metropolis of Michigan. In 1870 Rochester's population was 62,386; in 1880 it was 89,366, an increase of a little over 43 per cent. In 1870 Buffalo's population was 117,714; in 1880 it was 155,134, an increase of a little over 31 per cent. In 1870 Detroit's population was 79,577; in 1880 it was 116,340, an increase of a little over 46 per cent. In 1871 Toronto's population was 56,092; in 1881 it was 86,415, an increase of a little over 54 per cent. So Toronto increased in population more rapidly than any of the neighboring American cities during the last decade. Its growth since 1881 has been even more extraordinary. A municipal census taken December 12, 1888, showed the population at that time to be 166,040, an increase of over 92 per cent. in less than eight years. About a week after the taking of the census the suburb of Parkdale, with about 6,000 inhabitants, was annexed, making the population of the city about 172,000. Including Parkdale, which is an outgrowth of the city since 1881, the per centage of increase is about 99 per cent. It should be noted, however, that the census of 1881 did not include the floating population, while that of 1888 included all who slept in the city the night before, but as there was nothing going on in the city at the time to attract strangers, it is probable that the floating population did not number more than 6,000, so that the actual increase was about 92 per cent. West Toronto Junction, Carleton, Davenport, Chester, and East Toronto, are thriving suburbs which have grown up around the city during the last five years, and if they were included the population of the city would probably be over 180,000; but it would not be fair to include them in calculating the increase since 1881, for suburban districts, which in 1881 had about the same population as that of these new suburbs at present, have been annexed since 1881. In 1881 Toronto's taxable property was assessed at $56,286,039; in 1888 it was assessed at $113,183,828, an increase of over 101 per cent. Chicago, the marvel of the United States, only increased in population 68 per cent. during the ten years between 1870 and 1880. Boston is nearer to Montreal than any other large American city, and it is one of the most important cities of the Republic. In 1870 Boston's population was 250,526; in 1880 it was 362,839, an increase of over 44 per cent. In 1871 Montreal's population was 107,225; in 1881 it was 140,747, an increase of a little over 31 per cent. Since 1881 the increase in Montreal has been much more rapid than ever before. In the year 1886 the assessors took a census which showed the population to be 186,000, an increase of over 32 per cent. in five years, but the assessors admitted at the time that they had not secured full returns. The general opinion is that the population is now about 225,000. According to assessors' returns, which are usually below the

mark, during the five years between 1881 and 1886 Ottawa gained 35.75 per cent., London, Ont., 32.05 per cent., and Hamilton, 16.74 per cent., while many of the smaller towns of Ontario, ranging from 4,000 to 10,000 in population, have increased as rapidly as Toronto. In 1871 Winnipeg had a few hundred inhabitants; in 1881 it had 6,249 inhabitants, and the assessed value of real and personal property was $9,196,435; in 1886 its population was 22,025, and the assessed value of property, $19,286,405, the population having increased over 252 per cent., and the assessment 109.71 per cent. It should be noted that between 1880 and 1883 Winnipeg passed through a great boom, increasing in an incredibly short time from a few hundreds to 30,000. Then came a collapse, and the population decreased to 15,000 or less. The city is now on a solid basis, having about 25,000 inhabitants, and is steadily increasing in population and wealth, although some people think that Brandon, Calgary, and several other towns that have sprung up on the prairie within the last five years, may rival it. The youngest marvel of Canada is Vancouver City, the British Columbia terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Five years ago its site was covered by gigantic forest trees; there was not a house built; about two years and a half ago when its population was 2,000 it was burned to the ground, only two or three buildings escaping the flames; in July, 1888, a census showed its population to be nearly 8,000. and it is said to be now about 11,000. Many pages of official statistics might be given to show that Canada is making great progress, instead of standing still as some people suppose. The letters and post-cards delivered numbered 53,600,ooo in 1880, and 90,656,000 in 1887; there were 2,040,000 registered letters in 1880, and 3,560,000 in 1887; in 1880 there were issued 306,088 postal money orders, amounting to $7,207,337, and in 1887, 574,899, amounting to $10,328,984; in 1880 the amount of money orders issued in other countries payable in Canada was $698,651, and in 1887 it was $1,495,674 the newspapers and periodicals posted in Canada numbered 45,120,062 in 1880, and 64,246,326 in 1887; the deposits in savings-banks under Government control amounted to $9,207,683 on July 1, 1880, and to $37,173,813 on July 1, 1887; the deposits in chartered banks amounted to $84,818,804 in 1880, and to $114,483,190 in 1887; the amount of life insurance at risk in 1880 was $90,280,293, and the amount of new life insurance effected that year was $13,906,887, while in 1887 the amount of life insurance at risk was $191,679,852, and the new insurance effected that year amounted to $38,108,730; in 1880 the Canadian railways handled 9,938,858 tons of freight and carried 6,462,948 passengers, while in 1887 they handled 16,356,335 tons of freight and carried 10,698.638 passengers.

