§ LORD MONTEAGLE,in presenting a petition from Westmoreland, New Brunswick, praying for measures to facilitate the construction of a railway from Halifax to Quebec, adverted to the importance of establishing a direct, speedy, and secure communication by railway between Halifax, our naval head quarters in North America, and Quebec, the largest and most populous city in Canada, and the chief military station. The same line was evidently that which would be most advantageous fur commercial purposes. The importance of the line both for commercial and military purposes had been recognised ever since the Government of Sir James Kempt; and the most distinguished of the British Governors, Lord Cathcart, Sir W. Colebrooke, Lord Falkland, and others, had expressed themselves favourable to it. Since public attention had been attracted to the subject in the Colonies, the colonists had expressed themselves ready to bear their full portion of the expense, on condition of being aided by a loan, which might easily he obtained readily, if secured by the financial resources of this country. Major Robinson and Captain Henderson, two officers of the Royal Engineers, who surveyed the line, and executed that difficult duty with signal energy, resolution, and ability, had declared its entire practicability. The Railway Commissioners, to whom the subject 614 had been most inappropriately referred, reported their opinion that the undertaking was not likely to be a profitable speculation—this was probably true. The undertaking was to be regarded rather as a matter of Imperial policy than in any other point of view. Its unprofitableness for a time must be a conclusion which was not likely to be disputed. A line through a country of which great part was yet uncultivated could not be looked upon, in the first instance, as a remunerative money speculation; but, besides its importance in a military point of view, it would open a district in New Brunswick alone in which there were above 11,000,000 of ungranted acres. In addition was to be considered the development of the resources of Canada and Nova Scotia. If it were likely to be a profitable speculation at once, he should not be favourable to granting any public assistance; he was favourable to such assistance on the sole ground that this great colonial railroad was a matter of State policy, which would not be executed without the interposition of the public credit. Had the object of profit been alone looked to in such great national works, neither the Erie Canal, constructed under the auspices of De Witt Clinton, which had raised the assessed value of the property of the State of New York from 63,000,000l., at which it stood in 1817, to 110,000,000l., nor the Rideau Canal, nor the lakes and more important canals of the St. Lawrence in Canada, would ever have been undertaken. The colonists of the maritime provinces of British America complained justly of the neglect which their interests experienced at the hands of the mother country; and such was the state of depression in which they were retained in consequence, that the majority of emigrants from Britain proceeded directly to the United States, and even considerable numbers removed thither from our own colonies. Such was the case in the maritime States. But the case was different when, at the suggestion of Lord Sydenham, we had opened communications, and improved the navigation. He found that the population of Canada West had increased from 407,000 in 1839, to 717,000 in 1847; the acreage of occupied land had increased between the same periods from 5,100,000 acres to 6,400,000; the number of houses had increased from 25,000 to 42,000; the number of horned cattle had increased from 230,000 to 366,000; and the value of the assessed property in that province had augmented 615 from 5,300,000l. to 8,500,000l. Far different was the state of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. As compared with the territories of the United States, it was a melancholy and undeniable fact, that in all that related to the progress in wealth and in the physical well-being of the country, the United States of America were far ahead of anything that we had done, in our maritime provinces, and the condition of the people of the United States was a greatly advancing and improving one as compared with ours. There was no stronger proof of this than the fact he had already noticed, that the vast emigration which took place from this country, and the vast bulk of the British emigrants, preferred settling in the United States to fixing within our own colonial possessions. The reports of the Emigration Commissioners bore testimony to this, and showed that during the last ten years, while the emigration had risen to upwards of, 300,000 persons, but 428,000 went to the British colonies, and 912,000 to the United States. Nor was this all; for, Canada being made in many instances the route to the United States, you must deduct from the 428,000 who appeared to have gone to Canada, the large portion who passed through Canada into the United States. Last year, more than two-thirds of our entire emigration went to the United States. Looking at the matter, simply on selfish grounds, it should be remembered that if our emigrants went to our own possessions, they must become better traders with us than if placed under the control of a Government jealous and suspicious, and whose interests might become hostile to our own. But at the present time there existed peculiar circumstances which made the matter one of more than ordinary importance. A communication between our two great military stations and the great Atlantic ports of transit or outlet, was an object of the greatest importance; and anything that his noble Friend (Earl Grey) could require of the Colonies to attain it, consistent with their financial capabilities, they were eager to grant. We did nothing to assist them. But whilst we were inactive, the United States Government were fully alive to the importance and profit of rapid communication; they were not indifferent, he said it in no offensive sense, to the importance of binding up Canadian commerce and Canadian intercourse in closer connexion with the interests of the United States. Two railway projects were on 616 foot to unite the east and the west with an Atlantic port in the