Produced by Bill Keir, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
"Manitoba, the great province which now forms part of the Canadian
Dominion"
The Rt. Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, MP at West Calder.
The Canada Pacific Railway, so frequently referred to in the followingpages, is now almost an accomplished fact. It will, after traversing forover a thousand miles the great prairies of the Swan River andSaskatchewan territories, thread the Rocky Mountains and, running throughBritish Columbia to Vancouver's Island, unite the Pacific with theAtlantic. Of the value of this line to the Dominion and the mothercountry there cannot be two opinions. The system of granting plots ofland on each side of the railway to the Company, with power to re-sell orgive them to settlers, has been found most advantageous in, as it were,feeding the line and creating populations along its route. The cars whichcarry to distant markets the crops raised by the settlers, bring back tothem the necessaries of civilized life.
Readers who ask with the post-office authorities, "Where is Manitoba?"[Footnote: Pages 58, 59] may be answered that Manitoba is a province inthe great north-west territory of the Canadian Dominion, lying within thesame parallels of latitude as London and Paris. It has one of the mosthealthy climates in the world—the death-rate being lower than in anyother part of the globe,—and a soil of wondrous fertility, sometimesyielding several crops in one year. Immense coal-fields exist within theprovince; its mountains abound with ore; and its natural wealth isenormous.
While the province of Manitoba formed part of the Hudson Bay Company'sterritory, its resources were undeveloped. But in 1869 it was transferredto the Dominion Government, and received a Lieutenant-Governor and theprivilege of sending representatives to the Parliament at Ottawa. Underthe new régime enterprise and industry are amply encouraged.
The original population consisted chiefly of Indians and Frenchhalf-breeds; the abolition of the capitation tax on immigrants, however,has resulted in a large immigration of Europeans, who, with health andenergy, cannot fail to prosper, especially as they are without Europeanfacilities for squandering their money in luxury or intoxication. Of howuniversally the Prohibitory Liquor Law prevails in Manitoba, and yet howdifficult it sometimes is to punish its infraction, an amusing instancein given in Chapter XI. Mr. Alexander Rivington, in a valuable pamphletnow out of print ("On the Track of our Emigrants"), says that when hevisited Canada it was rare to see such a thing as mendicity—too oftenthe result of intemperance; "the very climate itself, so fresh andlife-giving, supplies the place of strong drink. Public-houses, the curseof our own country, have no existence. Pauperism and theft are scarcelyknown there—income-tax is not yet dreamt of." Free grants of one hundredacres of prairie and meadow land are still being made to immigrants, andthe population is rapidly increasing.
The Grand Trunk Railway—Sarnia—"Confusion worse confounded"—A Churlish
Hostess—Fellow-Passengers on the Manitoba—"Off at
last!"—Musical Honours—Sunrise on Lake Huron—A Scramble for
Breakfas