There is an advantage in giving the first place to geography. {117} A glance at the map shows the relation of Canada to the Oceanic Empire of which it now forms a part. It fronts towards Europe on the Atlantic and towards Asia on the Pacific. On both oceans it gives the finest naval positions that a great maritime power could desire, and the only positions possible for British people on the American continent. A wonderful system of waterways penetrates, from the Atlantic frontage, unto the very heart of the continent, to prairies which are the greatest undeveloped wheat area in the world, lands capable of supporting a large population and of proved capacity to yield a vast surplus of food products. The trend of the Great Lakes and of the St. Lawrence towards the point which gives the shortest sea connection with Europe indicates the natural direction in which this food surplus will chiefly flow. Should the still open question of the summer navigation of Hudson's Bay by grain vessels be settled in the affirmative, even the facilities offered by the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence for cheap transit would be eclipsed, and western wheat placed on English markets at a rate hitherto unknown. But this is a contingency, and it is perhaps better to confine the attention to settled facts. The significance of Canada's geographical position, facing and commanding the two great northern oceans at the points nearest to the opposite continents of Europe and Asia, is supplemented by geological facts of extreme national interest. At the very point where the Dominion stretches out furthest towards Europe, {118} and where the maritime provinces furnish open harbours all the year round, we find in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton inexhaustible supplies of excellent coal. The coal areas of this region are the only sources: of supply in Eastern America northward of Pennsylvania, and the only sources directly upon the eastern coast of the continent, where they seem to give a singular advantage for both transatlantic and transcontinental trade. Crossing now the 3800 miles which measure the breadth of the continent, we come to the Pacific coast, and the excellent harbours with which it also is everywhere indented. The importance to the Empire of these harbours is manifest, since they are the only ports under the British flag on the whole Pacific coast of America from Cape Horn to the Behring Sea, the only base of naval supply, the only means the Empire has of matching the Russian depot, Vladivostock (soon to be in direct connection with St. Petersburg itself), over which they have the great advantage of being open all the year round. They furnish the base from which the trade of the North Pacific is, and must be, protected. For the defence and prosecution of trade, still more important than the harbours themselves is the fact that in the Island of Vancouver, where Canada stretches out so as to give the shortest route to Japan and China, we have again an