and a clean sweep would be made without difficulty.  But the project as made in the colonies appears in different guises, as it comes either from Canada or from one of the other provinces.  The Canadian idea would be that the two Canadas should form two States of such a confederation, and the other provinces a third State.  But this slight participation in power would hardly suit the views of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.  In speaking of such a federal government as this, I shall of course be understood as meaning a confederation acting in connection with a British governor, and dependent upon Great Britain as far as the different colonies are now dependent.

I cannot but think that such a confederation might be formed with great advantage to all the colonies and to Great Britain.  At present the Canadas are in effect almost more distant from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick than they are from England.  The intercourse between them is very slight—­so slight that it may almost be said that there is no intercourse.  A few men of science or of political importance may from time to time make their way from one colony into the other, but even this is not common.  Beyond that they seldom see each other.  Though New Brunswick borders both with Lower Canada and with Nova Scotia, thus making one whole of the three colonies, there is neither railroad nor stage conveyance running from one to the other.  And yet their interests should be similar.  From geographical position their modes of life must be alike, and a close conjunction between them is essentially necessary to give British North America any political importance in the world.  There can be no such conjunction, no amalgamation of interests, until a railway shall have been made joining the Canada Grand Trunk Line with the two outlying colonies.  Upper Canada can feed all England with wheat, and could do so without any aid of railway through the States, if a railway were made from Quebec to Halifax.  But then comes the question of the cost.  The Canada Grand Trunk is at the present moment at the lowest ebb of commercial misfortune, and with such a fact patent to the world, what company will come forward with funds for making four or five hundred miles of railway, through a district of which one-half is not yet prepared for population?  It would be, I imagine, out of the question that such a speculation should for many years give any fair commercial interest on the money to be expended.  But nevertheless to the colonies—­that is, to the enormous regions of British North America—­such a railroad would be invaluable.  Under such circumstances it is for the Home Government and the colonies between them to see how such a measure may be carried out.  As a national expenditure, to be defrayed in the course of years by the territories interested, the sum of money required would be very small.