Newfoundland to Manitoba. By W. Fraser Rae. (S. Low , and
Co.)—Mr. Rae visited a considerable part of British North America —all the Dominion of Canada, in fact, excepting British Columbia— and communicated his observations to the Ti»tes. His letters are here given to the public, recast and enlarged, as "A Guide through Canada's Maritime, Mining, and Prairie Provinces." Newfoundland is the first country dealt with, and appears very different from the land of " mist and snow," as which it is sometimes pictured. Early travellers were certainly delighted with it ; and there are days, it must be remembered, and not a few of them, when England would appear to a visitor absolutely uninhabitable. The list of products of the country is proof enough that the climate is fairly good. Unfor- tunately, its fisheries have stopped its general development. So late as the early part of this century, persons were prohibited from settling, lest they should hinder the development of the fisheries. At present the French bounty system has driven all rivals from the fishing- banks, while an unintelligible pretension on the part of the same people excludes all but Frenchmen from a part of the Newfoundland shore. Mr. Rae describes, in succession, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward's Island (where the "Land Act" seems to have had the happiest effect, though there has been a difficulty in the payment of the pur- chase-money by the tenants), takes us across Lake Superior, and finally lands us in what seems as near an approach to Paradise as can be reasonably expected. What Mr. Rae says of the prospects of im- migrants in this country is well worth considering. Even the farmers in Manitoba, he sue, do not grumble. " Manitoba," they are wont to say, "is the finest land that God's sun ever shone on."
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