The Catholic World, Vol. 13, April to September, 1871Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 13, April to September, 1871
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
We see, then, what these provinces can now contribute to commerce;
and we also see their prime deficiency. They cannot supply their
people with bread. That comes from Canada and the United States.
But Canada does not want their mackerel or other fish, their oats,
potatoes, turnips, or hay. She wants money; and for want of a nearer
market, the surplus oats must be sent upon a very doubtful venture
across the ocean, the mackerel to the United States, and the dried
fish to the West Indies and Brazil, to get money to pay for Canadian
bread. But time is money. It is more than money--it is life. And when
we take into account the loss of time in going to and fro across
the ocean, and the great expenditure of unproductive labor that is
required by this selling to Peter on one side of the world to pay
Paul on the other, we cannot help believing that the poor provincial
pays a high price for bread to eat and clothes to wear, as well
as for the various products of other lands which, from being only
conveniences, have become the necessaries of life.
We come now to the Province of Quebec--prior to the Dominion, called
Canada East. Nearly all her territory lies north of the forty-sixth
parallel of latitude. Need we say that agriculture, save for the few
and slender productions of cold climates, is here impossible? For
nearly seven months of the year the greater part of her rivers and
harbors are closed to commerce by bars of impenetrable ice. The soil,
and every industry relating to it, is under the dominion of frost.
The forests of timber may be accessible despite the snows of
winter, and in the early spring her people may hunt seals along the
coasts of Labrador; but during the long period of actual winter,
her agriculturists, nearly her whole industrial population, must
be employed upon indoor labor, or be left to hibernate in positive
idleness. It is simply impossible that agriculture can ever be a
successful industry in so rigorous a climate as that of Quebec.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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