The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-07 00:00:00

The " Fertile Belt" of British America.

From a review of a bulky pamphlet entitled What
shall we do with the Hudson's Bay Territory?
Colonize the " Fertile Belt," which contains Forty
Millions of Acres. By Thomas Rawlings,
F.R.G.5.,. author of " America, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific," in the Anglo-American, we take

the following :
The Hudson's Bay Company owns one of the finest
as well as one of the most extensive territories in
the world. The immense region from Labrador to
the Pacific, north and west of Canada, has been
cursed for many years with a Government whose
policy has been not only to discourage, but actually
to forbid, colonisation and settlement. For the
miserable trade in skins, this tne region,..capable
of providing a farm for every man in England, has
been hermetically sealed to the world. And yet
there are more than forty millions of acres of rich
land awaiting. the settler, where. grain and wheat
thrive with the minimum of cultivation, and where
happy and prosperous homes could be provided for
all the surplus population. which. €treat Britain
could send abroad for a hundred decades to come.

In the work before us Mr. Rawlings' notes sound
like the notes of a trumpet. He goes into his task
with allthe earnestness of onewho feels that failure is
disaster, and success salvation. He writes not like
an Englishman in his ordinary mood, but like an
Englishman aroused. You can trace in every line
an enlarged patriotism, a thorough and unmistak-
able loyalty to the best interests of iis country,
and an impatience, amounting almcet 10 rage, that
those interests are imperilled.
Progress," he
cries. Kick away the carcase of that
effete system
which has so long opposed British interests in the
New World, and make room for the advancing
tread of civilisation. What ! sell the liaison's Bay
Territory to Canada ? As well sell all Europe to
Great Britain, or all Great Britain to the Isle of
.Skye !

Mr. Rawlings proves that the Hudson's Bay
Territory is all that he claims for it,
anO that Eng-
land cannot hold its own on the American Con-
tinent unless it shall immediately
opea up this
region to settlement. He says :
" It is, in my opinion, of great importance to Eng-
land to hold its own on the American continent, for
I have ever thought that the rivalry
fowing from
the juxtaposition of the two great ni
etibers of the
Anglo-Saxon family is most beneficial and conducive
to the best interests of progress threugbout the
world. Indeed, I have studied that rifilry ; there
was first the rivalry of ships on Lake 00ario, then
of steamboats on that lake and on Lake rie ; again
there was, on the American side, the rivalry of
canals, from the Hudson River to the lakes, and
from Lake Champlain to the St. Lawreme, and on
the Canadian side the rivalry of the iintrovements
of the St. Lawrence navigation and of the Welland
Canal, for avoiding the Niagara Falls 4 another

time, and in Canada, too, there have been rival
trades with China and Japan, with England, ocean
steamers to supplant those of Inman and Cunard,
agricultural and other exhibitions, and the Recipro-
city Treaty, under which the United States tried its
best to over-reach Canada, and Canada tried its
best to over-reach the United States. Further west

there have been rivalries also, but the sparseness of
the population, and the comparative insignificance
of the interests involved, have not given to them
great prominence. Latterly, in the Far West, the
United States have taken the lead—have, in fact,
left British America behind in the generous race

that has been maintained ever since the close of the
war of 1812. Some Americans are constructing
the North Pacific Railroad from St. Paul to the
Columbia. The United States are constructing the
Union Pacific Railroad from Kansas city to Sacra-
mento city and San Francisco. British America,
recreant to its traditions, to its character, its inte-
rests, and the interests of Great Britain, is keeping
quiet and cool. It has become distrustful of its
power and destiny ; it has ceased to be acted on
by the example of its neighbour, and by-and-bye,
unless something is done, its neighbour will cease
to be acted upon by the wholesome stimulus of
spirited and intelligent competition."
Regarding the ridiculous proposition to sell the
territory in question to Canada, our author says :
" Let Canada make the most of the country it
possesses, and let public opinion rouse the Hudson's
Bay Company to the discharge of their public duty.
For two hundred years have the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany caught vermin for their skins, and it would be
intolerable were they suffered to close a huckster's
bargain with Canada for £1,000,000, or for any
price, when the effect of handing over the country
to Canada would be to add to the dead weight al-
ready borne by that province, and in effect to close
the Hudson's Bay territory against the world for
probably two centuries to come."

The " Fertile Belt" is thus described :

" The area of this remarkable strip of rich soil
and pasturage is about 40,000,000 acres. It was
formerly a wooded country, but by successive fires
it has been partially cleared of its forest growth,
but abounds with the most luxuriant herbage, and
generally possesses a deep rich soil of vegetable
mould. The winter of this region is not more
severe than that of Lower Canada. The snow is
never very deep, and in the wildest tracts the natural
pasture is so abundant that horses and cattle may
be left to obtain their own food during the greater
part of the winter. It is a broad agricultural region,
capable of sustaining many millions of people, and
abundantly supplied with iron ore, and an inferior
variety of coal, and as it spans the 800 miles which
separate Lake Winnipeg from the Rocky Mountains,
it more than compensates for the timbered desert
between the Lake of the Woods and Lake Superior.
The whole of the ' Fertile Belt' is well fitted for
settlement and agricultural colonisation. All
common cereals and green crops have been grown
successfully at the different posts of the Hudson's
Bay Company within the district."
For obvious reasons our quotations from this
most excellent brochure must be brief. But we
cannot close its pages without transcribing this
passage, wherein Mr. Rawlings speaks of the
lethargy of England regarding its interests on the
American Continent :

" We must not, we cannot permit this suicidal
lethargy to continue ; we should appeal to the
country, to the Parliament, to the Government.
Agitate ! agitate ! agitate ! as the supporters of re-
form are doing, and you will compel action. Can
the great commercial world look on in silence,
when they see this continued dilatoriness? We
answer emphatically, No ! Beyond lies the Pacific,
with all its auriferous wealth. Are we to lose the

chance of an overland connection with it ? Is
America to possess our splendid trade with India,
China, Japan, Australia, Victoria, and British
Columbia ? Are we to have no share in it? Are we
with our eyes open to the consequences, with our
mental vision clearly defining the breadth, extent,
and full meaning of this great exclusion, to stand
mute, dumb, unimpassioned, and silently cold as
statuesque marble? '
-We quite agree with Mr. Rawlings that on the
answers to these questions depend the issue whether
Great Britain shall continue to exercise an influence
in the New World, or whether the Great Republic
shall eventually swallow up and absorb the whole
of North America.