New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-11-03

~ EMPIRE WIN n DN"
While tho Americans have been hganizng
now States in their Northwestern Empire inc
canadians have been standing and waiting Tor
~ a,,a,n,r,otioo Of their manifest destiny.
NJ, 600 have Northwestern Empire, whose
-. o.,,,o,,sa apd natural resources were known
before Lewis and Clarke discovered the so"i0eS
of the Missouri but while they are III cohsoro'S
,,ossoss;on Of 100000 square miles OF arabic
land from Winnipeg to the mouth OF the MIC
,-onuio-of which an area of 100000 square
miles is the finest wheat-growing country III the
..,or,d-and are we'll aware that with its agri-
cultural and mineral resources II Is capable oil
s,,,,ror,;no nopulation of 30,000,0OO, they
Loro scanned doomed to watch with envi9us
ewes the magnificent industrial deVeiopmeno Oh
tho American domain while their own 'erriWry
remains idle and unoccupied, their mineral
,,oaItb rockbomd. and their destiny OF splendid
nromise a long way off in the dim reaches Oh
Tho future Our staff correspondent, in one OF
49, most comprehensive and important
letters which he has written from the North
west. presents the aspects OF TINS greatest OIL
Canadian problenS-the opening ana develop
mani of the Mackenzie baSin-and reveals the
uncertainty. restleSsness and mobility OF the
conditions of public opinion in Winnipeg re-
snecting the future of this productive and far
raachinp empire. 1t is letter without trace
of partsanship or National preludlce' Wnich
Americans and Canadians alike can read with
out entertaining suspicious of exaggeralon IN
statement or of premature display OF annexa-
ton sentiment.
The Dominion of Canada has been aptly COM
pared to a long-jointed tishing-rod, the prov
;nces overlapping and touching one another end
70 end Manitoba, with its outlying Mackenzie
basin, is the middle section of this hShlng-fod.
II is the section which will be the first to feel
the weight and pressure of resistance to the
present political status and the FIRST TO break.
II the Canadian Pacific Railway had not been
built it is altogether probable that Manitoba
would already have been drawn into political
relations with the American Union. That great
stroke Of Canadian and Imperial enterprise de-
ferred the development Of annexation tenden-
cies and brought in transition stage IN the
fortunes Of confederation. How long that ten
tative stage will last it is as idle fol- Americans
as for Canadians to hazard conjectureS; but one
thing is tolerably certain: change in the en-
listing status is inevitable after the death Of
Sir John Macdonald. 1t is in Manitoba, lyins
eouidiStant from the oceans with an outlying
empire in whose greatness and prosperity an
ambitious population has an abidIing faith, that
the tendencies in the direction of new political
order are already most strongly marked. 1t is
there that the fact is most clearly recognized
that the transition stage prodaced by conied-
Grafton and the organization Of that political
government on wheels the Canadian Pacific,
is a period Of arrested development Ii is there
that the first break either with the Imperial
system or with the confederation seems deS-
tined to occur. Forecasts al to the form and
direction of these tendencies may be premature !;
| but it may be asserted with confidence that the
| fortunes Of Canada will be determined largely
by the enlightened seIf-interest of it's North
west Empire.
Americans, in their Indifference to the eX-
pansion OF the Union nohhward, are influenced
| by their familiarity with the older and least
important Of the provinces. The Maritime
| Provinces and Quebec have "a romantic and his
torc past and an ambiguous and unsatisfactory
present. but their future is without promise, as
is already attested by the lack of faith in il
shown BY the increasing horde of Canadian inn
migrants swarming into the States. Ontario,
albeit busting with energy and overWeighted
with a sense Of its political Importance in the
Dominion, is not increasing in population and
prosperity on the lines of measurement of
American progress. The real and only seat Of
future empire north of the United States is that
wonderful eypanSe of arabic wheat growing
territory stretching from Winnipeg to the
Arctic. Nature has provided there all the con-
dtions Of clmate waterconrscs and mineral
wealth requisite for the development Of great
and prosperous people. Nature has also de-
creed the manifest destiny of the political and
commercial union Of that vast domain with ON
own imperial Northwest. Let Americans wht
are ambitious for their country cease to think
of Canada as lying mainly in the valley Of the
St. Lawrence but As forming the natural con.
tinuation Of their own Minnesota and Dallotas
and they will begin to realize the magniiicen
opportunitieS with which states manship and Ell
Eohtened common sense will speedily be con
fronted ON both sides of the northern frontier