Different sections of this important extension of the Canadian and American railways were under contract and in process of construction. In addition, the land surveys of the Federal Government had reached the navigable channel of the Red River; and the line of frontier settlement, attended by a weekly mail, had advanced to the same point. Thus the Government of the United States, no less than the people and authorities of Minnesota, were represented in the north-west movement.” No matter how prosperous a colony of Great Britain may he, a colony it must be so long as it is not independent. The first result of the prosperity of an American colony is its independence as a State, and its incorporation as a member of the common sovereignty. The distinction arises from geographical considerations, but it is not the less potent--I shall not yet say, more to be regretted. The retention of Canada would be of little value to us if there were to the west of it a great and populous community, absorbing its capital, labour, and enterprise for the benefit of aliens, and if to the south there were a series of States animated by an intense _political_ dislike to the mother country. But there is, as they say in Ireland, “the makings” of four free and independent States, on the American model of Ohio, in that district between the valleys of the North and South Saskatchewan. In 1858 an American writer again described the region which the British Government, the Colonial Office, and the Imperialism of bureaux, inclined to cast away without even a mess of pottage. That writer says:-- “Here is the great fact of the north-western areas of this continent. An area not inferior in size to the whole United States east of the Mississippi, which is perfectly adapted to the fullest occupation by cultivated nations, yet is almost wholly unoccupied, lies west of the 98th meridian, and above the 43rd parallel, that is, north of the latitude of Milwaukee, and west of the longitude of Red River, Fort Kearney, and Corpus Christi; or, to state the fact in another way, east of the Rocky Mountains, and west of the 98th meridian, and between the 43rd and 60th parallels, there is a productive, cultivable area of 500,000 square miles. West of the Rocky Mountains and between the same parallels, there is an area of 300,000 square miles.