§ On the Resolution for a grant of 34,500l. to complete canals and other water communications in Upper Canada,
§ Mr. Humeinquired if the Government had had any communication with the authorities in Canada respecting the large expenditure of money that had already been incurred to extend water communication in that country. Upwards of 300,000l. had already been laid out on those canals, and it would require a million, he understood, to complete them. He was afraid they would turn out as bad a speculation as the Caledonian canal. The tolls received at present did not amount to one-half the interest on the expenditure. It would be much better to let the Canadian Government take the whole affair into its own hands, and make it a present of the million, than have anything more to do with the undertaking.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that the offer had been made to the Canadian government to give the undertaking up to it, even at the loss of the money which had been expended, but the Canadian government had refused to take it. He thought it would have been better if Parliament had never sanctioned such an expenditure, but as the works had gone so far it would be bad economy to leave them unfinished. With respect to the tolls, he believed that when the canals were finished they would be productive.
§ Mr. Fitzstephen Frenchdeclared he could not allow this vote to pass over in silence. He felt it his duty to call the attention of the House to the different system adopted towards Canada, a distant and half alienated colony, and that adopted in everything relating to Ireland, an integral portion of the empire. It could not be better exemplified than it was in the estimate now before the House. Government, after the expenditure of upwards of a million on the formation of this canal, admitted on all hands to be merely a work of local improvement to the country in which it is situated, and which, enjoying all its advantages, refused to pay the sum 460 of money required to keep up the works, the tolls not being sufficient, came down to the House for a further sum of 35,000l. for this purpose; while, in the next estimate, we find a paltry sum of 1,000l. was proposed for the works on the most important navigation in the British empire, the river Shannon, the benefit to be derived from which the nation had been so long deprived of for want of a trifling expenditure. Was this, he would ask, a line of conduct a wise or fostering Government ought to pursue. It was now more than two months since the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer undertook, on the part of his Majesty's Government, to introduce a Bill for the improvement of the river Shannon; and as he was aware that Bill was now ready, he trusted his right hon. Friend would not delay bringing it before the House. Considering the late period of the Session, and the quantity of business to be got through, he felt it his duty to press him on this point. Neither for commercial intercourse, nor in a military point of view, was the Rideau canal to be placed on a level with the Shannon. The former was inferior to the latter in extent, in the proportion of 140 to 230 miles, of navigation; inferior to it in its locality, as far as the trade of England was concerned, and it ran through a country so little peopled that this country was obliged to build block-houses, at the expense of 30,000l., to place individuals to guard the banks from the accidents they were liable to from floating timber, &c. As a military work no man of common sense could be persuaded that any canal merited that name which ran through a wild uninhabited country—actually an unreclaimed forest—close to the enemy's position; in some places the waters dammed up to the height of forty-five feet over the land of the adjoining country; a work liable to be destroyed by a few men in a few minutes; why, the idea of maintaining these extended works and embankments in case of war was little short of delusion. On looking over this estimate, the sum of 23,000l. appeared for compensation to the owners of land taken up by this canal; compensation for unreclaimed land; compensation for quadrupling the value of the states through which it passed. He trusted his Majesty's Government would be enabled to give some satisfactory explanation on this subject, and that at least they would 461 give some assurance that this would be the last time the House would hear of compensation for damage done in cutting a canal through an unpeopled country.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to the question put to him by his hon. Friend, assured him he would introduce the Bill for the improvement of the Shannon with as little delay as possible; at all events, he would pledge himself to carry it through this Session.
§ Resolution agreed to.