United States. The one would comprehend branches from Quebec to Montreal, and, passing through Richmond to the southward, the route would proceed by a line very shortly to be completed, terminating at Portland. Another line also was contemplated from Halifax to Truro, at the head of the bay, and then turning towards the States, it would encircle the coast, and would finally provide a line of railway from Halifax to Portland. Thus the whole of your communications were to be brought directly to the United States Atlantic ports, comprehending in the one direction Quebec and Montreal to the westward, and Halifax in the east. But what was the object of these schemes? To give to the United States just what it was most important for England to secure for herself—which was a line from Halifax, within our own British territory, and thus to afford facilities both for commercial communication and for the conveyance of troops. He did not say it would be expedient or just to throw the slightest difficulties in the way of communications wherever the colonists could procure them; but it could neither be wise, just, nor expedient, to refuse encouragement to lines essential to the well-being of our own dependencies, and which, at the same time, were important for our imperial interests. He should like to know what course his noble Friend contemplated on this great question? Whether the colonists were to be left simply to their own independent colonial exertions, or whether there should be a combined action between the Colonial Legislature and the Home Government? There were other communications beyond the papers on the table, and especially from Nova Scotia, which he should be glad if the noble Earl (Earl Grey) could lay before their Lordships. Mr. Howe, a most able public officer, from Nova Scotia, was bearer of official papers of great importance. Was that correspondence complete? If it were as yet in an imperfect state, he should be the last person in the world to press for any immediate production. But whilst Parliament was sitting and during the present Session, he thought it behoved them not only to do what they could to advance a great and important national object, but also to take care that no step was unadvisedly taken either by the Colonial Governments beyond the Atlantic, nor yet by the Home Government, that would stand 617 in the way of completing the whole enterprise of a great object. He apologised to their Lordships for taking up so much of their time; but the occasion was a pressing one, and the petition having been placed in his hands for presentation, he felt that he would not have done his duty if he had not brought the question tinder their notice.
LORD STANLEYsaid, he was quite sure that no apology was necessary from his noble Friend, who had introduced, with great ability and clearness, a subject to their Lordships' notice, the importance of which he had in no degree overrated, and the importance of which he feared their Lordships had hitherto been disposed to underrate. This question was one that had long been under the consideration of parties who, from various circumstances, had been called upon to take an interest in colonial affairs; but every day and every hour that elapsed, only added to the importance of the question itself, and to the necessity of coming to a speedy and practical conclusion concerning it. He was not one of those who underrated the importance to this country of Canada and the whole of our North American possessions; but important as was Canada and the whole of these possessions, comprising an area of surface not less than the whole of Europe put together, a large portion of which was well suited for the production of a hardy and healthy race of people—he thought, if it were possible to separate their interests or their political relations—which he believed it impossible to separate—he was not sure if he should not say that even beyond the preservation of a great part of Canada to us, which in his notion was an inferior point of view to regard the matter in, the possession of what were called the lower provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, from their geographical position and their naval and military capacities—from the resources they afford in time of war, and the advantages they are able to offer us in time of peace—he was not sure if he would not say that these lower provinces, infinitely less extensive as they were, were not of much greater importance to Great Britain than all our Canadian and other North American dependencies. But if there was any one point of view in which these colonies, or the great portion of the North American continent which still belonged to us was to be regarded as of importance, that point of view was the intimate connexion of all 618 these provinces in one unbroken chain of communication, rendering their material and social intercourse as easy as possible and combining with that intercourse, as necessarily and naturally follows, their political connexion with each other and with this country. He held, therefore, that the establishment of a line of communication between Halifax and Quebec, for a distance of about 700 miles, through an exclusively British territory, rendering two points—and two points essential for the power of this country, which are now separated by a vast extent of wilderness on the one side, and by a difficult and, for a great portion of the year, frozen coast on the other—rendering their communication from being what they now are, most uncertain, most difficult, and most dilatory—rendering it rapid, easy, and constant—that, he said, was an object in itself of primary importance to the interests and to the imperial power of this country on the continent of America. But it was also a matter of incalculable importance that we should open to the teeming thousands and millions we were pouring out from this country, where they were unable to obtain a livelihood—that we should open to them a home in a healthy climate, and within a very limited distance from our own shores, which did not exceed a twelve days' passage by steam—and the rapidity of that passage was every day increasing—it was of the highest importance, whether we looked at it as affording a relief from our pauperism or an increase of our power in those regions—that we had eleven