There is much in the late policy of the Government of Quebec to astonish and bewilder all who study the laws of trade. It has been remarked that the City of Quebec felt its interests to be so deeply concerned in the completion of the North Shore Railway that it voted $1,000,000 to secure its establishment. Throughout the Province the railway was advocated for many years; it was fostered and cherished, and held to be the key to its future prosperity. Nevertheless the Provincial Government has deliberately sold all its interest in the work, and has passed over its control to a railway company whose interests lie in an entirely different direction. They have thus sacrificed the one chance of extending a fostering hand to local trade and regaining the prestige of the Ancient City. Indeed, the Provincial Government stands in relationship to this railway as if it had never been constructed as a public work. As I am writing I read in the newspapers that the present tariff of charges between Montreal and Quebec, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles, on certain articles of freight, is thirty-three per cent. higher than between Quebec and Halifax, a distance of six hundred and eighty miles! Possibly an extreme case; but can any fact bear stronger testimony to the sacrifice which has been made of the interests of the City of Quebec? It is long since there has been such an abandonment of a position from which so much might have been hoped, and, strange to add, the sacrifice has been made without a protest, without a remonstrance from those most interested. It would seem that there is a failure to understand the extent of the advantages which have been thrown away. If there be any truth in the adage that misery likes company, it may be some consolation to the people of Quebec to know that the shadow of this unfortunate transaction has been equally cast over the fortunes of the Intercolonial Railway and on the prosperity of the City of Halifax.