Moody, is above 3,000 miles in length, but the total mileage of the
Company is already 4,600 miles, and no one knows where it is to stop,
while Messrs. Baring and Glyn will, and can, raise money from English
people; the Union Pacific possesses 4,500 miles in the United States;
the Southern Pacific nearly 5,000; and the newest of the three, the
Northern Pacific, has about 3,000 miles, and is "marching on" to a
junction with Grand Trunk extensions at the southern end of Lake
Superior, in order to complete a second Atlantic and Pacific route,
through favoured Canada. Each of these great lines has found the
necessity of supplementing the through, with as much local traffic, as
it can command. Some of this is new, such as the coal traffic from Sir
Alexander Galt's mines, situated on a branch line of 110 miles, running
out of the Canadian Pacific at Dunmore, and the mineral traffic in the
territory of Wyoming on the Union Pacific. But, again, some of it is
the result of competition. Let us hope that the development of both
Canada and the United States may quickly give trade enough for all. It
seems to me, however, that the Ocean to Ocean traffic, alone, cannot,
at present at least, find a good return for so many railways.

Canada has been unusually generous to the promoters of the Canadian
Pacific Railway. A free gift of five millions sterling: a free gift of
713 miles of, completed, railway: a free gift of twenty-five millions
of acres of land: all materials admitted free of duty: the lands given
to be free of taxation for twenty years: the Company's, property to be
free of taxation: the Company to have absolute control in fixing its
rates and charges until it should pay 10 per cent. dividend on its
Ordinary Stock: and for twenty years no competitive Railway to be
sanctioned;--summarize the liberality of the Dominion of Canada, in her
efforts to bind together her Ocean coasts. The work is essentially an
Imperial work. What is the duty of the Empire?