or twelve millions of acres of unoccupied lands, fertile and possessed of great mineral wealth, and which, at the same time, would be the means of extending our military power, and securing the permanence of our empire in America. This was no ordinary case of a railway project, where the question very properly might be, would the line pay or not? but it is a railway which, even in a pecuniary sense, he had sanguine expectations would pay, if they took into consideration not merely the traffic on the railway, but the adjuncts they would raise by the formation of it. But he said if it would not pay one shilling for the 100l. in a pecuniary point of view for the next ten years to come, the interposition of this country, not for the purpose of involving itself in an enormous and a needless expense, but for the purpose of aiding with its credit, if not by more than its credit, those who were anxious to the 619 utmost of their power, and even beyond their power, not for a local, but for an imperial object, this was a subject well worthy of the consideration of the Imperial Parliament, and was not to be looked upon as a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. It was exceedingly gratifying to hear from the noble Lord the result of a similar, and as he thought wise, advance, not of expenditure, but an advance of the credit of this country, for the purpose of encouraging the great line of canals and inland navigation in Canada. We advanced not sums of money, but guaranteed, on the security of the provincial revenues, a sum of money which the provinces had gladly and willingly paid. We guaranteed—and they obtained, far easier with our guarantee than they could otherwise have obtained it—the necessary capital to complete the works which had paid them over and over again; and we had not lost a single halfpenny, or been called upon to advance a single halfpenny out of this country; and we had seen what an immense spring of national prosperity had been produced from a wise and just policy of extending the credit of the country for the promotion of great colonial works. His noble Friend most truly said that in new countries we were not to consider the accomplishment or execution of such projects on the same principle as we would in an old and settled country. And the United States Government were aware of this fact. It might be very right here, when a railway was projected, to inquire what the traffic was, where it was to be established, and what amount of traffic might be calculated upon and would be obtained from the community that applied for the execution of such a work. It might be very right that the Postmaster in this country should refuse to establish a branch post office in any place, unless a certain number of letters were already in the process of being taken that would cover the necessary additional outlay. But in the case of a colonial railway the circumstances of the country were widely different. And perceiving this, the United States extended roads into deserts, where they knew that in the first instance they could not pay, and they established post offices, and forwarded mails at a very great expense to the Government; because they knew that these facilities, and the convenience of receiving the mails and letters would induce settlers, and tend to the occupation of the lands; and if we 620 desired our own colonies to progress with equal rapidity, we must, if not from our purse, at least from our credit, and by the sanction of our authority, and by our influence, advice and assistance, enable them to undertake works which they were by themselves incapable of undertaking and of executing. Now, the work of a railway from Quebec to Halifax divided itself into three portions, passing through three separate provinces under the control of three different legislatures. The countries were in some respects different from each other; but in all these there prevailed a deep anxiety that the work should be done—all were ready to guarantee out of the public funds of their respective provinces the large outlay necessary for effecting the work. They also offered a donation of a very large amount of their waste lands, not only for the purpose of forming the railway, but of a space of ten miles on either side of the railway, to the amount, he thought, of five million acres of land. And what did they ask for? That they should have the countenance and support of the Home Government. He could not expect them to perform these works unassisted and unguaranteed. He would take the case of each of these colonies separately. The province of Nova Scotia had 130 miles of railway to execute. The population in some parts were exceedingly dense, and in others exceedingly scanty; and there was great mineral wealth in Nova Scotia. This railway would form either a portion of the trunk line leading subsequently through New Brunswick, and that way up to Quebec; or of the other line, which, whether he would or not, would certainly be formed, and it would run between Nova Scotia, Halifax, and Portland; and from Portland, through the United States, to Quebec. The Legislature of Nova Scotia had, undoubtedly, a double interest in the execution of this part of the line; and even if the work should never be carried farther, it was a matter of importance to Nova Scotia that she should be able to effect on the easiest terms that portion of the line which would certainly be formed by one country or the other. And for this reason the present communication, or the communication that would very shortly take place between Quebec and Halifax, do what we pleased, would be a line which, supposing you put Quebec in the place of Edinburgh, and Montreal in the place of Glasgow, would be like the Caledonian 621 Railway, passing east and west, and then south and west from Portland to the State of Maine. From Portland a line was contemplated, and was actually in progress, passing eastward along the coast as far as the United States territory went, and intersecting the boundaries of New Brunswick; and afterwards it would enter New Brunswick and proceed to its termination. But the Legislature of Nova Scotia, very much, as he thought, to the credit of their prudence, their good sense, and their loyalty, had determined that the line, which would be completed in some way or