It would be an odd freak of destiny if the
opening of the Suez Canal were seriously to affect the fortunes of Canada, yet that is not impossible. The shippers of wheat from India appear to have completely surmounted the old transport difficulties, and the value of the export last year exceeded £7,000,000, while more than a million's worth was shipped during the past month. It is quite possible, therefore, that India may carry off a large share of the wheat trade from the United States, as the States carried it off from Russia, and so stop the rapid
extension of cultivation in Manitoba. With light rail- ways in the Punjab, the supply of good wheat for export might be raised to more than 10,000,000 quarters, at a price with which, in a good year, Americans cannot compete. The single difficulty with which growers in Northern India now have to contend is the slow, and therefore expensive, method of collection by country carts and river boats. Grant even a slight improvement in internal transit, and England would be fed from India,—an enormous addition to the importance of the Suez Canal.
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