Fountain," a point on the upper course of the Fraser forty miles above its confluence with the Thompson, while the southernmost communicates by the Harrison River with the navigable waters of the same stream. Steamers and large boats have been placed on these lakes, and a road made over the intervening country. Other openings in the Cascade Range exist besides the one through which the Fraser finds a passage. The coast of British Columbia is penetrated by a succession of inlets, extending in some instances more than a hundred miles inland, and bearing some resemblance to the Norwegian fiords. Many of these have rivers of considerable size flowing into them, and though none of them have been as yet thoroughly explored, it seems probable that some more direct communication between the sea and the interior may hereafter be discovered than is afforded by the Fraser River.

The chief obstacle to the rapid opening up of these and other routes is of course the expense which necessarily attends all engineering operations in so mountainous a country. Hitherto, the revenue of the colony has been quite inadequate to meet any large demands on this score. The receipts for the year 1859 were reckoned beforehand by the Governor at about 50,000%, of which the Customs contributed 18,464l.; and though an export-duty on gold has several times been talked of, which is to raise the revenue to 100,000l. per annum, we are not aware that it has yet been resorted to. The favourite theory in this, as in most other colonies, is, that the mother country should come forward to help them out of the difficulty. The earlier part of the Governor's correspondence with the Colonial Office is filled with suggestions, the carrying out of which would have probably involved much larger advances on the part of the Imperial Government than the 200,000l. which his own "opinion of the matter is, Parliament should at once grant, either as a free gift or a loan to be repaid hereafter, in order to give the new colony a fair start in a manner becoming the great nation of whose empire it forms a part." To this request Sir E. B. Lytton replied in a very carefully studied despatch, the policy of which has been since emphatically endorsed by the Duke of Newcastle.

"I cannot avoid reminding you, that the lavish pecuniary expenditure of the mother country in founding new colonies has been generally found to discourage economy, by leading the minds of men to rely on foreign aid instead of their own exertions; to interfere with the healthy action by which a new community provides, step by step, for its own requirements; and to produce at last a general sense of discouragement and dissatisfaction. For a colony to thrive and develop itself with steadfast and healthful progress, it should from the first be as far

as possible self-supporting. . . . . No doubt, it might be more agreeable to the pride of the first founders of a colony which promises to become so important, if we could at once throw up public buildings, and institute establishments on a scale adapted to the prospective grandeur of the infant settlement. But after all, it is on the character of the inhabitants that we must rest our hopes for the land we redeem from the wilderness; and it is by self-exertion and the noble spirit of self-sacrifice, which self-exertion engenders, that communities advance through rough beginnings to permanent greatness. Therefore, it is not merely for the sake of sparing the mother country that I invite your cordial and intelligent coöperation in stimulating the pride of the colonists to submit to some necessary privations in the first instance, and to contribute liberally and voluntarily from their own earnings (which appear to be so considerable), rather than to lean upon the British Parliament for grants, or for loans, which are rarely repaid without discontent, and can never be cancelled without some loss of probity and honour. It is my hope that when the time arrives for representative institutions, the colony may be committed to that grand experiment unembarrassed by a shilling of debt; and the colonists have proved their fitness for self-government by the spirit of independence which shrinks from extraneous aid, and schools a community to endure the sacrifice by which it guards its own safety, and provides for its own wants."

Mr. Pemberton, after quoting this despatch, proceeds to join issue with the principles it enunciates. "If," he says by way of a reductio ad absurdum, "the same reasoning may be applied to communities as to individuals, it would be equally impolitic for an individual to borrow money at interest, on the security of a large landed estate, for its improvement; repayment of such a loan would occasion discontent; and if the lender should propose to cancel the bond, and with it the debt, the borrower would experience a certain twinge of moral degradation." And then, in support of his position that "it may, in certain cases, be to the interest of England to encourage the expenditure of, and in some instances even to provide, the capital required to make the country habitable, or at least accessible, and to control that expenditure, the debt being a charge against the land and revenues of the country generally," he instances the practice of the United States, where all the preparatory expenses of a territory are defrayed by the Federal Government, which continues to retain the principal appointments, and to receive the revenues after the admission of the territory into the Union until it has reimbursed itself for the outlay. So far as the mere "expenditure of capital" is concerned, we are not aware that our colonies have ever shown themselves in need of encouragement from the mother country; as regards its provision, the example is not very perti• Papers relative to the Affairs of British Columbia, part ii. p. 75.

nent to the question at issue. The growth of the American Union is not a case of colonisation at all. It is an extension of the central organisation to outlying territory, not hitherto comprehended within it; and the retention of the revenues in the hands of the Federal Government is no hardship when the state so administered becomes at the same time an integral part of the Federation, with representatives in the Federal Legislature, and a share in the appointment of the Federal Executive. But the grant of representative institutions to a colony bears no resemblance to the admission of a state into the Union; and if England is to retain any security for advances she has made to the colonists, the privilege of self-government must either be withheld until the debt is paid off, or the concession must be accompanied by the drawback of a constant and most vexatious interference on the part of the Imperial Government. Nor is the analogy of "an individual" more to the point. The security for money lent to a community is not the improved value of the territory, but the readiness of its members to tax themselves for its repayment; and we do not see why this expedient should not be resorted to first as well as last. The progress of roads and public works may be somewhat slower when the funds are provided by contemporaneous local taxation than when they are raised by loans; but, at all events, there will be greater inducements to economy, and no after sting in the shape of a public debt. In this respect, Mr. Pemberton's clients may well profit by the example he has proposed for our imitation. "Of all the economical causes," says Mr. Herman Merivale," which have been suggested for that painful inferiority in the evidence of public spirit, wealth, and activity, which seems to strike all observers in passing from the United States into our neighbouring provinces, the absence of local taxation is the most substantial, perhaps the only substantial one. . . . . It remains to be seen whether our northern colonies have sufficient perception of their own interests, and sufficient public virtue, to impose on themselves the necessary sacrifices."

