Up to the present moment England has, I believe, only expended the sum of L148,000,000 on her Railways, and, I believe, nearly 5000 miles are finished; and on an average these Railways are said to give a return of about four per cent., and "with the increase of the national wealth and population, and with the increase of habits of social inter-communication and the transit of goods, the traffic on Railways would increase, and the profits and dividends would not be less but greater; and in the case of some of them, no man would pretend to say how great might be the increase of dividends from the improved and economical modes of working Railways, which, there is every reason to believe, will day by day be freshly discovered." [_Bradshaw's Almanack, 1849_]. And who will say that L200,000,000 expended (even should such a sum as that be required) in making a Railway Road from the Atlantic to the Pacific through our own territories, and therefore completely under our own controul, would not increase by a tenfold degree the value of that property already expended in England? When the Railways now in contemplation at home are finished, their total length will, I believe, be about 10,000 miles, and the expenditure between 200 and 240 millions. The length of the Railway proposed to go through our colonies may be spoken of roughly as at about 4000 miles; but when we take into consideration the relative value of land in England and our colonies, and a thousand other Railway contingencies in a highly civilized country, creating enormous legal, legislative and other expenses, we naturally come to the conclusion that the outlay per mile must of course be considerably diminished in the colonies. Taking it, however, at the English expenditure of L24,000 a mile on the average, it would only cost L96,000,000;[see Note 32]--L5,000,000 has been estimated as sufficient for six hundred miles of Railway from Halifax to Quebec. But calling it L100,000,000, and supposing the work to be five years completing, that would only be at the rate of L20,000,000 a year, the interest of which at five per cent. would be L1,000,000. Surely, then, such a sum as that could be easily raised, even by the Hudson's Bay Company alone, upon the security of their extensive and valuable territory. For so great a difference would soon arise between the value of that territory as it is now--merely the abode of Indians and hunters--and what it would be then; with its clearings, its improvements, its roads, its trade, its manufactures, and its towns, that any amount of debt almost might be incurred. But our loyal colonies would no doubt equally enter into securities to England, and be glad, in fact, to share their chance of the profit; for these colonies, as well as the Hudson's Bay Company, would be immense gainers. Still it may be argued, that unless it can be shown that England herself would be a gainer, she would not be justified in advancing any money on such an undertaking.