other, should, if possible, not be completed by a body of foreign capitalists; and they had resolved to retain in their own hands the command of a line which ran through their own territory, and when they retained it in their own hands they retained it in the hands of a British province, unimpeachable in its loyalty under all circumstances, and having within itself the great port of Halifax, the very key of our North American possessions as a whole. But they said it was true they could afford to pledge their surplus revenues, which were sufficient to enable them to execute the work; and they were prepared to execute it, and should execute it at their own expense and at their own risk, confident that, so far as it was concerned, the work would ultimately pay, if only by the communication with the United States. But they came and said the work would cost 800,000?., and their surplus revenue was between 40,000l. and 50,000l. a year, their whole revenue being about 80,000l. a year. The work would, therefore, take ten years income of the entire revenues of the province. But the colonists said it was a different thing whether they should borrow the amount of ten years revenue at five per cent, as they could by their own debentures, or whether they borrowed at three and a half per cent, as they might with the sanction of the Government and the local legislature. They would show an actual surplus revenue, and offer as the first charge on it to the amount of 40,000l. a year, capable and certain to obtain a large increase; and if we were not satisfied with that security, not for granting the money, but for lending the use of our name, they would be ready that the waste lands of the colony should be given as a farther security to any amount that the Secretary of State for the Colonies might choose to demand. So far with regard to Nova Scotia. Then, 622 as to New Brunswick. Here the surplus revenue was not so large. The line was of a considerable extent, and passed for the most part through a very rich country with a fine climate, though somewhat rigorous, and it was well timbered, and abounded in mineral wealth. The Legislature was able to offer us, in addition to their surplus revenue, any amount we chose of their 11,000,000 acres of unoccupied and fertile lands in pledge as security for the repayment of the advances. The whole of this country was open to British settlement if this line of communication was formed; but the whole of the country would be closed to British settlement if we refused to open that line of communication, or rather, if we refused to give our aid and our guarantee to the province to enable it to undertake a work which was not more important to us than it was to them. Now, he felt that to grant our aid was a wise, a sound, and even an economical course in the end, even though, in the first instance, it would involve an outlay; and sure he was that it would confer immense benefits on the colony, and bestow incalculable advantages on this country itself, and confirm its territorial power in North America. Now, there were various ways in which the Colonial Secretary of this country might aid in the accomplishment of this project. He might, as in the case of Nova Scotia, offer the guarantee of the Government of England for the sum to be raised on the security of the surplus revenue and unoccupied lands of the provinces; or he might adopt another plan, which would be approved by all the other colonies. The colonies had offered to grant ten miles of laud on either side of the line to any company that would make it, and also to grant the company the amount, between the several provinces, of 60,000l. a year for a term of years to come, to cover any deficiency which might arise between the earnings of the line and 4 per cent interest on the outlay of any capital which might be expended in the execution of the project; but if any further security was wanted by any company, or by the Government entering into the guarantee to meet the case, of the proceeds falling short of the 4 per cent, the provinces were ready to pledge their unoccupied lands to the required extent. With these securities from the colonies, if the Government would give its guarantee, he thought capitalists would be found in this country perfectly willing to undertake the execution of either line, or any portion of 623 it, if that course were preferred by the Government here. Another course that might be pursued, which, however, he was not recommending, but which he thought the colonies would also agree to, was this; that the Government should themselves undertake the performance of the whole enterprise, taking as their security for repayment such portions of the waste lands as they thought necessary, and also, of course, taking the profits of the undertaking, whatever they might be, in repayment. He would not say that he recommended either of these courses; but it was important that the colonies should know without delay what the Government intended to do, and to what they might have to look. At present this was the position of affairs in Nova Scotia. With regard to its line an Act had been passed, and it was actually negotiating for the money, for executing their portion at the expense of the province. New Brunswick was guaranteeing its waste lands, and a certain sum to any company that would undertake to execute its line. The Legislature of Canada had actually passed a Bill, incorporating a company, which company was vainly seeking now to raise capital for completing the work. But every one of these separate projects might separately he accomplished, or the whole might be accomplished together, if the Government of this country would step forward and say it would lend its sanction and name. He did not blame the noble Earl (Earl Grey) for being cautious; he did not blame him for watching narrowly and carefully the expenditure that would be requisite for carrying on these projects; but he believed that in cases demanding a prompt and decisive course of action, even a heavy outlay might prove in the end the best economy, and lead ultimately to the most beneficial results. And if the noble Earl would only say which course he should be prepared to take, and if the Government would give any sanction and assistance for the execution of what these colonies could not accomplish