which they could resort from time to time for those religious consolations which they had been wont to enjoy in the land which had given them birth: for the bulk of the population of Upper Canada at this period were of English or of Scottish extraction; and it is gratifying to find that provision for religious instruction and education has progressed, step by step, with the settlement of this and other provinces of our North American colonies. For many years subsequent to this period, moreover, there was little good feeling existing between the population of Upper and Lower Canada, differing, as they did, in religion and in race; and, as a natural consequence, the population of the former depended for its increase rather upon an accession of new settlers from Great Britain than upon immigration of the French inhabitants from the lower province, whose very loyalty to the crown was of a dubious character. A strong feeling of irritation, in fact, existed between the populations of Upper and Lower Canada, which was aggravated by the intermeddling and vacillating policy of successive colonial secretaries, by whom the agitating patriots (?) of the latter were shielded from the consequences of their turbulence and sedition, whilst the loyalists of the former, whose firmness ultimately saved its "brightest jewel" from being reft from the diadem of the British sovereign, had the cold shoulder of authority turned to them at every available opportunity, when such studied insult could serve to conciliate and flatter the disaffected. Upon both provinces imperial legislation was the means of inflicting serious discouragement. A constant tampering with the trade of the colony was carried on, alternately stimulating and depressing it, giving it now one direction and again another, until little certainty for the investment of capital could be said to exist.

Upon this subject Mr T. C. Keefer, of Montreal, in his prize essay upon the Canals of Canada, written in 1851, remarks:

Canadian origin; and those markets received not only our own, but a large share of American bread-stuffs and provisions.

Our timber was not only ad

mitted freely into the British markets, but excessive and almost prohibitory duties were imposed upon importations of this article from the Baltic, for the purpose of fostering Canadian trade and British shipping. The British market was closed by prohibition against our wheat until 1814, which was then only admitted when the price in England rose to about two dollars per bushel-a privilege in a great measure nugatory; but the West Indies and lower provinces gave a sufficient demand so long as a free exby this route. port of American produce was permitted In 1822 the

Canada trade acts of the imperial parliament, by imposing a duty upon American agricultural produce entering the British American colonies and the West Indies, destroyed one-half of the export trade of the St Lawrence; and the simultaneous abundance of the English harvest forbade our exports thither."

It will be naturally inferred from the above that Canada had not, up to 1822, been an extensive exporter of agricultural produce of her own growth. Her population, however, were largely engaged in milling pursuits, in the manufacture of pot and pearl ashes, &c.; and the existing railways and canals of the United States not having then been formed, and afforded routes for shipment of the agricultural produce of their western territory from the Atlantic seaboard, such produce could be forwarded only by the St Lawrence, as if of Canadian origin-the people of Canada, and especially the shipowners, profiting largely by the trade. But to proceed with our essayist:

"As a recompense for the damage done by the Trade Act of 1822, our flour and wheat in 1825 were admitted into the United Kingdom at a fixed duty of five shillings sterling per quarter. The opening of the Erie and Champlain canals at this critical juncture gave a permanent direction to those American exports which had before sought Quebec, and an amount of injury was inflicted upon the St Lawrence which would not have been reached had the British Action of 1825 preceded that of 1822. The accidental advantages, resulting from the differences which arose between the United States and Great Britain, on the score of reciprocal navigation (which differences led to the

interdiction of the United States' export trade to the West Indies, and reduced it from a value of 2,000,000 dollars, in 1826, to less than 2000 dollars in 1830), restored for a time our ancient commerce. trade of the St Lawrence was also assisted

The

by the readmission, free, in 1826 (after four years' exclusion), of American timber and ashes for the British market, and by the reduction of the duty upon our flour for the West India market, and therefore rapidly recovered, and in 1830 far surpassed, its position of 1820.

"In 1831 there was a return to the policy which existed previous to 1822. United States' products of the forests and agriculture were admitted into Canada free, and could be exported thence as Canadian produce to all countries, except the United Kingdom; and an additional advantage was conferred by the imposition of a differential duty, in our favour, upon foreign lumber entering the West Indian and South American possessions."

Notwithstanding some fluctuations, caused by abundant crops in England, and a failing crop in Lower Canada, the writer goes on to say:

"The shipping and commerce of the St Lawrence rapidly increased in importance and value, with no continued relapse down to the year 1842. The revulsion of 1842 was general, being one of those periodical crises which affect commerce, but was aggravated in Canada by a repetition of the measures of 1822, not confined this time to the provision trade only, but attacking the great staple of Quebec -timber. The duties on Baltic timber in Britain were reduced; the free importation of American flour was stopped by the imposition of a duty thereon, and our trade with the West Indies annihilated by the reduction of the duty upon American flour brought into those islands. By imposing a duty of two shillings sterling per barrel upon American flour im ported into Canada, and reducing it in the West Indies from five to two shillings, an improvement equal to five shillings sterling per barrel was made in the new position of American flour exported from the Mississippi, Baltimore, and New York. The value of our trade with the West Indies in 1830 (during the exclusion of the Americans) amounted to 906,000 dollars; and in 1846 it was 4000 dollars!"

