gration may be to New Brunswick and to Canada, we have no room for the surplus population of Europe; no lands to give them should they come. This is also a mistake. [Here Mr. Howe exhibited a colored map, from which it appeared that there were four million acres of crown lands yet ungranted in Nova Scotia proper, exclusive of those in the three counties of Cape Breton. Besides these, he argued, there were the vacant lands of large proprietors, while it was notorious that all the old farms would feed, by high cultivation, twice the population they contained.] There is room, then, for a very large body of emigrants in Nova Scotia. Is there no room in this city, which must ultimately expand into ten times its present size?

I regret that it is too much the habit to depreciate our own country, instead of studying its resources, and anticipating its future progress. In an especial manner has this habit prevailed among the idle youth of Halifax. I have known hundreds, whose industrious fathers had toiled upon land and sea to bring them up in luxury, who have spent their own lives upon the sidewalks, or in senseless dissipation, all the time abusing the country they have been too idle to cultivate or improve. Dozens of these have died in imbecility and sloth; many more have wandered off to some "fool's paradise" or other, and those who have been too proud to work in their own noble country, have toiled like slaves and died in foreign lands. Look round Halifax and ask who own the wharves and stores, the valuable corners, building lots and mansions, that these idlers, and unbelievers in Nova Scotia's resources, have let slip out of their hands. Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, many of whom came into Halifax without a shilling, but who have added to its wealth by their industry, and who are living all around us in abundance, and many of them in the enjoyment of ample fortunes. Even Halifax, then, Mr. Chairman, has tested the value of emigration, and as she has thrown off her idlers and grumblers, has been recruited by an influx of the enterprising and industrious. What lessons should past experience, in town and country, teach us then? The value of emigration. Let me state here that the government propose for the future to combine the business of emigration and colonization with the duties of the land office, or commit them to a distinct yet active branch of administration. Thus we shall have a Colonial officer in communication with the board of land and emigration at home, and through that board with the board of poor law guardians, and with the constituted authorities of every city and parish in England. We propose to make the deputy surveyors in each county active agents of this department, to lay off the crown lands, and prepare pictures of their districts. We shall

then have persons whose business it will be to instruct and advise every poor man who touches our shores, to prepare annual lists of the number and description of mechanics, farmers, servants or apprentices, required in different localities, to bind the latter when they come, and protect them in case of need. By the aid of this simple, and not very expensive machinery, I shall be much mistaken if we do not add many thousands to our population, and a very handsome sum to our revenue. In every part of North America, there is no remark more proverbial than that the farmer with a large family gets rich, while he who has no children is generally poor. Why is this? Because the labor of young people, from twelve or fourteen to twenty-one, is the least expensive and most profitable labor that a farmer can have. A boy or a girl on a farm soon learns to do light work as well as a man or woman; from eighteen to twenty-one they can do men and women's work, but do not cost men and women's wages. It is the same upon the shores, where our fishermen and coasters have to rely upon the strength of their own families, and rarely can get an apprentice. And yet there are, in the Asylums of England and Ireland, at this moment, one hundred and eighty-five thousand children, eight thousand of them, on an average, fit to be bound out. Any number of these, fine hearty boys and girls, may be had for the asking. They will be sent here free of expense, if we make preparations to receive them. Now, I propose to collect returns in the autumn of the number of apprentices wanted in the spring, so that any industrious man may send for a boy or a girl as he would for a plough or a net. To our country this description of emigration is admirably well adapted, for these young people, in a few years, would be heads of families themselves, requiring from others the labor they had supplied. These Provinces, I believe, could, under judicious arrangements, take the whole eight thousand that the mother country is prepared to throw off, which she now has flung into the streets; and if they did, while our numbers were increased every day, the mother country would have eight thousand paupers, prostitutes, and thieves the less, and eight thousand honest and industrious people more would annually contribute to Colonial revenue and to the consumption of British manufactures. Let us have the railroads, then, and in addition to the natural absorption of labor by the settlements already formed, we may superinduce, upon their construction, an enlarged and healthy system of Colonization.

Difficulties have, it is true, started up in New Brunswick, but let me say that I deprecate all attempts to scold the people of that Province for what they have done or left undone. Rash, I think they were; but I quite appreciate the delicacy and difficulty of the position which the

public men of New Brunswick occupied, called upon, at the close of a session, to deal suddenly with this great question. All that they felt I had foreseen before I left England, and, so far as I had authority or leisure, had provided for. I do not believe that the Legislature of New Brunswick will permanently obstruct this mighty enterprise; and of this I am quite sure, that the people of that Province will not sustain them if they do. Let us look at the financial aspect of this question, shutting out of view for the moment all hopes of increased population and revenue. Suppose Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, by a company, were to construct the Portland railroad, three hundred and thirty miles, with money at six per cent. The annual interest would be £138,600, even if the stock sold at par. No Colonial railway company's bonds or stock would bring in England within twenty or twenty-five per cent. of the amount which the debentures of the government would bring, even without the guarantee. Take the higher rate, and there is a dead loss of twenty sovereigns in the one hundred, or £200 in every £1,000 and £20,000 in every £1,000,000. We want about two millions and a half to build the Portland railroad. Add to this the half a million sunk, at starting, and the annual interest which the two Provinces must pay for the Portland line alone will be £180,000, for three hundred and thirty miles of road, to say nothing of the ruinous expenses entailed by uncertainty and delay. Now, Lord Grey will enable us to make five hundred and seventy miles through these two Provinces, paying for interest but £139,650 or £40,350 a year less than Mr. Dickey and his Portland friends want us to pay for one. But, besides, New Brunswick offers £20,000 for twenty years to the Quebec line. Now, add to this, her share of the interest on the Portland line at the dear rate of £119,000, and her money contribution is £139,000, about as much as both Provinces would have to pay, by my scheme, for both roads, or £31,000 more than I ask her to pay for opening up her entire country. But what more has New Brunswick pledged herself to give? A million and a half of acres of land upon the Portland line, and three millions on the line to Quebec; - four millions and five hundred thousand acres. This land at the low upset price of 2s. 6d. an acre, is worth £562,500 at 5s £1,125,000. So, then, the interest on the value of the land, £75,000 a year, being added to the money already granted, and to the cost of what is to be raised at a ruinous rate, we have the round sum of £214,000 a year, while I offer to make her both roads, open her entire country, double and treble her population, for £108,535 a year, leaving her to make the most of her four million five hundred thousand acres of land as they rise in value. These are the facts, sir, upon which I rely to

