As regarded the operation of the Navigation Laws with reference to Canada, it was far more complicated than even that between the mother-country, her colonies in the West Indies, and the United States. While some of the shipowners of England had, as we have seen, gone so far as even to demand protection against the shipping of English colonists, the Canadians were busily occupied with efforts in an entirely opposite direction. They were not inclined, by a system of protection, to force their trade in any particular channel: for, so far as regarded the carrying-trade of the North-Western American States, the Canadians obviously could only secure its passage through their territory by holding out superior advantages in the way of cheapness of transit. For this purpose they had already done everything that great enterprise and expenditure could accomplish. They succeeded as far as possible; and, at length, possessed a line of communication at once more rapid and more cheap from the interior to the sea than any existing in the United States. The whole question then was confined to the comparative advantages of shipment from Quebec or Montreal, or from New York. If those ports could be nearly equalised in respect to freights to England, Canada would succeed in her object; if the disparity continued as it did then, all her efforts would have been unavailing. [Sidenote: Montreal, its shipping and trade.] It was, generally, represented that the high rate of freight between Montreal and the United Kingdom was owing to the limited number of ships employed in the import trade of Canada. In the spring and latter end of the summer, ships, composing what was called the spring and fall fleet, arrived; and, so long as they were in port wanting freight, the rate was comparatively moderate; but in the interval, being the middle of summer, when most of the western produce arrived for shipment, an inferior class of ships only were at hand, which delivered their cargoes in bad condition, and, at the same time, charged exorbitant rates, according to the quantity of produce for shipment. The rate of freight is said to have fluctuated in Montreal in one and the same season between 3_s._ 6_d._ and 7_s._ 6_d._ per barrel; and it is stated that the higher rate, from 6_s._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ per barrel, had been paid in Montreal, while freights were offered in foreign ships at New York as low as 1_s._ and 1_s._ 6_d._ per barrel; indeed, at this time, an offer of 1_s._ 6_d._ per barrel extra would have brought any number of ships round from the American sea-ports, but the Navigation Laws interposed. It was clearly seen that such fluctuations in the rates of freight, together with the employment of inferior vessels, could not have occurred were the Canadian merchants able to select in the American ports such ships as were seeking freight to Europe.