580 Our North Land. 



John Bright on the question of Imperial Federation, urged a closer 

 knitting of Canada with England in order to ensure the protection 

 of England's increasing commerce in the China seas against possible 

 encroachments by France and Russia. The paper said " England 

 has no territory in the Pacific region and aspires to none. The com- 

 pletion of the Canadian Pacific Railway will provide England with 

 a route to Hong-Kong occupying only a little over a month, sixteen 

 days less than the Suez Canal route. The new route will enable 

 England to land troops in China at least ten days in advance of 

 French troops starting at the same time from Marseilles, or Russian 

 troops from Odessa. In the event of the Suez Canal falling into 

 hostile hands Canada might even send twenty thousand or thirty 

 thousand men, which she could easily spare in an emergency, in 

 twenty-five days. All depends upon the cultivation of good feeling 

 between Canada and England." 



These statements are all true enough and must have great weight 

 in forcing upon our people the conviction that Canada and the 

 United Kingdom are destined to enjoy closer political relations than 

 at present, but these calculations have double force if applied to the 

 Hudson's Bay route. It will be the beginning of a new era of 

 British progress when the hitherto unrealized fact is utilized that 

 the centre of the North American continent on the 55th parallel of 

 north latitude is nearer Liverpool than New York city. Indeed 

 Prince Albert on the Saskatchewan river in the North-West is but 

 three thousand five hundred miles from Liverpool by way of Hudson's 

 Strait, whereas from the same point to Liverpool via the Canada 

 Pacific and St. Lawrence, the distance is over five thousand one 

 hundred miles. And, in respect of transcontinental transport or 

 travel from the United Kingdom to the far east, the advantages 

 of the Hudson's Bay route, in connection with a railway from 

 Churchill to Port Simpson, will not only afford a safe national route 

 but so greatly minimize time and distance that with its establish- 

 ment Canada will become one of the most important parts of the 

 British nation, and absolutely indispensable to the mother country. 

 In view of these things one may reasonably hope that England will 

 eventually aid the Dominion in the construction of the Hudson's 



