HA1.IBURTON ON COAL TRADE OF THE NEW DOMINION. 85 



great families of the Anglo-Saxon race in the New World should 

 find it to their interest to abolish the formidable barriers of hostile 

 tariffs which are growing up between them, to level the frown- 

 ing fortifications which scowl defiance at each other, and which 

 even in peace give us a " lively sense of benefits to come " in 

 the shape of towns burned down, commerce paralyzed and valu- 

 able lives destroyed, the most prosperous portion of the repub- 

 lic, and of the new world will be that which combines everything 

 to make it the entrepot of trade and commerce. That day is 

 farther distant than philanthropists might hope. The heavy 

 taxes in the United States, the violent party storms that 

 threaten to uproot what even the whirlwind of civil war has left 

 standing, Fenian raids, and the incessant abuse of England, put 

 off the day when our ministers of war will be useless luxuries, 

 and when a union of North America under one government will 

 be hoped for, or desirable. Although such a union would in six 

 years quadruple the value of mineral property in this province, 

 at present it would be a ruinous or at best a hazardous experi- 

 ment. It will take years before peace can efface from the sword 

 the stains of a bloody contest, and we are not likely to wish to 

 tread upon the ashes that conceal the burning embers of civil 

 war. Let us then look at what is practicable, not at what may 

 be a question for our children and for posterity. 



Within the past year the map of the world has been altered 

 to admit a new Dominion among the nations, and a large portion 

 of the continent has changed its name, if not its destinies. We 

 cannot shut our eyes to the fact that its position is, to say the 

 least, inconvenient. The Americans through accident and our 

 bungling diplomacy seem, at first glance, to have monopolized all 

 except the outskirts ol the cultivable portions of the continent, 

 and to have left us not much more than the selvage of an empire, 

 and the casual observer might infer that England having long 

 ago entailed the bulk of her possessions in America upon her 

 first born, could only spare us the limited allowance of a younger 

 son. Scant and attenuated as it may seem, however, when 

 compared with the compactness and immensity of the United 

 States, it is vast enough to be the home of a great people, if 

 they are only united by national feeling, and by the bonds of 



