any of the public papers having any such tendency. But I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, that any government, having excited the hostility of northern New Brunswick, would have serious difficulties to contend with, in carrying on any scheme objectionable to that part of the Province. Are Restigouche, Gloucester, Northumberland, and the other counties in the northern and eastern districts, going to be satisfied with the arrangements which, up to the present time, appear to be made with regard to the Portland line? It is not at all likely. What are the apparent resources at present? Massachusetts has pledged itself to the amount of $500,000, Maine has guaranteed the same amount, and New Brunswick the sum of £250,000; making a total of half a million of money (not yet granted and paid up, but only promised), to build a railroad that will cost two million and a half. Where will you get the rest of the money? You cannot get it in the Provinces; you cannot get it in England, except on the terms which I have already stated to you. Then your only source of safety and certainty will be, by accepting in good faith the terms offered by the British government, and adopting the Quebec line as well as the other. But then it is said, that will be running too great a risk. You say, the Portland line will pay; there will be no risk there, but the whole risk will be in building the other line; and you state, as an objection, that the terminus will be at Halifax. But suppose the line comes down from Quebec to the isthmus between the two Provinces, that station will be at about an equal distance from St. John and from Halifax; then a man coming from Canada to St. John will stop there, and take the other line from thence to St. John; a barrel of flour coming from Quebec to St. John will take the same route they will neither of them go on to Halifax; therefore, the idea that Halifax is to gain something by the Northern line that St. John does not, is utterly fallacious. But how are you to make the line pay? I will not now weary the audience with papers and documents; but I may say, that while I was in England I was not idle; and the subject of peopling the Northern line engaged much of my attention. I found that there were thousands of the mechanics and traders of England, who were ready and willing to effect that object, in this way. The Province could sell them tracts of land on the line of the railroad, at a moderate price, and reasonable credit; they would make the line running through their own settlements; they would bring their families and friends out with them; they would lay off and cultivate the lands on both sides of the line, and thus bring them rapidly into a productive state. It would be to the interest of all parties to people the land as fast as possible; and in this way it might be done so fast that by the time the line of rail

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road was finished, there would be almost as many settlers on it, as the present whole population of the Province. I assume that you have at present about two hundred thousand people in New Brunswick. What is your ordinary Provincial revenue? About £100,000; or, by a simple calculation, about 10s. per head per annum. Suppose the Portland line will pay when constructed, and suppose you also incur the responsibility of the other line; the whole amount of annual interest required to be paid, will be made up by the additional revenue, raised from the additional population thus settled in the Province. I believe you have eleven millions of acres of land now unpeopled; what revenue do you get from that immense tract? Very little, I believe. But pour the stream of emigration into the Province, and the result will be that the real estate of every one of its inhabitants will be improved in value, and the public resources of the country will be largely enhanced.

The obligations imposed on all the Provinces by the restrictive policy of the United States are thus humorously enforced :

Every day shows me the necessity of our taking steps to raise the organization and condition of our country. The institutions and policy of the United States are such and so influential, as to make it obligatory on these British Provinces to have institutions and a policy of their own. Mr. Dickie said, the other day, that he would have liked to see Mr. Howe at the Portland convention; it was such a beautiful sight to see the two national flags floating and intertwining together. But I asked Mr. Dickie whether he would not have liked to see two mackerel there? the mackerel of the United States and of Nova Scotia, hung up side by side? But the mackerel of Nova Scotia would have had to pay twenty per cent. duty before it could have got admission to the convention at all. So it is with our lumber, our hay, our coal, our cattle, our potatoes, and every thing we produce; so that, in fact, there is not a single thing that could enter the United States duty free, excepting the delegates who went to the convention. This is a state of things to be submitted to only if we cannot help it; but not if we can help it. My remedy for it is this: let us open both lines; let us attract the stream of emigration to these Provinces. What then will be the result? A barrel of shad put down at the Bend of Peticodiac will immediately find its way into the backwoods; and the produce of the interior will quickly reach the seaports; we shall have an internal home market for our produce; a much larger and more productive population; increased

revenues; and we shall become relatively of more importance in the estimation of the mother country. There will be the means of rapid communication between the public men of the different Provinces; and thus a united and great influence will be brought to bear on the mother country, in regard to all our Provincial affairs.

