FOR THE GENERAL ADVANTAGE OF CANADA. 



IN the first book of Paradise Lost, where the poet, with all his 

 wealth of imagery, so graphically describes a great council of 

 war, he calls up one 



" Whose delightful seat 

 Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks 

 Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams." 



The reference to these clear and limpid waters suggests a pair 

 of well-known rivers in the Northland of Ontario, one of which, at 

 least, is famous as providing the best trout fishing in the world, and 

 whose district has recently obtained an additional prominence in 

 having contributed to the Parliament of Canada at the session just 

 closed a measure which has created the highest interest, not only in 

 the House but throughout the country, and particularly in the pro- 

 vince of Ontario. 



At a point some forty or fifty miles to the westward of the twin 

 towns of Port Arthur and Fort William, the Pigeon River, an inter- 

 national stream, discharges the waters of Rainy Lake and of the 

 upper northwestern country into Lake Superior; and into the same 

 lake, but eastward from the twin towns about sixty miles or so, the 

 Nipigon River carries the clearer and colder waters of Lake Nipigon 

 and its tributaries. 



The Pigeon and Nipigon Rivers are the " lucid streams " of the 

 electoral district of Thunder Bay and Rainy River, and, for the past 

 three years this district has continued to furnish the basis for a series 

 of most important debates in the Senate and Commons of Canada 

 touching the relation and attitude which the Federal power should 

 be.ar toward " Provincial Rights." 



It is common knowledge that, when Confederation was proposed 

 and discussed among the provinces. Sir John Macdonald's idea was 

 that there should be but one legislative authority in Canada, and he 

 inclined to the view that the union might be known among the 

 nations as " The Kingdom of Canada." Lord Derby in the British 

 House, however, when the British North America Act was under 

 consideration there, settled upon " Dominion of Canada " as more 

 in keeping, doubtless, with the idea of a federation, and, perhaps, 

 with some recognition or knowledge of the spirit of the previous 



