352 



THE PRIZE ESSAYS. 



[1855. 



reigns in bis granary, plenty is exliibitej in liis farm yan.l, plenty 

 gleams from liis corn fields, and plenty smiles iu the faces of his chil- 

 dren. But let it not be imagined that this plenty is gained without 

 continuous labour, and the exercise of judgment and intelligence. 

 Many of the finest farms in Upper Canada have passed out of the hands 

 of those whose fathers won them from the forest ; and many more are 

 exhausted and unproductive, through injudicious management, indo- 

 lence, or inattention ; and in some instances the very labourers on the 

 farms which have been sold and wasted by the second generation, have 

 been able to purchase them. Industry literally converted the labourer 

 into the lord, whilst extravagance and indolence reduced the lord to 

 the labourer." 



Canada contains a population at the present moment exceed- 

 ing two and a quarter millions, and, as BIr. Hogan justly re- 

 marks : — 



" There is perhaps no part of the world kno-ivn to modern history, 

 with the exception of California and Australia, where a greater increase 

 has taken place in the population. In the latter countries the discovery 

 of gold has imparted an unnatural stimulant to settlement; but iu 

 these places, unfortunately, the chief things which labour leaves to 

 mark its footsteps are unsightly cuttings and mounds, — the monuments 

 too often of hardships without rewards, and bitterly disappointed 

 hopes. But in Canada labour is marked by corn fields, which contri- 

 bute to the riches and comforts of the whole world ; and success is of 

 that character, that it raises man by its example, and makes whole 

 races respectable." 



The chapters on manufactures and ship-building ; trade and 

 commerce ; revenue and expenditure ; banks ; inducements 

 to emigrants ; wages ; and price of land, are sufficiently ampli- 

 fied to afford a general idea of a rapidly growing commerce, 

 and a condition of progress and prosperity which is only paral- 

 leled by the States of the Union in the region of the Great 

 Lakes. It is a favourable feature in the financial condition of 

 Canada, that the bugbear taxation presses so lightly upon the 

 farmer. Perhaps no country in the world is more free from 

 this incubus than Canada with reference to the country at 

 large, and it is a matter of individual regret to every one in-_ 

 terested, that the same remark does not apply to our cities and 

 towns, many of which are beginning to acquire an unenviable 

 notoriety for the rapid increase of this objectionable burden : 



" From a table recently compiled in England it appears that the sum 

 contributed by the inhabitants of Canada to the revenue is considerably 

 less than that contributed by any other British Colony. The inhabitants 

 of the Australian Colonies contribute two pounds per head, the West 

 India Islands one pound, and the other British North American Pro- 

 vinces ten shillings. Canada contributes eight shillings and two pence. 

 The revenue for 1'854 is estimated at £1,423,520, and the expenditure 

 at £939,595, or at the rate of 8s. 2d. for each inhabitant. The Boston 

 Almanac gives the expenditure of the United States at £12,939,876, 

 which, divided into the population, makes lis. Id. per individual, or 

 thirty-seven per cent, higher than the indirect taxes of Canada ; but 

 this includes 3,204,067 slaves, or nearly one-seventh of the whole 

 population, who are not taxed ; deducting these it would add fifteen 

 per cent, per individual to the tax on the free inhabitants of the States." 



A long and interesting chapter is devoted to the subject of 



" Internal Communication," it has evidently been hastily 



. written, and requires a few corrections and additions, which 



may generally be effected by the introduction of a letter or a 



word, as in the following extract : — 



" The remaining link of canal — for I may as well speak of it 

 in this connection — between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the 

 head of Lake Superior, is the Welland, which unites Lakes Erie 

 and Ontario, and avoids the Falls of Niagara. Its locks are little 

 less capacious than those on the St. Lawrence Canals, but are equally 

 well built. They have chambers a hundred and fifty feet long, by 

 tw^enty-six and a-half feet wide, and the available depth of water in 

 both is between nine and ten feet." 



The Sault St. Marie Canal, which unites Lakes Huron and 

 Superior has been overlooked, — its locks have chambers 350 

 feet long and 70 feet in width. 



Mr. Hogan's views of the importance of the lliver St. 



