I must quote once more: 'In opening a trade among the provinces, a natural trade at least, these inter-provincial railroads have failed, for the simple reason that the provinces have hardly any products to exchange with each other, and that means of conveyance are futile where there is nothing to be conveyed.' The answer to this may be put into a question which business men will appreciate even if an author in his study at Toronto does not. Why is it, if there is nothing to be conveyed between the provinces, that, in addition to the Intercolonial, two competing lines have already been constructed and a third projected, all on purely business principles, to unite the maritime provinces to those of the St. Lawrence? In his excessive eagerness to make points, Mr. Smith exposes himself to no slight suspicion of a willingness to open up unnecessarily, if not maliciously, old sores between the mother-land and the colony. He says: 'That in all diplomatic questions with the United States the interest of Canada has been sacrificed to the Imperial exigency of keeping peace with {182} the Americans is the constant theme of Canadian complaint. ... By the treaty of 1783, confirming the independence of the United States, England not only resigned the territory claimed by each State of the Union severally, but abandoned to the general government immense territories "unsettled, unexplored, and unknown."' After explaining that this was partly due to ignorance, he continues: 'This is the beginning of a long and uniform story, in the course of which not only great tracts of territory, but geographical unity has been lost. To understand how deeply this iron has entered into the Canadian soul, the Englishman must turn to his map and mark out how much of geographical compactness, of military security, and of commercial convenience was lost when Britain gave up Maine. ... A large portion of Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, and Washington, Canada also thinks she has wrongfully lost. These are causes of discontent; discontent may one day breed disaffection; disaffection may lead to another calamitous rupture; and instead of going forth into the world when the hour of maturity has arrived with the parent's blessing, the child may turn in anger from the parental door.'