no longer a secret that the eastern Provinces generally and the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway Company in particular are opposed to the 

 Hudson's Bay Railway. Longer disguise is worthless. In the face of such 

 opposition we can hope for nothing from a private company that is not 

 backed directly by Government. 



The people of the North- West must not expect to rest easy while their 

 destinies in connection with the Hudson's Bay outlet are depending upon 

 the fortunes of a private company, especially when it is known that such 

 company is rendered helpless by the opposition of the Pacific Railway 

 Company and many of the most influential newspapers of the eastern 

 Provinces. The time has come, and I believe the people of Manitoba are 

 already preparing to give decided expression in this regard, when the 

 Central Government must assume the responsibility of the construction of 

 a Hudson's Bay Railway, and guarantee that the route shall be opened for 

 traffic within a reasonable time ; and should you return to Manitoba with 

 any terms of settlement between that Province and the Dominion, no 

 matter how liberal in other respects, if they come short of a full and com- 

 plete guarantee on the part of the Federal authority of the establishment 

 at a reasonably early date of the Hudson's Bay road, they will be unsatis- 

 factory and will be ultimately rejected by the people. 



It will not do to agree on other important questions and have the 

 Hudson's Bay issue an open one. Nothing that the Dominion Government 

 can do for the North-West will be fruitful of any great good, except in 

 conjunction with the Hudson's Bay Railway. And, I venture to say that 

 should you return home with the Federal guarantee that a railway between 



