It was hoped that the expedition to the! Hudson Bay would finally settle the vexed question as to the navigability of thei Straits during the summer and autumn months. Unfortunately owing to the smallness of the grant (30,000 dollars) it was impossible to obtain a modern steamship of fair speed and specially built for working through ice, without which the experiment could add little or nothing to our knowledge on this Point, While it is certain that the Bay itself is always open, the presence of heavy drift ice in the Straits renders the navigation dangerous, if not impossible, for the greater part of the year; and, although since Hudson's discoveries in'1609-10, more than 730 voyages into and out of the Bay have been made, generally by small sailing-vessels, between the beginning of June and the middle of October, the exact period during which the route is practicable for steamers of a better class than the average "ocean tramp" remains to be determined. In the opinion of many, if the Straits could be proved naviga-Die for five months in the year, the Hudson's Bay Railway from Winnipeg to the mouth of the Churchill River tid Grand Rapids on the Saskatchewan (40 miles of this railway already actually exists) would pay. its way. The advantages attending a modern use of the historic route of the Hudson's Bay Company—the possession of which, as we have seen determined the issue of the struggle between that ancient corporation and the other great fur-trading companies—would be many and important. In the first place the North-West would be brought more than a thousand miles nearer the mother country so that freight rates Vetween, say, Liverpool and Winnipeg would be about half what they are at present; and a corresponding reduction In the cost of passage for emigrants would certainly lead to a great increase of the articular import most required in the North-West of to-day—i.e., the British agricultural labourer, who cannot as a rule save enough out of his wages to pay the expense even of a journey by steerage and colonist's car. Secondly, cool and healthy outlet for cattle and' perishable farm produce would be provided during the hot Canadian summer. Thirdly, an enormous area of good agricultural land at present inaccessible would be rendered available for immediate settlement. And, last but not least, a shorter and safer way to the Pacific Coast for purposes of Imperial defence or offence would be established. Tu weighing this last-mentioned advantage we must nut forget (certainly Canadians did not overlook these facts during the Venezuelan crisis) that one shore of the St. Lawrence estuary belongs to a foreign ower, through whose territory the railway route from Halifax to Montreal runs for a short distance.
'The Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers, albeit there are natural impediments to their continuous navigation, would form a valuable adjunct to the new route, until another railway' through the valley of the latter river, from Grand Rapids to Prince 'Albert and' Edmonton, could be profitably built. Such a system of railways would open up about as much land suitable for mixed farming as was opened up by the C.P.R., and that at less than a-fifth of the cost; for recent scientific investigations have proved that over a very large area of land north of the Saskatchewan Valley precisely the same climate conditions prevail as in Saskatchewan or Northern Alberta. Both Sir Wilfred Laurier and Sir Charles Tupper are in favour of building a Hudson's Bay railway without s of cither leader work as out of the pale of practical polities—at any rate for the present. Vor years, however, even his own personal friends scoffed at Sir John Macdonald's scheme of a transcontinental railway, but in the end the most cautious became convinced of its feasibility; and it may be that time—especially if "time" means a continuance of the present good. times"—will convince the most frugal-j minded "Grits" of the feasibility of basing a railway system on the Hudson Bay and its affluent rivers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.