526 Our North Land. 



be immense. Fourth, " and what will be done with them when the route 

 is closed 1 " Nothing, if you like. They will have plenty to do eight 

 months of the year, and can lay up the other four ; and I ask, where is 

 the ocean tramp that gets more than eight months of the year profitable 

 employment 1 



In conclusion let me call your attention to your conclusion, which I 

 venture to characterize as ridiculous. You say that when the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway is completed that line will carry wheat from Winnipeg to 

 Liverpool for twenty-five cents a bushel, and then the advocates of this 

 route will turn their attention to something more feasible. How can you 

 make such absurd statements ? Suppose the Canadian Pacific Railway 

 will do as you say, which nobody believes, do you not know that in five 

 years from to-day the surplus products of the North- West, with even the 

 limited population now in that country, not taking into account future 

 immigration at all, will be, with the present rate of increase, five times 

 greater than the Canadian Pacific Railway could move in twelve months 1 

 If you do not know it, ask Mr. VanHorne, and he will tell you it is 

 a fact. 



The Canadian Pacific Railway is assured, and its success is assured. 

 Let us have the Hudson's Bay route and it will help instead of injure the 

 national highway. There is a mistaken idea abroad in regard to this 

 question. Some think it will turn trade away from the Eastern Provinces 

 to open the Hudson's Bay route ; but I tell you the greater the develop- 

 ment of that great section of Canada the greater will be its volume of trade 

 with this part of Canada. Yours, etc., 



Toronto, Jan. 3rd. C. R. Tuttle. 



p.S. — Since writing the above I am in receipt of a communication 

 from England stating that the barque Cam Owen, sent out to Churchill 

 and York last year instead of the detained Ocean Nymph, reached 

 Churchill on the 9 th of September, the day after the Neptune left. And 

 taking on her cargo she sailed to York and in October started for home, 

 she reached the Straits about the same date cited by Mr, Christie as that 

 upon which the Prince of Wales endeavoured to enter and was forced to 

 return by the ice, but met no ice whatever. She sailed through the Straits 

 without sighting ice, and reached England early in November. Now if 

 the Cam Owen passed through the Straits late in October without meeting 

 with ice, and the proof is at hand that she did, how is it that the Captain 

 of the Prince of Wales, about the same date, found the entrance to the 

 Strait " blocked by an ice-barrier as far* as the eye could reach." There is 

 something wrong. It is now known that the mate of the Cam Owen ran 