convince the public men of New Brunswick; at all events, I am very confident that they will be very easily understood by the people.

But we are sometimes told that Halifax is going to ruin the Province, and that the distant counties have no interest in this scheme. Sir, it becomes Halifax to take the lead in this, as she has hitherto done in noble enterprises and battles for principle, of which all parts of the Province have reaped the advantage. The destiny of Halifax is secure. Providence has made her the natural emporium of east and west, has formed her noble harbor and capacious basin to receive the products of a vast interior. When the electric telegraph was introduced, it began at Halifax, because here alone was there business to sustain it. It paid, and now it is being extended to various sections of the Province by private enterprise. Suppose it had gone first to White Head, where nobody lived, and where there was nothing for it to do? The speculation would have failed, and no more lines would have been built. So it will be with the railroads. We want them, not merely for strangers to pass over our country (and if we put them on such lines, they would not pay, for local and not through traffic sustains a railroad), but for our own trade and our own people. Build one to White Head to-morrow, and of what use would it be to the people of Pictou and Sydney, where much misconception prevails on this subject? A century must elapse before White Head would grow to the size of Halifax, and, in the meantime, the cattle, and sheep, and pork, and butter and oatmeal, would come to Halifax, where the consumers are, and the cars would go to White Head where they are not. For every Pictou and Sydney man that goes to Europe, five hundred come to Halifax. What would be the consequence? Halifax would make her branch line, which would be profitable; the other would be ruinous, there being little or nothing for it to do at White Head, from the time a steamer arrived or went away. But, suppose a line made to Halifax, with money at a low rate of interest; in a few years it would pay, perhaps at once, as the Telegraph did, and then, how soon would branches extend to Pictou and Antigonish on the one side, and to Bridgetown or Annapolis on the other? How long would one of my English friends be making us forty or fifty miles east or west? Then, suppose the country behind us opened and filled up by two or three millions of people. Would they eat no fish? Yes, sir, we should have a home market for our fishermen, where they would not be interfered with by bounties, or have to pay twenty per cent. Suppose Halifax and St. John become depots for the productions of the West; will the shipping of Yarmouth, and Richmond, of Shelburne, Queen's, Lunenburg, and Guysborough, have nothing to do? Be

lieve me, sir, that the eastern and western seaports would rise, as Halifax rose, and where they have one vessel at sea now, they would then have

ten.

The whole Province, and not Halifax alone, has deep pecuniary interests in the construction of these railroads. But, after six months of thoughtful reflection on this matter, I have brought my mind to the belief that there are higher interests involved even than our own. I believe this to be God's work, and I believe that he will prosper it. I believe that a wise and beneficent Providence never intended that millions of square miles of fertile territory behind and around us should lie waste and unoccupied, while millions of our fellow creatures rot in almshouses and poorhouses over the sea, or perish for lack of food. I regard these railroads, after all, but as means for the accomplishment of elevated and beneficent ends. I believe that, while the mother country aids us in the great work of internal improvement and national organization, we can aid her by removing the plague spots, poverty and crime, from her bosom; we can offer her a freehold for every surplus laborer she has; we can take thousands who are burdensome and make them help to support those who now support them; we can cut off the sources of crime by providing for the orphanage of England; we can clear the streets of the destitute, and rob the gallows of its prey. During my recent visit to the British Islands, I surveyed with pride and exultation their accumulated wealth; their high cultivation; their noble cities; their unsuspected courts; their active commerce; their science, art, refinement and civilization. But, I saw with sorrow and regret, much poverty and wretchedness which I believe may be largely abated if they cannot be entirely removed. Aid me in this good work, and the capital of England will flow into North America, providing healthy employment for her surplus population; - aid me in this good work, and the poor rates of Britain may be beaten down from £8,000,000 to £3,000,000; -aid me in this good work, and the streets may be cleared, and the almshouses closed up;―aid me in this good work, and, while the home markets are extended, British North America will rise to the rank of a second or third rate power, with all the organization and attributes of a nation.

There is one passage of my published letters, upon which I perhaps owe to my fellow citizens some explanation. It is that in which I suggest that convicts might be advantageously employed upon these railroads. Before you decide against this proposition, reflect how convicts are made in over peopled states. In Britain, the man who shoots a hare passing across his neighbor's ground, is a free man one day and a convict the

next.

What harm would he do in North America, where every urchin