It will very naturally be supposed that a people whose interests were thus trifled with, and upon whom the imperial legislature blew hot and cold in a breath, were not likely to progress greatly in material wealth, or in

population. To a certain extent the supposition is correct. The growth

For

of Canada was retarded; but there were influences at work-there was a stubborn energy in the character of a portion of that people, and, more than all, there was given them a soil, and natural facilities for its conversion into wealth-which, combined together, enabled them to surmount the difficulties and stumblingblocks thrown in their way by anti-patriotic and bungling statesmanship. We have stated that the population of Upper In 1842 it had reached 486,055 souls, Canada was, in 1830, 210,437 souls. being an increase during the twelve The population of Lower Canada inyears of upwards of 130 per cent. creased from 511,922, in 1831, to 690,782 in 1844, or a little over 34 per cent in the thirteen years. this striking disparity in the progress of the two provinces abundant reasons the inhabitants of Lower Canada are can be adduced. In the first place, not of an enterprising race. If left bably have merged long ago into the to them alone, the country would proUnited States Confederation. They held fast by the old laws and habitudes of the worst times of their parent country; and their ambition seemed to be circumscribed within the limits of the soil which had been cultivated for them by the early settlers, which was being divided and subdivided, as the natural increase of their population required. The French were never a successful colonising people; and it is doubtful whether any people can be so who cling to the tenets of a Church, beyond whose immediate ministration they are deterred from living, and dare not die. Besides, Lower Canada suffered especially from the changeable policy of the Imperial Government, which had been playing fast and loose with the navigation of the city, Quebec. In Upper Canada, on St Lawrence, and the trade of its chief the contrary, influences were in operation, as we have stated, which tended to neutralise the effect of the impediments thrown in the way of its hardy settlers by British legislation. wave of population from Europe and the Atlantic States of the American Republic had begun, long before 1842, to approach the great Lake District

The

bordering upon Upper Canada, and an important frontier trade had been established. The communications between the lakes and the Atlantic and Gulf seaports were open to the Upper Canadian people, whose productions were thus brought practically and economically nearer to the consuming countries of the Old World than those of Lower Canada. Moreover, the immigration from Great Britain naturally tended towards the upper province, whether flowing through the St Lawrence or the Atlantic ports, as to a territory in which settlers would find communities of a common blood and country, speaking the same mother tongue, and imbued with the same associations, religion, domestic habits, and aspirations with themselves, and acknowledging the same allegiance and loyalty to the same Sovereign and the same laws. These circumstances, connected with their respective positions, combined with the superior energy of character and habit inherent in the race by which Upper Canada was being peopled, are sufficient to account for the more rapid increase of the material wealth and population of that province, during a period when the whole of the North American colonies seem to have been the subject of experimental, if it may not even be called hostile, legislation by the Government of the mother country. To a considerable extent Upper Canada has been favoured by its climate as the recipient of a European population; whilst, at the same time, the more frigid climate of Lower Canada suits admirably the wants of that country. Mr Andrews, the consul of the United States for Canada and New Brunswick, reports :

"It is true that in Eastern Canada there are extremes of climate unknown in the North-Western States (of America); but it will be found that the mean temperature varies but little in the two regions. The intense cold of the winter makes a highway to the operations of the lumberman over and upon every lake and stream, whilst the earth and the germs of vegetation are jealously guarded from the injurious effects of severe frost by a thick mantle of snow. The sudden transition from winter to summer, melting the accumulations of ice and snow in every mountain stream, converts them

into navigable rivers downward, for bearing, in the cheapest and most expeditious manner, the fruits of the lumberman's winter labour to its market on tide-water. The commencement of vegetation is delayed turity is reached about the same period by the duration of the snow; but its ma

as in the western country, because there has been a smaller loss of caloric during the winter, less retardation from a lingering spring, and more rapid growth from the constant action of a strong and steady summer-heat.

"Whatever exceptions may be taken to the climate of Eastern Canada, it must be remembered that it embraces the greater portion of the white-pine bearproduct of which can only be obtained ing zone of North America, the invaluable by those conditions of climate (the abundant ice and snow) which have given it such imaginary terrors. There is scarcely one article, or class of articles, from any one country in the world which affords more outward freight, or employs more sea tonnage, than the products of the forests of British North America.

