New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-07-01

they are stimulating themselves with hopes OF
making the distance betwe cen Liverpool ana
Vancouver in nine or ten days. The fact that
rapidly and enterprise have never been
Canadian characteristics does not affect these
optimists, who are quite confident that IN the
matter of transportation they are about to as
tonish the world.
No doubt the dispatch of the first through
train on the Canadian Pacific Railway Is some
thing of an event The construction OF that
trunk line has been a notable undertai ins, ana
If doubt has been felt as to the Immediate proht
of such an enterprise there could hardly DC any
AS to the ultimate value Of the line, As means
of settlement and an agency for the creation oil
markets. As regards the investment, looking
simply TO the interests OF the stockholders, the
nrosnect il less brilliant The road may be
permanent benefit to Canada, and yet 1t may
impoyerish its builders. That would be no
new experience. 1t has happened often IN TINS
country. where settlement is twenty times more
rapid than in Canada. 1t is true that there is
large area of cultvable land along the route oil
the Canadian Pacific but also there is great
deal of waste land and the distances are
great; and the climate is generally severe lbe
uncertainties attending the political future OF
the Dominion will moreover have tendency
to retard settlement, and in the opinion CT most
outsiders the recent vigorous essay at secession
made by Nova Scotia presages further disiu-
tegrating action.
Tie trouble with the Canadian Pacific is that
it has to create nearly all the traffic upon which
it must depend for dividends. This is not the
same thing as tapping an already settled ana
cultivated region. 1t is a wo!k OF time, ana
quite possibly of 4 long time; and while the
grass grows, according to the proveib, the
horse may starve. The Toronto Mail argues
that the new transportation route has the great
advantage over all rival routes of being "never
of what some political economists call the coal
momentum That is to say that the steamer
leaving Liverpool strikes great coal deposit at
LOuisburg; at Vancouver another coal Ded Is
reached and at Sydney. n. 5. W., thIrd
supply appears. On the Suez Canal route, 1t Is
said. artificial depots have to be maintained al
heavy expense. No doubt there Is force in this
consideration, and when the swift steamers are
actually pl,ing on the Atlantic and Pacific the
suuerjority of close connection with the coal
momentum may be demonstrated. But Judging
from the present financial condition OF the
Canadian Pacific. 1t will be a considerable time
before that is an accomplished fact, and in the
meanwhile the road must depend largely upon
the existing traffic, which cannot be adequate
TO the work put upon it. Settlement, even
when stimulated artificially, cannot be expected
to grow g,nially N country like Canada, and
much of that which starts for Canadian termlni
is sure TO be diverted TO more attractive local.
ties within the United States All things con-
sidered, the prospect of the new line is not so
rose-colored as our neighbors desire to tnlnk,
and there is much in the situation which must
still be regarded as cOnjecural.