"The railroads now provided for and made to St. Paul, and Crow Wing from Chicago and Milwaukee will have exhausted local means, State aid and available land grants. However desirable it may be to sustain those roads by a business beyond that, and to the country beyond that, by extending the Northern Pacific Railroad, yet for want of means it cannot be done, unless foreign capitalists can be induced by land grants, at least to invest sufficient to make the road finally, and be made to see that their present large unproductive investments in Canada railroads can be made productive in the use of more of their capital. "Canada railroads lie _too far North_ to receive any benefit in business from railroads terminating from the northwest as far south as Chicago, and but little from the railroads terminating at Milwaukee, as the cost of transhipment and delay to cross by steam ferry eight months yearly at Milwaukee with eighty-five miles ferriage, must divert the trade and travel either to the north or south end of Lake Michigan, and every year will render that delay and cost more unpopular. And yet to get that trade the Great Western Railroad of Canada have permanently invested $750,000, in the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, and recently loaned a half a million more, demonstrating the idea I shall advance, that to make good present investments more means can be had. The State of Michigan itself will furnish a good trade to roads through it and to roads east of it. "The Straits of Mackinaw is the great natural ferry of about four miles wide for roads of Michigan and Canada to centre, the point necessarily for the passage of lake commerce, and for a large population north of it to cross, naturally attracting and combining elements of great importance to railroads. "Land grants are now made to the straits from the south. The Grand Trunk and Great Western Railroads of Canada can go to the Straits of Mackinaw, aided by those grants. The Ottawa and Huron Railroad to Saut St. Mary, may also go to the Straits, aided by land grants from Saut St. Mary. From there the three Canadian railroads, aided by land grants yet to be made, can go to Crow Wing or near there, and there form a junction with the Chicago roads--thence to the Pacific, aided by land grants. "By affording the Canada interest a chance for a portion of the Pacific trade, and thus making present Canada investments profitable, it is made the interest of foreign capitalists to make our Northern Pacific railroad. "This protective interest to Canada railroads is the greatest inducement to be offered them.