New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-05-14
CANADA.
From Our Own Correspondent.

lOhONIO, wednesday MAY y Ac'o'
The postponement of the Victoria Bridge Is
now insisted on by Parliament. Tonight, as
learn BY telegraph, the Legislative Assembly put
clause in the Grand Trunk Railway BILL pro-
hibiting any expenditure on the Victoria Bridge
till the line from II. Thomas, 30 miles below
Quebec, to Stratford be completed and in ope-
ration.
Government has for some time had bill before
the Legislature for establishing municipal insti-
buttons in Lower Canada on the same footing as
they are in Upper Canada. There is no municipal
system in the Counties of Lower Canada I;
and to that cause no doubt great deal
of the lack of improvement in that
section is owing The excellent municipal system
of Upper Canada, under which every county,
every township every city, every town is, and
every village of 900 inhabitants may be sepa-
rate municipality, is TO be carried Not that these
municipal bodies are patterns of wisdom, by no
means; they aie in some respects, especially in
money matters to the last degree reckless In
1850 they were vested with power to subscribe
for stock in railroad companies, and this power
las certainly been most recklessy exer-
cised in TACT il has been fagrantly alb
used. The paltriest municipality thinks moth
ing of mourning 100000 OF debt to aid one
railway undertaking that will perhaps only
tend TO injure it. Take the case of municipalities
along the line of the Buffalo. Brantord and .oode-
rich railway, for example Three or four of them
subscribed fl9l,OO0 TO the stock of that Com
pany, and two more, the town of Brantford and the
village Of Stratford, loaned the Company fl25 900
on the security OF second mortgage bonds. All
that this road can do for Brantford is to take the
business past il. There are dozens of other towns
and villages, in precisely similar situation with
regard to railroads This particular road has come
TO stand-still and the interested municipali-
ties are before the Legislature petitoning for
assistance. Experience has proved that il
was step of very questionable wisdom, TO vest in
the municipalities the power OF taking stock in or
making loans TO railroad companies
In 1853 an act was passed torbldding the aale Of
public lands TO any but actual settlers, and re-
stricting TO 200 acres the quantity of public land
which any individual could buy. To certain ex-
tent this regulation has operated benefcially. it
has kept a great deal Of lands out of the hands of
spectators, and the lands subject TO these regu-
lations have been taken up with a rapldlty pre-
yiously unknown On the other hand they have
been productive OF unnecessary embarrassment,
and various means have been found of evading
them. The question has been rocOnsdered by the
Government, and the settlement conditions done
away with in respect to the old townships
tricts but il Is just now question whether they
shall not be abolished altogether.
The military headquarters of the Province is TO
be changed from Montreal TO Quebec
Alocal paper states that the quantity Of squared
timber from the Ottawa and It's tributaries viii
tbs year be reduced to half the amount of preyi-
Gus years.
Last fall kept you posted up in the surveying
operations of the St Lawrence Rapids; in the
fail of 1883 the Government entered into con-
tract with Messrs. MAillefert and Keaslof, sub
marine engineers, TO survey the rapids OF The 81.
Lawrence from Prescott TO the head OF the La
chine kapids with view of ascer tanning the prae
ticabilitt Of obtaining channel all the distance
200 feet wide and II feet deep. They exploded
80 submarine charges CT lbs u of powder each,
and the result OF these experiments together with
that OF the survey s that il is practicable 70 pro-
cure the channel of the required dimensions at
cost OF floU,UG0. A great many dangerous OBJ
structions consisting OF bars Of solid rock, heaps
Of bOlders and stoLe, will have 10 be blown up
and the d,tns raised. The cost viii be thus dis
tributed over the different rapids:
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