310 TlMEHRI. 
sorbing all our surplus trade which has been diverted 
from Great Britain, and so Canada is dwarfed by the 
more mature development of the wonderful country 
alongside of her, and has come to be regarded as a more 
distant and inferior United States, holding out no in- 
ducements why we should seek to be more intimately 
acquainted, with her ; but the mistake here lies in the 
sweeping and undiscriminating manner in which the 
comparison is made between the two countries. Of 
course there is no comparison between the consuming 
power of the United States, and the consuming power of 
the Dominion of Canada, and if we were under the 
protection of the former country we should not now be 
labouring under our present embarrassments, this how- 
ever by the way. Because the United States has over 
ten times the population of Canada, and over ten times 
the wants to be supplied, it does not follow that Canada 
can offer no advantages, and it must not be lost sight of, 
that she is a stranger to us, but no foreigner, and it 
might be easier to enter into reciprocal relations with 
her than with the North American Republic. 
If any one will take the trouble to dissociate the 
Dominion of Canada in his mind from the United 
States, and will contemplate it as an isolated and 
independent country, under the light of statistical 
returns and current information, he will find it gains 
immensely ; he will observe that it is a country travelling 
on the highway of true progress, that it is inspired by a 
patriotic energy ; and is wisely opening out great national 
channels of enterprise, whilst promoting the religious and 
social well-being of its people in a very marked degree ; 
he will notice that it has a soil and climate no way in- 
