The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-07 00:00:00

sisters, it will be more than repaid by the grand
highway which they will open to her trade
and commerce. At present, as Dr TUPPER observed,
Canada is dependent for half the year for means of
access to a foreign state, but when the great Inter-
colonial Railway, which is the first national under-
taking unanimously insisted upon by the delegates
shall have been completed, Canada will reach her
arms to the ocean through the whole year round.
4' The inexhaustible resources of the Great West
will flow down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and
from thence to the magnificent harbours of Halifax
and St. John, open at all seasons of the year."
Whenever we talk of the resources and the wealth
of these provinces, however, we are but using
figures, rather than facts, we are referring to the
present condici of a thinly populated colony, not
the actual prospects and capacities of so large and
rich a tract of country. As one of the speakers at
Quebec observed, the mineral resources of the colony
of Nova Scotia alone are most important. " You
will find a vest country occupied by as valuable
coal deposits as are to be found on the surface of
the earth. You will find iron mines in the pro-
vince of Nova Scotia, which, in quality, will suc-
cessfully rival the finest Swedish iron. Yon will
find iron and coal associated with limestone. In
fact, you will find inNovaScotia all those chief natural
characteristics which have made Great Britain the
first commercial mart of the world." It is as yet,
too, quite uncertain to whet extent the gold mines
may be developed, but there is nothing in the geo-
graphy or configuration of the country which forbids
their rising in to an important item in the prosperity
of the country. Each colony, in fact, can claim
some advantages of its own, Even Newfoundland,
from its position in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, can-
not be regarded as an insignificant member of the
Union. Colonel GRAY, the Premier of Prince
Edward's Island, in whose capital, Charlottestown,
the deputies first assembled, told the gentlemen
gathered at the banquet, that "it had been the
dream of his youth and his manhood that he might
one day be citizen of a great nationality stretching
from Vancouver to Halifax." Such a descendant
would be worthy of the mother country, and the
time seems now at hand when the foundation-stone
of its future greatness shall be laid. though thinly
populated, and with resources not a tenth part de-
veloped, with slender capital, and with all the obsta-
cles attending the growth of young and ungoverned
States, the British North American Provinces are no
insignificant group. They possess, not only in their
association with Great Britain and in the natural
capabilities of their country, but in the inherent
energy, the brave, enterprising spirit and indomit-
able courage of their race, the true wealth of nations.
Their liberty of thought and speech and action, their
free instil utions and constitutional government,
secure them that internal liberty without which no
State can thrive; and, like the labourer's children
whose legacy was in the soil, they have but to devote
themselves to the cultivation of their own colony to
rise into wealth and dignity. Less rapid in their
growth than their great neighbour, less confident in
I speech, less powerful in action, less wealthy in ex-
chequer, their arrogance is tempered by the calm-
ness, their public acts by the moderation, and their
civil freedom by the tolerance and respect for indi-
vidual right which are among the especial charac-
teristics of Englishmen. Men like these do not
resolve rashly nor act hastily. The step they have
united in deciding on is a wise and prudent one,
suited to the exigencies of the time, and favourable
to the development of the colonies; and though a
work of such magnitude can hardly reach the end
without meeting some impediments, we trust they
may be no more than passing in their nature and
limited in their influence.