Commercial Relations with Canada. 311 
ferior to the United States for the sustenance of life, and 
the growth of all those valuable northern produces which 
are mostly in demand the world over. 
It may be remembered by some that an effort was 
made about twenty years ago to draw together British 
Guiana and Canada in some kind of commercial connec- 
tion ; this was initiated by one who has made a name for 
himself in Canada as a statesman, and who had the 
interests of the two countries at heart, — Sir Francis 
HlNCKS. The attempt proved premature, and the causes 
of failure probably lay in the Canada of that day being 
comparatively speaking an insignificant country, made 
up of the two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, 
with a population under two millions ; and besides, I 
take it, the necessity for obtaining a new market for 
produce was not then keenly felt in British Guiana. 
But times are changed and we may change with them. 
Since those days the two Canadian Provinces have 
confederated with all the North American Provinces, 
excepting Newfoundland, and have added to their area 
the enormous territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
which includes Manitoba and the Great North West. 
Stepping into the rank of nations as the Dominion of 
Canada, this group of united colonies extends from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, a distance of nearly 4,000 miles, 
from Quebec to Victoria, Vancouver Island, right across 
the Continent of North America in its broadest part. 
This vast domain consists of 3,500,000 square miles, and 
is exceeded in extent only by the Empire of Russia, and 
perhaps by China. At present the Provinces are eight 
in number, 1. Ontario; 2. Quebec; 3. New Bruns- 
wick; 4. Nova Scotia; 5. Prince Edward's Island; 6, 
