The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-01-16
The proposed railroad to the paoine.

road across the continent, there is some danger
that our own arguments may bring into the
field formidable rival. The subject is al
ready beginning to excite attention in England
We have before us a work just published in
London, entitled Britain redeemed and Can
ada preserved, by F. A. WILSON, X. l.. H., f.
>, and ALFRED b. RICHARDS, esq.,, barrister
| at law at Lincoln's lima handsome octave
volume of $50 pages, with illustrative plates and
maps The object ofthis work is to urge upon the
British government the project of railroad
from Halifax via Quebec to the Pacific, across
the Canadas near our border line. 1t proposes
| to employ on the work all the convicts and pau
pers of Great Britain, besides other portions OF
the surplus population, Of which, it is averred
more than five millions may be spared; to erect
Canada into an integral part of the kingdom,
to be represented in Parliament; to govern it by
a vice-royalty; and 10 establish there nobility
and all ranks of society corresponding to those
of England
Some Of the political schemes here suggested
appear visionary and extravagant, and may not,
perhaps, be carried into effect; but the pro-
ject of a railroad tosthe Pacific touches the com
mercial interests and supremacy of Great Brit
ain, and is not likely, therefore, to remain long
unheeded. The length of the proposed road is
two thousand eight hundred miles; the esti-
mated cost an average of $4,000 per mile, or
GA 900 600 for the entire work-a sum less
than half the present annual cost of pauperism
in Great Britain, which this plan proposes to
save by transferring the paupers to Canada
where it is expected they will become indie
pendent of public charity.
The following extract will define more fully
the general purpose of the work:
Z" We will now proceed to open the intention OF
the work, already more than suggested by the
title, viz, to show the feasibility Of line of railway
across the Conadas, joining the Atlantic and Pa
cifc oceans the necessity of this, to retain the
most important of colonies, and to keep pace
with the vast designs of the United States the pos
sbility of perfect incorporation of Canada with
Great Britain, under the same laws, government,
privileges, and with fair amount of representa-
ton, an important integral part of this kingdom;
thus to preserve her, as with less cramped and
fatal policy might still have preserved the fealty
and affections of the United States; the numerous
benefits to be derived from the employment of con-
vict labor; the immense individual advantages to
emigrants the absorption of paupersm, and its
alchymcal translation to comfort, prosperity, and
wealth; the relief here, the blessing there and
Gnally, the opening of reciprocal commerce with
Northeast China and with Japan by speedy and
direct means, and by the unlimited sway of the
Chinese seas thus to ertend the broad belt Of England
in the temperate round the tcorid. All this is TO
be done, for zoe haze the means before us the time has
nop arrived the necessity is urgent"
The following brief extracts are also peril
nent here
''Chna is centre of attraction ; il is SO to
Russia it ia to America but zoe alone haze yet the
game of the to0rid in hands" "Our grandest
schemes Cat home) defunct and stillborn rail
ways, from anywhere to nowhere" "No trihing
measure will do there" Tin Canada) close her,
and you lose the world. BY generous and ex-
tended policy you can alone retain her." "People
of England. quake! You possess every thing.
You act if you had nothing" "Again say.
People of England, apake! Preserve the Canadas
as the means of salvation" "The land of promise
Ito us) is Canada; but not Canada under its pre-
sent system, with its interior still deserted and
frequented; its population troubled and discon-
tented, all hudded up to the east in mixed com.
munity; its finest portions abandoned to the saw
age and its western coast cui de sac, tho
roughfare, without peopled port or local ship.
No; but Canada capable OF becoming closely
united member, or rather a portion and parcel OF
our State; as intimately mixed up and connected
with Scotland and Ireland, pursuing the
same objects and interests under branch institu-
tons, and one identical government and polity
her expansive bosom peopled from her eastern to
her western extremity and the intermediate space
constituted the grand high-road round the worlds
Of
general intercourse and commerce; and all this,
vclous as it may appear, by easy, cheap, and self
evident means"
Again:
"With continental territory of such vast ex-
tent as our Canadas, lying 30 invltingly between
us and the new commercial arena opening in the
Pacific, together with many of intervening
dependencies scattered over the Southern seas, are
to remain passive spectators Of this grand
drama of maritime intercourse, which is assem-
bling all nations upon the Pacific waters, without
availing ourselves of our paramount faculty and
means of converting the impulse to our principal
advantage? Look at the map and see if we not
stupidity obtuse in not securing the incalculablc
benefits which the opportunity now offers to Great
Britain; and judge if it not suicidal criminal
ity, should hesitate any longer to profit by this
California mania, and to assume the immediate
lead and direction of the South movement,
thereby to attract those cengrcgating interests to
British centrc2 For, with vast and undivided
tract Of the northern coast of America under
sway, stretching from the pole to the very con-
fines of the spot thus suddenly endowed with such
magnetic influence, what excuse have for re-
fusing this indirect appeal to obvious power
Nature presents with the means in the happy
position of Vancouver's land the Canadian lakes
open halfway access to this promising point,
through the heart of our own possessions, were we
only to bridge the intermediate space between
Lake Superior and our Northwest harbor. At the
bare thought of 30 rapid and direct channel be-
twixt Europe and Asia, what pictures of certain
prosperity and grandeur, enterprise and activity
| crowd upon the mind, with the prospect of will
derncss peoped-a remote ocean converted to an
immediate and familiar high. road-and regions
teemng with countless myriads, hitherto only
reached by tedious circumnavigaton of the globe,
brought to intimate connexion, it were, at our
very door--pictures we cannot contemplate with
out exclaiming - England, arouse! Ministers,
uicake ~