498 Our North Land. 



over more than fifty years, from which it appears to enjoy an 

 average of fully six months of open water. The Nelson River is 

 open for a longer period. I think, with these facts before us, we 

 need not despair of successfully navigating Hudson's Bay, as far as 

 the length of the season is concerned. Even were the time of open 

 navigation shorter than it is known to be, the very great benefits 

 which the North-West and Canada generally would derive from 

 possessing an outlet in that direction, are sufficient to make it well 

 worth an effort to open it up. The freedom of Hudson's Strait and 

 Bay from rocks, shoals, and other impediments to navigation will 

 exempt vessels in that quarter of the globe from the heavy expenses 

 for pilots, lighthouses, etc., which burden shipping by the St. 

 Lawrence, and are even more onerous in some other parts of the 

 world. The delays from drifting ice in the Strait, which have 

 occasionally occurred to sailing vessels would not be experienced by 

 steamships. 



" We have seen that in proportion as we decrease the cost of 

 transportation to a foreign market, we increase the home value of 

 all kinds of farm produce, and consequently of the farm itself. Now, 

 considering the vast extent of fine land to be affected by the opening 

 of the route above referred to, if the value of each acre of it were 

 enhanced in this way by only a few shillings, the aggregate 

 increase would amount to more than a hundred millions of dollars. 

 Such a gain as this, together with the various other great advantages 

 which, as we have seen, may be derived from the opening of this new 

 ocean route, will I think, sufficiently illustrate the commercial 

 importance of Hudson's Bay." 