unassisted, although he believed a comparatively small aid on the part of the Government, or its liberal guarantee for the capital required, on account of which guarantee they would never he called upon to pay a single shilling, such an amount of assistance from the Government, he firmly believed, would enable this great work to be carried to a successful completion; and equally certain he was that unless our Government and our Parliament did interfere, 624 these advantages would be indefinitely postponed—the communication between two most important points would be permanently cut off—the stream of emigration would continue to be directed, as it was not directed, from this country and Ireland, not to our own colonies, but to the territories of the United States—the communication between Halifax and Quebec would ultimately be through the United States, be wholly dependent upon them, and liable at any moment to be cut off in the case of hostilities; while the United States would be enabled to reap all the advantages of the transit in times of peace. Now, we had the option whether we should give to the United States these great advantages, and at the same time deprive the colonies of this country of the opportunity of receiving a useful and most valuable population settling in our own colonies, and by their emigration relieving the overburdened mother country of its surplus labour; or whether we would, by a prompt and liberal course of action, which would ultimately cost us nothing, enable our dependencies to complete that which would cement a closer union between our North American possessions, and teach them to feel that they were regarded by the Imperial Government and Parliament as an integral portion of the empire. The course was open, either for great good, or for great evil, for in this case great evil might result from a refusal of the prayer of the petition, both in specific loss, and in its effects upon the minds of the colonists. He trusted that there would be no waste or lavish expenditure, but that it would be seen that in that case prompt and energetic action was the one best suited to the interests and honour of this country, and also to the honour, though that was an inferior consideration, of Her Majesty's Government.
§ EARL GREYdid not think it desirable upon that occasion to say more than a few words. He only wished to express his sense of the great importance of the subject which had been brought under their Lordships' consideration. It was one which had occupied for a long time past, and which still occupied, the attention of the Government; and he thought the object was one well deserving of very great efforts on the part of this country, if means effecting it really feasible could be found. He need not then state what the various difficulties were which stood in the way, 625 but he wished to confine himself to the remark, that the question was still under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. There was at present in this country a gentleman of very great ability, who occupied a high situation in the Government of Nova Scotia, and who had been deputed to this country for the purpose of representing the views of the Government of Nova Scotia to Her Majesty's Government. He (Earl Grey) had had much valuable assistance from the information which that gentleman had afforded, and his suggestions were still before the Government, and would not fail to receive a very early answer. In the meantime, and before the question was decided, he (Earl Grey) had informed his noble Friend that there were no papers which he could with convenience lay on the table of the House; but there were papers which could be submitted to their Lordships before the end of the Session. He could not help adding that he thought some of the statements which had been made respecting New Brunswick were unjust. There were considerations which accounted for the comparatively slow progress of that portion of our North American possessions. He trusted that those causes were in course of being removed, and that, availing itself of its great natural advantages, it would enter upon a career of improvement which, he fully admitted, it ought to have commenced before. But with regard to Canada, within the last ten years, and especially within the last half of that period, its advance in prosperity, in education, and improvements of every description, had been more rapid than that of any part of the United States. Much of that prosperity was doubtless owing to the great public works which were undertaken on the recommendation of Lord Sydenham to the Government to Lord Melbourne. Those works had contributed greatly to the prosperity of Canada, and would do so still more hereafter, because it was only in a comparatively short space of time, and more especially since the repeal of the navigation laws, two Sessions ago, that those advances had principally been made. The repeal of the navigation laws had produced a revolution in the commerce of North America which he believed few persons were yet competent to understand; and he looked forward to the future with a confident hope that commerce would be developed from those colonies to a very great extent.
LORD STANLEYsaid, that as the noble 626 Earl had alluded to the repeal of the navigation laws, as having contributed to the prosperity of Canada, perhaps he would have no objection to lay on the table an account of the number of British and foreign vessels that had entered the port of Quebec for the two years preceding and the two years subsequent to the repeal of the navigation laws?
§ EARL GREYreplied, that there could not be the slightest objection to the noble Lord's request. But he dissented from' the opinion that the effect of that change was to be measured by the number of foreign vessels in the port of Quebec. He thought that everybody admitted that in regard to Canada the effect of the repeal of the navigation laws had been advantageous; and he must also observe that two years would not be by any means enough, because in the year 1847 the navigation laws had been suspended; and there was also a most unusual demand for corn in that year, which must have swelled the number of foreign vessels in the port of Quebec.
§ Petition read, and ordered to lie on the table.
§ House adjourned to Monday next.