The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-04
OANADA'S ELEPHANT.


Hudson's Bay Territory Canada has taken
an elephant upon her hands-an elephant,
moreover, which will not only be very trouble
some to get rid of, but which promises, if
kept, to perform the classical feat of Glaucus
horses, and eat up its owners finances. tbs
a very fine thing, of course, to have an empire
extending from the Gulf of ST. Lawrence to
the Pacific Ocean, and from the 49th parallel
to the Frigid Zone" but it is rather an expen-
sive luxury for an already over-taxed nation
of four or five million individuals, especially
when the possession involves periodical mill
tary expeditions which drain the treasury,
and the building of great railroad whose
cost has never been fixed at less than hun
dred million dollars.
The truth is that British Columbia and the
Northwestern provinces have never been
identified with the eastern portion of the Bri-
tish Possessions. Nature has erected an
eternal barrier between them which only
years of slow work and patient ingenuity can
even partially overcome while similarity of
climate, soil, and productions, and identity of
interests, have alike drawn them towards the
adjacent territory of the United States. No
fact in physical geography is clearer than that
the great basin between parallel 43 and the
Saskatchewan Valley is one and the same,
and that only artificial restrictions can keep
all its paris from attaining like and equal
development; and only some great enterprise,
which should render this community of inte-
rests conspicuous, is needed to brush these re-
strictions to the winds.
Such an enterprise is now under way in the
building of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
This great road will run, just below the
boundary line, entirely across the continent
from Lake Superior to Puget Sound; and it
crosses the Red River of the North at q
point whence boats can reach every navigable
lake and river in the provinces, and ascend
the Saskatchewan to the very base of the
Rocky Mountains. If the Dominion Parlia-
ment would ponder these facts, and, instead
of disputing, as it is now engaged in DOING
whether it should vote 56,00O,OO0 acres of
land and other millions of money to an enter
prise which could not raise a hundred mil
lion dollars if the whole of British America
west of James Bay were Pledged, would de-
vote its finances and its energies to establish
ing communications with the great artery of
commerce which the Northern Pacific Rail-
road will furnish, it might enable its elephant
to supply its own food, and save the Domi-
nion further trouble.
This would seem the true solution of the
problem-the only difficulty being shat such
a course would inevitably result in annexa-
ton. Such fate, however, as this latter
can only be postponed, not averted. 1t is the
manifest destiny" of that New Northwest
which has long been perceived by the COM
mercial interests of both peoples, and which
is now rendered certain by the construction
of our Northern Pacific Railroad. When this
great highway is finished, when the provinces
see population crowding in, and cities, towns
and farms springing up and spreading eut
over the vast region which it traverses, while
their own not less prolific territory lies waste
and unoccupied-when they see these things
(and they will be the most conspicuous fea
lures of our national growth during the nex
score of years., not all the political barriers
and imaginary boundary lines that human in
genuity could devise can keep them from
| Joining hands.