Green are the hills when far away, And Youth in leash craves Manhood’s sway: Placid the waters that wash the sands, The sky is blue o’er distant lands. Yet phantom castles--springtime dreams, Dissolve like foam on woodland streams, As Fancy--chastened by breath of Time, Reasons in prose and not in rhyme: Yearning ceases--behold at home The glories pictured by they who roam. Rimmed with vesture of verdant green, Basks Quinte Bay--perennial queen: Matron--a seer--she spans full years Of promise, hardship, wreckage, tears. From pre-historic days of yore Her scroll is writ with mystic lore. O’er her breast stole birchen craft Burdened with Redskin, bows and shaft; Swiftly stalking widgeon and deer Or Paleface tiller settled near. Champlain and Franklin sensed her spell, As did good priest with book and bell. Soldier, trapper and creaking stage Have seen Dame Quinte lashed in rage, But seldom doth she portend ill, Her mood is tranquil, coaxing, still. Who hath not felt her soft caress, Limpid, seductive as maiden’s tress, Who hath skimmed her foaming crest With spreading sheet at her behest, And doth not sing throughout his days Of this real gem amongst the bays. Ensconced in a setting of green and gold, She is ever young to young and old: Could her waters speak as they flow along, “Forget me not” would be their song. THE CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY SYSTEM [Illustration: SIR WILLIAM MACKENZIE, President, Canadian Northern Railway System.] With her feeders and tributaries tapping the distant, beautiful valleys of historic Arcadia and a trunk line that ensures a through fast freight service from ancient Quebec--an ideal gateway for men who go down to the sea in ships--the second steel highway in Canada’s transcontinental trio stretches hundreds of miles far and away through rolling uplands, untouched forests and waving wheat fields to Burrard Inlet and flourishing Vancouver, a busy maritime mart and door to the placid Pacific. Built or purchased and gradually assembled by Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, the capitalization of the Canadian Northern Railway System, which will be taken over by the Government of the Dominion of Canada, has been reckoned at approximately $43,000 per mile for 10,000 miles of railway actually under operation, and during the arbitration proceedings at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, Mr. Pierce Butler, St. Paul, Minn., counsel speaking in behalf of his clients, stated that the railway was now on a basis of $50,000,000 gross earnings a year. Previous to the declaration of war the “C.N.R.” was financed mainly by British capitalists whose intentions, apart from expected profit, were to directly increase the yield and transportation facilities for wheat against the possibilities of war, having in mind how far below consumption was their own production of the fundamental food.