"While these conditions of climate and and manufacturing character to the Eastproduction give necessarily a commercial ern province, the milder climate and more extensive plains of Western Canada afford a field for agriculture, horticulture, and pastoral pursuits unsurpassed in some respects by the most favoured sections of the United States. The peninsula of Canada West, almost surrounded by many thousand square miles of unfrozen water, enjoys a climate as mild as that of northern New York. The peach tree, unprotected, matures its fruit south and west of Ontario, whilst tobacco has been successfully cultivated for years on the peninsula between lakes Erie and Huron. During the last two years (1851 and 1852) Western Canada has exported upwards of two millions of barrels of flour, and over three millions of bushels of wheat; and at the present moment the surplus stock on hand is greater than at any former period. There is probably no country where there is so much wheat grown, in proportion to the population and the area under cultivation, as in that part of Canada west of Kingston."

We may illustrate the concluding paragraph of the above extract by the following statement from the American Statistical Annual:

"The production (in bushels) of grains in the two provinces, as represented in the census of 1851, and in the United States in that of 1850, gives the quantities per capita as follows:

Another circumstance has given a vast impulse to the prosperity of both provinces. In 1841 a legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada prepared the way for a more harmonious action of their population. In 1847 the Imperial Government formally abandoned all control over the Canadian tariff; and in their next session the colonial legislature abolished the differential duties upon imports inland, and placed the mother country in the same relative position as foreigners. From 1841 the development of the upper province was most rapid. We have given the population in 1842 at 486,055 souls. In 1851 it was 952,004, having increased nearly 100 per cent in the nine years. The total population of Canada-both provinces-was

Nearly quadrupling itself in ten years.

The wheat crop of Lower Canada had also increased: it was

In 1843,

The minot is one-twelfth more than a bushel.

This remarkable increase of the population and productiveness of Upper Canada cannot be accounted for, in the ordinary way, as the result of emigration direct to the province; and herein consists a feature which is well worth the serious consideration of the British public. The following are the statistics of the immigration for the last six years into both provinces::

England and Wales,

1848. 6,034

9,887 9,677 9,276 8,714

Ireland,

16,582

Scotland,

3,086

Lower ports,

European Continent,

The gross amount of this immigration-215,000 in six years-is certainly large as an addition to a population of under two millions; but it does not by any means represent the accession of numbers which the country has acquired from this source. It is obvious that a large amount of the population of the upper province must have come by the Atlantic ports of the United States; for we find that the shipping using the ports of Quebec and Montreal during the past few years has actually diminished instead of increasing. The following statement of the number and tonnage of vessels from sea, which entered inwards and outwards at the ports of Quebec and Montreal in each of the six years preceding 1852, is taken from Lord Elgin's Report:

States' ports, not because they offer the cheapest route, but because they afford constant facilities. The St Lawrence is only open for traffic during about seven months out of the twelve; and the competition which the United States is enabled to carry on successfully with our shipowners, by means of her efficient internal communications, compels a large portion of our tonnage to go out to British America either circuitously, or in ballast, from British ports. This is most strikingly shown by the following

STATEMENT showing the number and tonnage of vessels entered inwards and outwards at the port of Quebec, in 1852, with cargoes, or in ballast.

671

280,499

OUTWARDS.

1,469

1851, 573,397 His Lordship remarks, in explanation of this falling off,

"During the earlier years of this series, while the Canada Corn Act of 1843 was in operation, an impulse was given to the trade of Quebec and Montreal, by the preference accorded in the markets of Great Britain to produce conveyed by the route of the St Lawrence. Since that preference has been withdrawn, the facilities afforded by the Government of the United States for the transportation, in bond, of Canadian imports and exports through its territory, and the multiplication of railways connecting the southern bank of the St Lawrence with different points on the coast, have diverted a portion of the trade of that river from the Canadian seaports to those of the United States. As this is, however, a point of considerable importance to the interests of the lower province especially, it may be well to look into it more closely, with the view of inquiring whether there be anything in the nature of the route itself, or in the nature of the trade, which places the route of the St Lawrence at a disadvantage in competing with others for the trade of the Great West."

It is a well-known fact that a large portion of the emigrants from this country, whose intended destination is Canada, go by way of the United

None. None.

A

No ship in ballast can afford to carry passengers, inasmuch as she must pay dock and light dues, &c., which would sweep away the bulk of her earnings from such a freight. considerable number of our timber ships, therefore, make the outward voyage to a United States port, thus diverting the legitimate trade of Canada, both with respect to goods and passengers, through the United States' territory and routes to the Far West. To show the extent of this diversion of traffic from its natural course, we quote again from the very valuable Report of Lord Elgin:

"The imports, or principal articles of British and foreign merchandise entered for consumption in Canada, during the year ending the 5th Jan. 1852, amounted in value to £4,404,409, 0s. 3d., on which £606,114, 58. of duty was collected; and the goods in warehouse and in bond on that day were valued at £233,545, 158., subject to £76,660, 2s. 3d. of duty. The corresponding figures of the year preceding were as follows :—