Towards the conclusion of this speech, we find a touching reference to the relief which these public works would afford to the suffering poor of the mother country:

If, then, we can make these great public works in the manner proposed, I believe that we shall largely bless and benefit the communities to which we belong. Those works will open up a sphere of operation, which will employ and feed thousands of the now suffering poor of the mother country; and I believe that blessings from above will attend our exertions. Our railroads will tend to draw from their hovels and cellars a large proportion of those who, in the old country, are now left without daily bread, and so convert them into an industrious and thriving Colonial population. If there is any obligation on a human being to hand a crust to a starving neighbor, to extend alms to the indigent, in my mind there is an obligation weightier and higher imposed on us, when we find thousands of fellow-creatures perishing for lack of employment, to do something in this way for their relief; to invite them into a country where they will find plenty of occupation; where the fruits of the earth will yield them abundant support; where the poor of the mother country may become the heads of flourishing families, and will be, for all time to come, a source of strength in time of war, and of internal activity and wealth in peace.

Having passed through Portland, explained his policy to its leading citizens, and been hospitably entertained by them, Mr. Howe, accompanied by Mr. Chandler as delegate from New Brunswick, reached Toronto on the 15th of June. The delegates were received with great kindness by Lord Elgin, and were at once assured by the leading members of the government that they were prepared to recommend to Parliament to provide for their portion of the intercolonial line upon the terms prescribed by the Colonial Secretary. On the 16th, the delegates were invited to take seats in the Executive Council of Canada, where, the business having been discussed and matured, the basis of an agreement was adjusted and reduced to writing.

The Governor General, who attended at one of the meetings, giving his sanction to the proceedings in due form. The nature of the arrangement made will be gathered from Mr. Howe's report of the 20th July.

Mr. Chandler returned to New Brunswick immediately, that he might secure the sanction of his own government. Mr. Howe passed down the St. Lawrence, to spend a few days at Quebec and Montreal.

Nothing could exceed the hospitality and enthusiasm displayed by the Canadians everywhere. The delegates were entertained at a public dinner given to them by the citizens of Toronto, which the Governor General honored with his presence. They were taken to Hamilton to visit the works of the Great Western Railroad; and, with the leading members of both Houses, were hospitably entertained at Dundern by Sir Allan McNab. At Montreal, Mr. Howe was treated by the merchants and leading men of that city with marked distinction. They gave him a public dinner, a pic-nic at Belle Isle, heard him praise Lord Elgin, without a murmur, and propound his views of railway connection and North American nationality with the utmost enthusiasm. The spirit of annexation until recently rife in some parts of Canada, and which had manifested itself so unmistakably at Montreal, was laid thenceforth, and it is to be hoped forever.

Quebec gave Mr. Howe a reception of which any public man might be justly proud. He was invited by the Mayor and Corporation to address the citizens, which he did. A public dinner was offered and declined, as previous engagements interfered, but he met the leading merchants at a dejeune given by one of his friends. Men of all origins, creeds, and grades, vied with each other in doing honor to a man in whom they recognized high intellect and ardent patriotism, devoted to the internal improvement and social and political elevation of half a continent.

The speeches delivered in those cities included many of the topics discussed in that made at Southampton, and in the letters to Lord Grey. But in them all, Mr. Howe spoke out boldly against the spirit of annexation, at that time active in

Canada, and did justice to Lord Elgin, who had been so recently driven out of Montreal. At Toronto, addressing the Chairman at the banquet, he said:

We are accustomed to acknowledge that the Queen's name is a tower of strength. And the Queen's representative, in every British Province, though not clothed with all the powers and influence of the Queen herself, is still entitled to all the respect, deference and consideration, that Her Majesty would receive if she were among us. I cannot enter into Canadian squabbles. I care not which party is in the ascendant. I claim only that fair consideration for Her Majesty's representative, which whoever may hold the reins of government is ever entitled to receive; but, sir, while I listened to the eloquent and admirable observations just made by the distinguished nobleman who honors us by his presence, I tried him by the standard of his countryman Burns, who was not an aristocrat nor a lord, but who left his impress on the mind of Scotland, whose name, among us all, has become a household word:

"The rank is but the guinea stamp –

The man's the gowd for a' that."

Who that has heard him this evening, or has marked his course in these Provinces, would fear to try him by that rule? Contrasting the eloquence we have heard to-night with that of the House of Commons or the House of Lords, I can only regret that he is not in a position where he can be more usefully employed for the nation and the empire at large, than he is even at the head of this great North American gov

ernment.

But, sir, bear with me yet one single moment. It has been His Excellency's misfortune to come into these Provinces during that period of transition when we were passing from one state of political existence to another. He has, therefore, had to bear the brunt of it, and he has borne it well. It is a matter of delight and satisfaction to me that he sits here to-night with no man's blood upon his hand, that no man's life has been sacrificed to haste, to fear, or to apprehension. He sits in the midst of us, having provoked no war of races, but mingling in a friendly spirit with all races, communities, and orders of men, throughout British North America, feeling that he is entitled to general respect, and that he is sure to have it.

I repeat that I care nothing for your party squabbles. The party that has the majority is the party that should be uppermost; but the Governor who, pressed for the moment, has had the courage to endure,