Lawrence, and of the magnitude of that commerce of which 

 it is destined to become the uninterrupted highway, are fully 

 and eloquently expressed. The following e.^itract will show 

 that he entertains decided views respecting the future of our 

 noble river : — 



"The first thing that strikes one, in contemplating it, is its adapta- 

 tion, in point of immensity, to the vast regions it waters. Whilst the 

 business necessities of the West, and those portions of America which 

 are universally admitted to be, both by their relative position to other 

 rivers and to it, its natural feeders, have literally shamed the enter- 

 prises that were intended to provide for them, its magnitude and its 

 value are being but discovered by the contrast. The Erie Canal, 

 highly valuable as a work, and successful beyond comparison, /las been 

 made Utile, hj progress. The St. Lawrence, on the contrary, only 

 requires enormous use to test its greatness. It is impassible, indeed, 

 to contemplate this river, in connection with the canal which was made 

 to rival it, without being struck with the inadequacy of the one and 

 the amplitude of the other. 



"The valleys and plains watered by the St. LawrQfice, being largely 

 in the United States, have chiefly contributed to the'Erie Canal's busi- 

 ness. Their fruits were literally wooed away from their natural 

 channel to minister to its prosperity. The St. Lawrence, in so far as 

 American policy, and great restrictions upon commerce, could affect 

 it, has been sacrificed to the Erie Canal. Nature's outlet had naviga- 

 tion laws, which drove commerce away from it, to contend against- 

 The Erie Canal had all these disadvantages to the river converted into 

 so many advantages in its favor. Yet the laws of progress, which 

 have swept away the obnoxious navigation restrictions, have, at the 

 same time, established the failure of the Erie Canal. Not that it is 

 unprosperous as an enterprise, nor that, as a local work, it is not 

 unsurpassed as a speculation, but that, for the gi'eat purposes of its 

 construction, namely, to convey to the ocean the fruits and productions 

 of the West and North-west, it is emphatically a failure, — because pro- 

 gress has completely over-lurthened it; it is literally surfeited by its own 

 prosperity. And it matters not to him, — an individual, in such a case, 

 being the nation, — who has boards or flour to send eastward by it, 

 whether they are stopped by reason of starvation, or because of a sur- 

 feit. The impediment to his business is the all-important question 

 with him. And though the Erie Canal paid larger profits than any 

 other work in the world, yet, in a national point of view, if it afforded 

 not adequate facilities for business, or stopped it in its course, it might, 

 by drawing to it what it could not do, be the means of wide-spread 

 evil, instead of general good. And that this is, to a great extent, the 

 present position of the Erie Canal, is universally admitted. 



"To obviate these difficulties, enterprise has again undertaken to 

 swell its dimensions to meet the enormous demands of progress. Bvit 

 in view of the vast regions which are common alike to it and the St. 

 Lawrence, and which are as yet but in the infancy of their population 

 and business, is it not probable ; nay, is it not certain, judging by the 

 past, that twenty years hence will find the Erie Canal again choked up 

 with business ; again made little by progress ? When the magnificent 

 tracts of country embraced in Michigan, Wisconsin, the northern portions 

 of Ohio and Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and the west and 

 north-western portions of the State of New York, which now wholly 

 or largely use the Erie Canal as a highway to the ocean, come to be 

 settled up, and to have, instead of some five or six millions of inhabi- 

 tants, at least eighteen or twenty, what mere canal, with its hundred 

 locks, and its hundred other impediments, will be equal to their vast 

 business necessities ? will be in keeping with their splendid progress ? 

 will satisfy their craving for rapidity, magnitude, and commercial 

 convenience ? Will not the Erie Canal then, enlarged though it be, be 

 but another added to the numerous examples in America, of progress 

 utterly distancing enterprise, and prosperity shaming the calculations even 

 of talent ?" 



The remaining chapters are devoted to the enterprise of Ca- 

 nada in relation to Railroads ; their value and importance ; 

 their intent, construction, and routes. The Municipal System 

 of Upper Canada ; the Government of Canada and its future. 

 We shall conclude our notice of Mr. Hogan's excellent essay 

 with a few of its closing paragraphs — and the expression of a 

 hope that an opportunity will soon be offered of avoiding, in a 