But although the expense of opening up communications with the interior of British Columbia must, in fairness, be borne by the settlers themselves, there is another public work, of almost equal importance to the development of the colony, in which they may fairly look for assistance from the mother country. The establishment of a British overland route from Canada to the Pacific, while it would contribute greatly to the safety and growth of British Columbia would also have a direct bearing on imperial interests. It would promote the union of the British possessions in North America, accelerate our postal and passenger * Lectures on Colonisation and Colonics, second edition, p. 448.

communication with Australia, and perhaps put our trade with China on an entirely new footing. All these considerations will no doubt have their due weight with the Imperial Government, and secure its utmost aid in furtherance of any well-considered scheme for accomplishing the object in question. In our last Number we described the facilities for the construction either of a wagon-road or railway afforded by the vast and nearly level plains which border on the Saskatchewan River. We now take up the subject where we left it, at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains.

The passage of this great mountain-chain may be effected at several points throughout the whole extent of British Columbia, the northernmost-from the Findlay to the Babine River, in lat. 56° 30-being at the extreme northern boundary of the colony, while the southernmost is only a few miles above the United States frontier. The first of these, however, as well as two others which lead from the Peace River, may be left out of considera→ tion as being too far to the north, on the east side of the mountains. To the south of lat. 54° the known passes are the following:

0'

1. Leather Pass, or Yellow Head Portage. lat. 54° 0′
2. Athabasca Portage

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53° 0'

51° 25'

51° 10'

Leather Pass leads from the Athabasca River to the head waters of the Fraser. It has occasionally been used by the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, though only for water carriage, and it may hereafter prove of importance in connexion with the track discovered by Mr. Downie from the mouth of the Skeena River to Stuart Lake. Athabasca Portage connects the Athabasca with the Columbia River. It is the pass used by the furtraders in their canoe journeys from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. Howse's Pass, the most northerly of the land passes, was discovered by Mr. Howse in 1810, and explored, or rather rediscovered, by Dr. Hector in 1859. It leads by an almost imperceptible ascent from the head-waters of the North Saskatchewan, up a valley closely hemmed in by lofty precipices, and then follows the course of the Blaeberry River to its confluence with the Columbia. On the western side there is a fall of 2000 feet in thirty-five miles. The summit level is 4800 feet. Dr. Hector wished to descend the Columbia from this point to the great bend, and endeavour to pass from thence by the valley of Canoe

River to the head-waters of the Thompson, but he was unable to do so owing to the density of the forest and the lateness of

the season. Kicking Horse Pass connects Bow River, the inost important feeder of the South Saskatchewan, with Beaver Foot River, a tributary of the Kootanie. The western slope is very abrupt, and there is a fall of 1000 feet in the first mile. The summit-level is 5120 feet. Vermillion Pass was discovered by Dr. Hector, who, after six hours' march through thick woods, reached the height of land at a point 4944 feet above the sea, but only 840 feet above the commencement of the ascent at the Old Bow Fort; 200 yards farther on he came to the Vermillion River, which descends 1227 feet in the course of forty miles, and falls into the Kootanie. In the Kananaskis Pass the height of land is 5985 feet above the sea, and 1885 feet above the Old Fort. The ascent on the east side is easy, but on the west there is a precipitous slope of 960 feet. The Crow Nest Pass has never been explored. Its eastern entrance is on the river from which it takes its name, and its western in the neighbourhood of Mount Deception. The Kootanie Pass is the shortest of all. It leads from Belly River, the southern feeder of the South Saskatchewan, and crosses a double line of mountains, each reaching a height of 6000 feet. On the western side there is a fall of 2000 feet in two miles. Captain Blakiston, by whom this pass has been very carefully surveyed, proposes to overcome these difficulties by two tunnels, one five miles long and the other three, and a ten miles' incline, of 190 feet per mile.

The comparative advantages of the Vermillion, Kananaskis, and Kootanie Passes are thus summed up by Captain Palliser:

"The Kananaskis Pass and the British Kootanie Pass were examined by myself. Of these, I consider the Kananaskis Pass the preferable one, both on account of its direct course through the mountains and its easier ascent.

The ascent to the height of land from the east is through a wide gently sloping valley, and the immediate watershed is formed by a narrow ridge, which, if pierced by a short tunnel, would reduce the summitlevel to about 4600 feet above the sea. The descent to the west, into which Kananaskis Pass opens, is comparatively easy.

The British Kootanie Pass also opens out into the Kootanie River Valley, but the altitude here to be overcome is much greater, amounting to 6000 feet. There are likewise two ridges to be passed, which fact would form a very strong objection to this pass.

The Vermillion Pass presents on a whole the greatest natural facilities for crossing the mountains without the aid of engineering work, as the rise to the height of land is gradual from both sides; a feature which seems to be peculiar to this pass. It would thus be impossible to diminish its summit-level (which is less than 5000 feet), as is pro