Commerce very distinctly corrected the erroneous impression, that the valleys of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence rivers exhausted the northern and central areas which are available for agriculture.  “There is in the heart of North America,” said the report, “a distinct subdivision, of which Lake Winnipeg may be regarded as the centre.  This subdivision, like the valley of the Mississippi, is distinguished for the fertility of its soil, and for the extent and gentle slope of its great plains, watered by rivers of great length, and admirably adapted for steam-navigation.  It has a climate not exceeding in severity that of many portions of Canada and the Eastern States.  It will, in all respects, compare favorably with some of the most densely peopled portions of the continent of Europe.  In other words, it is admirably fitted to become the seat of a numerous, hardy, and prosperous community.  It has an area equal to eight or ten first-class American States.  Its great river, the Saskatchewan, carries a navigable water-line to the very base of the Rocky Mountains.  It is not at all improbable that the valley of this river may yet offer the best route for a railroad to the Pacific.  The navigable waters of this great subdivision interlock with those of the Mississippi.  The Red River of the North, in connection with Lake Winnipeg, into which it falls, forms a navigable water-line, extending directly north and south nearly eight hundred miles.  The Red River is one of the best adapted to the use of steam in the world, and waters one of the finest prairie regions on the continent.  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.