quarters, and the germs of disaffection long since destroyed.

(19) There have been two immigrations to it of a peculiar and exceptional character-that of the Russian Mennonites in 1871-2, and that of the Icelanders, who have settled on or near their present Reserve of Gimli, and number nearly 10,000 in this Province. The Mennonites are German Protestants, who reject infant baptism, and refuse to bear arms or take an oath of allegiance. In these respects they resemble the Quakers. The military condition of Prussia, their native land, would not allow of their residence there, and so they sought and gained an asylum near the Sea of Azoff under the Russian Government. In 1871, however, they had to choose whether they would submit to the conscription or leave the country, and they chose the latter alternative. Some settled in Nebraska and Kansas, in the United States, others went to Brazil. Most of them finally came to Canada, and occupied two settlements, one on the east, and the other on the west of the Red River. They are a thrifty and economical community, numbering about 9000, and make very good colonists. All work with their hands, and when farm-work has to be done, every man, woman, and child, irrespective of rank and station, has to help. They are well educated, and keep together as closely as a Scotch clan. The Mennonites occupy twenty-five districts or reserves, embracing 512,000 acres, of which 300,000 are in cultivation. Niverville is their largest settlement.

(20) In this Province, as in the North-West generally, there is an historical period which may be termed the Railway Period. The Canadians themselves have built within a comparatively few years 13,000 miles of railway, at a cost of over £17,000,000 of public money. In 1844, there were only fourteen miles of railway in the country.

In Manitoba the result of railway construction has been first and foremost to fill the country, and to bring Winnipeg into the line of communication with British Columbia on the west, and the River and Maritime Provinces on the east. In no part of the British Empire is the process of filling up and developing the resources of a country going on so quickly as in Manitoba and the neighbouring divisions of the North-West. In Manitoba itself the railways are now being extended in many directions both towards the north and west, and also towards the United States frontier. From its geo

graphical position, the Province would seem to be well. placed as a distributing centre. The flat treeless prairies seem exactly fitted for rails, which can be laid down with almost marvellous celerity. Macadamised roads are difficult to keep up in a land where the virgin soil is so many feet deep, and in the wet weather the deep greasy ruts and mud holes along this track have long tried the patience of the pioneer and traveller, and made locomotion of heavy goods almost impossible.

(21) To the north of the Canadian Pacific Railway another line is being contemplated, which will link the North-West Territories with the shores of Hudson's Bay. This route is well known, as it was used by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years. The Nelson River connects Lake Winnipeg and Hudson's Bay, and everywhere there are an infinite number of lakes and streams along which, by means of 'portages,' communication could be carried on over thousands of miles of country. The distance from Lake Winnipeg to Hudson's Bay is 370 miles. The objection to this route is that Hudson's Bay is closed by ice for seven months of the year. But a railway could be of great service in transferring Canadian produce to the shores of this great inland sea during the prevalence of the frosts, and storing it either at Port Nelson

or Fort Churchill in readiness for transportation. The distance from Port Nelson to Liverpool is 100 miles less than that from Liverpool to New York. The waterways of the Far West are here unrivalled. The navigable rivers are calculated to cover a distance of 11,000 miles, of which only 4000 have been utilised.

(22) It has been recently pointed out that a system of artificial canals can wonderfully enhance the value of the lakes and rivers of the North-West as water-ways. At present a steamboat can ply from Winnipeg to Edmonton, almost to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of more than a thousand miles. 'The great river and lake system of North America follows a semicircular course from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, between 3000 and 4000 miles in length. The parting of the waters is near the Yellowhead Pass of the Rocky Mountains; the one huge volume of water finding its way into the Arctic Ocean by the Mackenzie River, and the other into the Atlantic by Hudson's Bay and the river St. Lawrence respectively. The whole of this enormous stretch of water-way, longer than the continent is broad at its broadest part, can be made navigable, except for a distance of some 70 miles between the head-waters of the Upper Saskatchewan and the head-waters of the Athabasca. Over this portage a wagon road has been or is about to be constructed, and as steamers of a shallow draft already ply on the Saskatchewan from Lake Winnipeg to the portage in question, it will be quite possible to place steamers on the rivers and lakes of what is called the Great Mackenzie Basin without sending them round by Behring's Sea '.'

1 See Appendix xii.