A Nobleman's Vieiv of the North-West. 537 



position, and its peculiar characteristics, Manitoba may be regarded 

 as the key-stone of that mighty arch of sister Provinces which spans 

 the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was here that 

 Canada, emerging from her woods and forests, first gazed upon her 

 rolling prairies and unexplored North-West, and learnt, as by an 

 unexpected revelation, that her historical territories of the Canadas, 

 her eastern seaboards of New Brunswick, Labrador and Nova Scotia, 

 her Laurentian lakes and valleys, corn lands and pastures, though 

 themselves more extensive than half a dozen European kingdoms, 

 were but the vestibules and ante-chambers to that, till then, 

 undreamed of Dominion — whose illimitable dimensions alike con- 

 found the arithmetic of the surveyor and the verification of the 

 explorer." 



What Lord DufFerin said in 1877, the Marquis of Lome was in a 

 position to enlarge upon and verify in 1881. From personal inspec- 

 tion he pronounced the lands and climate of Manitoba and the 

 North- West unexcelled. From personal experience he was able to 

 speak to the world at large and vouch for the legitimacy of Canada's 

 claim as offering the best homes in the world for industrious thrifty 

 and willing immigrants. A favourite cry against the North- West 

 with those who represent rival interests is, that the climate is highly 

 objectionable. Lord Lome thus disposed of this unjust and dishonest 

 statement : — " The heavy night dews throughout the North-West 

 keep the country green, when everything is burned to the south, 

 and the steady winter cold, although it sounds formidable when 

 registered by the thermometer, is universally said to be far less 

 trying than the cold to be encountered at the old English Puritan 

 City of Boston, in Massachusetts. It is the moisture in the atmos- 

 phere which makes cold tell, and the Englishman who, with the 

 thermometer at zero in his moist atmosphere, would be shivering, 

 would here find one flannel shirt sufficient clothing while working." 



Speaking of the vast territories beyond the Province of Manitoba 

 the Marquis said : — " The future fortunes of the country beyond this 

 Province bear directly upon its prosperity. Although you may not 

 be able to dig four feet through the same character of black loam 

 that you have here when you get to the country beyond Fort Ellice, 



