have a wider outlook—an outlook which embraced the whole of British North America and contemplated the creation of great public utilities which should lay a broad and strong foundation for Canadian nationality.
When Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario were formed into the Dominion of Canada in 1867 the new Dominion had a population of approximately 8,400,000 souls. It had but the nucleus of a railway system, and its canal system was in its infancy. British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Rupert's Land, and the North-Western Territory were not a part of the original confederation. The Maritime Provinces were not connected by any Canadian railway with Ontario and Quebec. Between Ontario, the most westerly province of the Dominion, and the prairies of the North-West, whose agricultural capabilities were only vaguely known, there stretched a vast, inhospitable, little-known region, believed to consist mainly of rocks and swamps, offering, as it was then thought, no promise of support to a population, and impassable except to the experienced woodsman or voyageur. When the prairie region was reached and traversed the mighty barriers of the Rockies and the Selkirks still shut off the Pacific Coast Province from the rest of British North America.
Three great projects were present to the minds of the fathers of our confederation—viz., the acquisition of Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Rupert's Land, and the North-Western Territory; the union of the Maritime Provinces with Ontario and Quebec by the Inter-Colonial Railway; and the union of all the provinces by the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
When it is considered that the total cost of these enterprises was not less than half as much, in proportion to the population of Canada at confederation, as was the entire national debt of Great Britain in proportion to the population of the United Kingdom, that the people of Canada were possessed of little acquired
