Between the highest point at which it is navigable, and
St. Paul, on the Mississippi, a railroad is in process of construction;
and when this road is completed, another grand division of the
continent, comprising half a million square miles, will be open to
settlement."
The sanguine temper of these remarks illustrates the rapid progress
of public sentiment since the date of the Parliamentary inquiry, only
eighteen months before. Of the same tenor, though fuller in details,
were the publications on the subject in Canada and even in England. The
year 1859 opened with greatly augmented interest in the district of
Central British America. The manifestation of this interest varied with
localities and circumstances.
In Canada, no opportunity was omitted, either in Parliament or by the
press, to demonstrate the importance to the Atlantic and Lake Provinces
of extending settlements into the prairies of Assinniboin and
Saskatchewan,--thereby affording advantages to Provincial commerce and
manufactures like those which the communities of the Mississippi valley
have conferred upon the older American States. Nevertheless, the
Canadian government declined to institute proceedings before the English
Court of Chancery or Queen's Bench, to determine the validity of the
charter of the Hudson's Bay Company,--assigning, as reasons for not
acceding to such a suggestion by the law-officers of the crown, that
the proposed litigation might be greatly protracted, while the public
interests involved were urgent,--and that the duty of a prompt and
definite adjustment of the condition and relations of the Red River
and Saskatchewan districts was manifestly incumbent upon the Imperial
authority.
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