three millions of money, with an understanding that neither interest nor principal should be demanded till all other debts were paid and all shareholders in receipt of six per cent. interest.  But the three millions were clogged with conditions which, though they have been of service to the country, have been so expensive to the company that it is hardly more solvent with it than it would have been without it.  As it is, the whole property seems to be involved in ruin; and yet the line is one of the grandest commercial conceptions that was ever carried out on the face of the globe, and in the process of a few years will do more to make bread cheap in England than any other single enterprise that exists.

I do not know that blame is to be attached to any one.  I at least attach no such blame.  Probably it might be easy now to show that the road might have been made with sufficient accommodation for ordinary purposes without some of the more costly details.  The great tubular bridge, on which was expended 1,300,000 pounds, might, I should think, have been dispensed with.  The Detroit end of the line might have been left for later time.  As it stands now, however, it is a wonderful operation carried to a successful issue as far as the public are concerned; and one can only grieve that it should be so absolute a failure to those who have placed their money in it.  There are schemes which seem to be too big for men to work out with any ordinary regard to profit and loss.  The Great Eastern is one, and this is another.  The national advantage arising from such enterprises is immense; but the wonder is that men should be found willing to embark their money where the risk is so great and the return even hoped for is so small.

While I was in Canada some gentlemen were there from the Lower Provinces—­Nova Scotia, that is, and New Brunswick—­agitating the subject of another great line of railway, from Quebec to Halifax.  The project is one in favor of which very much may be said.  In a national point of view an Englishman or a Canadian cannot but regret that there should be no winter mode of exit from, or entrance to, Canada, except through the United States.  The St. Lawrence is blocked up for four or five months in winter, and the steamers which run to Quebec in the summer run to Portland during the season of ice.  There is at present no mode of public conveyance between the Canadas and the Lower Provinces; and an immense district of country on the borders of Lower Canada, through New Brunswick, and into Nova Scotia, is now absolutely closed against civilization, which by such a railway would be opened up to the light of day.  We all know how much the want of such a road was felt when our troops were being forwarded to Canada during the last winter.  It was necessary they should reach their destination without delay; and as the river was closed, and the passing of troops through the States was of course out of the question,