Six million prosperous people, enjoying practical independence, are asked to give up the right to make their own tariff for the sake of freer trade with their neighbors. It is reasonable to suppose that if the Canadian provinces were peaceably annexed to the United States, the people sharing in all the rights of American citizens, the new states would make equal progress with the old states contiguous to them. Perhaps they would even maintain their present rate of growth, which has been shown to be greater than that of the states south of them. But the outcome of a Canadian-American liaison, whether under the name of commercial union, or “unrestricted reciprocity," would be almost complete stagnation on the Canadian side of the boundary. Politically dependent on Great Britain, and commercially dependent on the United States, the Dominion would be like a legless man with a broken crutch on one side and an illfitting wooden leg on the other. No one could believe in the permanency of such an arrangement, and capitalists could not be induced to invest in a country with such an uncertain future. The tariff being abolished, by locating in such border cities as Buffalo and Detroit, manufacturers would be able to reach the Canadian markets as advantageously as if they were in Canada, while they would be in a much better position as regards the American market. It is absurd to suppose that any American manufacturer would remove to Canada, where he would have no voice in making the tariff, when he could carry on his business with both countries just as well from the border cities of the United States. Boston would take from Montreal the trade of the maritime provinces; Detroit and Buffalo would do the manufacturing for central Canada, and St. Paul and Minneapolis would together form the metropolis of the Canadian Northwest. Buffalo and Detroit would gain most by such a liaison, and Toronto would suffer most. The South-western peninsula of Ontario, the most populous section of Canada, is nearer to Detroit and Buffalo than to Toronto, or any other large Canadian city. Even with complete annexation Toronto, which now almost monopolizes the wholesale trade of this section, would have to share it with Buffaio and Detroit. With "unrestricted reciprocity," or commercial union, such as Mr. Wiman proposes, these American cities would not only cut out Toronto, but would also grow at the expense of Hamilton, London, and all the smaller cities of the peninsula, which could not hope to secure many new manufacturing industries so long as the country had no voice in the making of the tariff. If a Canadian-American tariff-making Parliament were established, the Canadian manufacturers would probably be consulted to some extent in framing the tariff, but very few capitalists would invest in the Dominion,

because every one would know that such a liaison could not last long and there would be fear that the difference of opinion among Canadians would lead to a civil war. The Canadian people would have to contribute their share of the cost of the international parliament in addition to maintaining their own Dominion Parliament and the Provincial legislatures. They could not expect to greatly extend their foreign trade, for the British representatives in various quarters of the world would be slow to assist a people who discriminated against Great Britain in favor of the United States, and Canada could not afford to maintain a foreign diplomatic and consular service of her own. Indeed, in order to carry on the Government of the country and meet its obligations, it would be necessary to resort to direct taxation to raise about fifteen million dollars of revenue, lost by the abolition of the customs houses along the Canadian-American boundary. Heavily taxed, suffering from loss of trade, and despised alike by British and Americans on account of their dependent position and the sale of their birthright, Canadians would very soon wish to end the liaison. But the only ending that the United States could agree to would be annexation, and to that the majority of Canadians would not be disposed to consent. Although they would be themselves to blame for their misfortunes, there would be a strong disposition to charge the Americans with having cheated them. One party would favor annexation, the other would bitterly oppose it, and civil war would be the result. The United States would have no choice in the matter. To save the republic the conquest of Canada would be necessary, and, although the Canadians would be divided against themselves, and could not expect any assistance from Great Britain after discriminating against that country in favor of the United States, they would not submit until the country was overrun by American soldiers. If the United States waged war against Canada before the formation of such a liaison the Canadian people would be united against the invaders and have the British to back them, while by persuading them to adopt commercial union they could be set against each other and cut off from England; but surely the American people are too generous to wish to take their neighbors at such a disadvantage. They would be obliged to do so in self-defense if the liaison were formed, but they are too sensible to enter into an arrangement which would result in that way.

Let us have no halfway measures. In favor of honorable, voluntary annexation some very strong arguments can be adduced if we accept Mr. Goldwin Smith's map, but not one sensible reason can be given for a Canadian-American liaison which, while causing an extraordinary growth for a few years in the American cities at or near the Canadian boundary,

would engender bitter feelings and bring about a war whose evil effects would be felt for generations afterward. If annexation is inevitable, if the manifest destiny of the Dominion is absorption by its great neighbor, as Mr. Goldwin Smith believes, the people of the United States can afford to wait quietly until the Canadian people knock at the door for admission to the union. But perhaps Mr. Smith is mistaken in that regard. Look at the map of Canada-not the map in Mr. Goldwin Smith's "Handbook of Commercial Union," where it is represented merely as a fringe of the United States, but at the map in any Canadian school geography. Is Canada's proximity to the United States the only geographical fact worth teaching? Note the remarkable way in which it juts out into the two great oceans; mark the numerous good harbors on both Atlantic and Pacific coasts; see how the Atlantic sweeps in to meet the mighty St. Lawrence and joins its waters with the Arctic in forming Hudson's Bay. Then take a map of the world, or better still, a globe, and see what Nature means by this peculiar configuration. Is it for nothing that Canada is hundreds of miles nearer to both Europe and Asia than the United States? Is it for nothing that the Canadian coasts abound in magnificent natural harbors, with unlimited quantities of good coal close to them, while the American coasts have comparatively few good harbors and the coal is in the interior? The answer is plainly marked on the map in Nature's own language. Canada was not intended to be a fringe of the United States, but the entrepot for trade between Europe and Asia. Through Canada lies the way to Japan and China, Australasia and India, and before the next century is as old as this one the Canadian people will probably hold the commercial supremacy of the world. It may be said that the Hudson straits are often blocked with ice and that the Gulf of St. Lawrence is sometimes made dangerous by fogs. These are disadvantages, but they are more than offset by the fact that Montreal, hundreds of miles inland, at the foot of lake navigation, is a port for ocean vessels several hundred miles nearer to Liverpool than New York is, while Louisburg, the most eastern port of Canada, is over seven hundred miles nearer England than New York, and several good harbors on the western shore of Hudson Bay, in the very heart of the Canadian Northwest, are about the same distance from Europe as the leading Atlantic ports of the United States. The channels of the St. Lawrence River are constantly being improved, and when the work is done it is permanent, for there is no trouble with shifting sands as with the Mississippi. The gulf and river are becoming better lighted every year, and science will probably yet discover a light that will neutralize the fog. As to the ice cakes in Hudson Strait, it is claimed that