Barkerville, Williams Creek, Cariboo
AS OTHERS SEE US
The Canadians are not enamored of the Commune. While Parisian patriots strive
to reconstitute society on the model of the Middle Ages, Canadian legislators
vote for a scheme intended to convert all British North American provinces
into a single and harmonious State. With exceptions too trifling to mar
the symmetry of the whole, the work is complete. If prince Edward Island
chooses to remain aloof the Dominion will be no great sufferer.
Now that British Columbia has been incorporated by a formal vote of the
Dominion Parliament, and the rule of the Government of the Dominion has
been extended, from Halifax on the Atlantic to Vancouver Island in the Pacific,
the great task of Confederation is virtually accomplished. If greatness
were measured by size, then the Dominion would rank high in the scale of
nations. The territory of which it now consists is as vast and varied as
Europe. The climate is as diversified as that of Europe, for the mildness
of Naples may be enjoyed at Victoria, and cold keen as that of Moscow must
be endured at Quebec. The language of the people is by no means uniform,
for the members of the Legislature have the right to speak either in English
or French, and in one section of Ontario the population all speak Gaelic.
There is thus no lack of variety in the Dominion. It possesses all the elements
of a new nationality. its immediate concern, however, is not how most rapidly
to become a nation, but how to people the vast tracts of rich and uninhabited
lands that stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. One of the conditions
under which British Columbia has been incorporated is that a railway shall
be made across the continent in a reasonable time. The construction of this
railway will increase the demand for labor, and will heighten the inducements
which now prompt the emigrant to choose Canada for his future home.
If Canadian statesmen make right use of their opportunities, they may easily
offer inducements which will ensure the rapid peopling of the fertile lands
of the Great Northwest. In working to make a railway across Canada they
will be taking the surest course for the development of the resources of
the Dominion. Their real trials are not over with the triumph of Confederation.
The Canadians have to contend against a formidable rival, and unless they
can show themselves quite a match for their neighbors across the boundary
line, they will not succeed in making their country either attractive to
the settler or a power in the world. -- (London Daily News)
