ON

APPENDIX A.

CANADA AND ITS PRODUCTS.

December 4th., the Marquis of Lorne delivered the following address in Bingley Hall, Birmingham, England. He was listened to

with eager attention and loudly applauded as he proceeded :

The Marquis of Lorne, who was loudly cheered, said he must say one word in acknowledgement of the kindness of the Mayor's remarks. Wherever he and his two friends who accompanied him had appeared, the question had been asked. "Do you wish to encourage emigration?" He was going to take the privilege of a Northerner, and not give a very direct answer. (Laughter and cheers.) He was one of those who held that the people knew their own minds best. (Cheers.) He had observed that between 200,000 and 300,000 English and Scotch men emigrated every year, and he simply wished to give all those who in their own judgment thought it better to settle elsewhere a second string to their bow. He thought that his five years' residence in Canada gave him a right to tell those who wished to know what the advantages of that great country The great bugbear, for it was nothing more, to the minds of many in contemplating a move to Canada, was the alleged great and trying cold of that country. This was a fear which was not justified by the character of the climate. The climate was exceedingly healthy. Fevers, which were only too common in parts of the United States, were unknown. Men attained to great ages, and where, as in the case of some English and many of the French, many generations had lived on Canadian soil, we saw the race more vigorous, if possible, than in the days of the first settlers. Cold it certainly was during five or six months of the year,

were.

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but the cold was dry, and except upon the seacoasts was much less felt than was cold here. The cold being greater for a portion of the year, the question of fuel was an all-important one, but it was most fully met by the conditions of the country. What was known as old Canada-namely, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Ontario and Quebec, was a vast region of woodland, now largely cleared of forest, but having an abundant supply of wood for fuel within reach of every place where man had settled or might settle. Enormous stores of coal were being actively worked in Nova Scotia, the output of whose mines was daily and hourly increasing, and was at the present time immense. They might see in the mines near Pictou galleries 20 feet in height, hundreds of feet below ground, worked in the solid coal. Therefore, as far as old Canada is concerned there never was any lack of fuel. Numerous were the claims or spots of land already taken from the Government for the mining of the mineral whose value far outweighed that of gold. Sir A. T. Galt, recently High Commissioner to England, had a good force at work, turning out as much coal as might be wanted. The railway engines already used nothing but the coal of the district. From north to south for a distance of 400 miles all along a track of at least 200 miles in width, experts believed that coal in any quantity existed beneath the long, undulating swell of the prairie. Even if they had not found this exhaustless supply the settler in the North-West would not have had long to wait, for the railway would have brought him the coal of British Columbia. Last week he heard from Dr. Dawson, of the Geological Survey, that one vein of coal near the railway, five feet thick, was undoubtedly anthracite, or the hard, shining coal now only obtained from the United States. Speaking in regard to emigration, Lord Lorne said: "No one doubts that very many in our large towns can benefit themselves by moving. Very many in the country can do so also, but I would rather see departures from the overcrowded towns. All emigrants should go out in the spring. Now, taking first the inducements offered to emigrants who desire to procure manual labour-at present the Canadian Pacific Railway is offering good wages to navvies, and the cost on a pas

sage is only £3. Anyone knowing the trade of a blacksmith, a mason, a bricklayer, or willing to work as a hired man on a farm, is sure of employment. It is not so desirable for young men who wish to lead a town life; the town life, as compared with the country life, gives fewer opportunities, for the cities are relatively to the population small. I have known very many men who have succeeded well, and who began with nothing, or next to nothing. But I should counsel all who contemplate emigration and taking up of farm life to have, if single men, from £50 to £100, exclusive of the cost of the journey, and if married, from £200 or £250 to £500. There are good vacant places to be had almost anywhere. It was only the other day that Lord A. Russell told me of some good land near Halifax, Nova Scotia, to be had for a dollar an acre. In the North-West you can get 160 acres of excellent land for £2. The land regulations under which these grants are made are to the full as favourable as those of the United States, and in some respects are to be preferred. For women there is plenty of space and places, but the women who will succeed must be women who will work; they who wish to go out as teachers, governesses, etc., had best stay at home. The Committee of the Women's Emigration Society, of Montreal, told me lately that they could at once place 1,000 girls of good character, if sent out to them, and that the demand for them was so great that they would be sorry to see them go past Montreal on to Ontario. But the ladies of Ontario are equally solicitous to procure good servant girls, who are excellently well treated in Canadian families. Even this excellent treatment is not sufficient to prevent them from marrying, strange to say, and the demand for wives fully keeps pace with the demand of housewives for servants. Indeed, the number of girls who keep to the first resolution they may have formed to get as far as Winnipeg is small indeed, if they loiter by the way to take up situations in the cities along the road to the West. Before speaking of the under regions of Canada I should like to tell you of the country you would first see supposing you were to make a voyage to Canada. I will take you, in the first instance, to the top of a steep, isolated cliff at the end of a long ridge of volcanic rock, which is covered

with pine woods, and which overlooks a gulf of the sea on one side, and a fair, wide, and green valley, twenty miles in width, upon the other.

If

you wait until the tide ebbs you will see that it leaves a vast stretch of red sand, for the tide goes back very far. It will come back again over those sands with a rush which will send the water up as fast as a horse can gallop, until it surges against a long line of earth entrenchments, like the Dutch dykes, which prevent its further advance. If you look carefully upon the country mapped out beneath your feet you may see certain other ridges which look like old earth walls, and further inland, just visible, wooden farmhouses, generally painted white and with verandahs running round them. You would be right in supposing that these old walls are ancient dykes. Formerly the mighty tide of the Bay of Fundy, now restrained by the outer walls, swept up to them. These were made in old days, which have been rendered familiar to many by the genius of Longfellow, who spoke of a time when the happiness of the old French Canadian dwellers in this valley had come to an end, and the war which had raged between England and France had touched them, too, and had compelled them to to leave to others the well-loved pré, or great meadow, which they had tilled in security for some generations. This valley is only two or three hours distant by rail from Halifax, one of the winter ports of the Dominion of Canada-a port to which steam vessels from the Mersey sail every week. Its white farmhouses and its orchards are types of many others to be found in various portions of the Province of Nova Scotia, which is a province singularly rich in varied geological formations, and having, with a little gold, what is far more valuable than any goldfield, great fields of coal. If wages were only as low in Nova Scotia as they are in England and Scotland, one of her ports, the port of Pictou, would soon rival Glasgow, or Belfast, or London, as a great iron shipbuilding port. There are mines as vast as those of Lanarkshire. Close to the water you may see veins of coal of 20 feet or 30 feet in thickness, and the galleries of the mine are so spacious that full grown horses are always used, and the miner swings his pick not crouched or cramped, in a bending attitude, but standing at his full height. Close to the sea also