men of note in the various other careers of public service or private enterprise. If the leading men of the colonies knew that a way was open to them which would enable them to make their appearance, of right, and in a recognised and defined position, on this wider and much-coveted stage at home, it would doubtless be a great gain to all parties. It would encourage men of the upper classes of this country to embark in the stirring and expanding field of colonial life, and it would go a great way towards extinguishing the sense of contrast between colonial life and that of England. Again, when a citizen of the United States, of no great mark perhaps in his own country, comes to this, he naturally feels a desire to see, if he has the slightest pretensions to be admitted into it, something of the remarkable society congregated at a certain season of the year in the metropolis. He has the minister of his own country to apply to; and, accordingly, the inhabitant of the smallest state of the Union, or of the most distant city in the great valley of the Mississippi, has a ready mode of access, if it be meet that he should have it, to some portion at least of that distinguished society. I heard it frequently asked in Canada, "Why should the inhabitant of Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire, be better off in that respect, when he visits England, than an inhabitant of Canada and a subject of the British Crown? Why should not the rising men of the colonies, on temporary visits to England, have opportunities of being properly introduced at the house of the representative of their colony in London?" One of the most påinful results of a separation from this country would then be obviated that of cutting off, to so great an extent, the opportunities of social acquaintance and intercourse with the best men of the day. - Were the option given to Canada—the first in importance of our colonies-there would be little doubt, I apprehend, of her soon finding fit men to represent her; and as little, it may fairly be expected, that her legislature would consult its own dignity in assigning to him an income befitting his station among the leading persons of this country. The former ties which used to be deemed of value in binding our colonies to us—those of trade, in an exclusive sense, have been greatly loosened, if not almost entirely put an end to. Our market is now not much more to them than any other. Among the great remaining ties those of relationship and affection, of security under the British sceptre, and a participation in British commercial credit-is that of honour. The honours emanating from the British Crown, and the honour of representing in England a new and vigorous nation of our own bone and blood, are ties stronger than gold, as they are loftier than anything that gold could purchase. Emigration. If the facts that I have brought together in the first portion of this volume, relating to the great prospective demand for more capital and labour in the United States, consequent upon the opening of the vast system. of railway communication now in progress towards the west, together with the additional facts just given to the same point respecting Canada, should be in any measure new to any one interested in the agricultural districts of this country, I apprehend they cannot fail to excite in his mind some very serious considerations, especially if he should be connected. with any of those southern counties where wages are lowest, or with a neighbourhood where strong competition for farms has hitherto kept up rent above what the tenant can meet in the present state of his agricultural skill, without encroaching upon his capital. The increasing demand for labour in the United States will, in all probability, enable the Irish emigrant to obtain, for many years to come, the high rate of wages he can now command, either on the railways or in the far West, notwithstanding the great stream of emigration that is still setting towards that country from Ireland. The agricultural capabilities of Ireland and the low price of land are already operating as a strong attraction to many enterprising farmers of capital in this country, who are taking their labourers with them. Canada -not now more distant in point of time from England than York was from London in the early part of the last century. - is drawing many of the same class to her exuberantly fertile soil. In Canada the English farmer and the English agricultural labourer find themselves in the midst of their own countrymen (for many coming from the same counties have settled near each other), surrounded by associations similar to those they have left behind them the same manners, the same habits, the same kind of farming, the same form of government, the same or even a more direct system of control over the local affairs of the neighbourhood. Every farmer, therefore, and every agricultural labourer with whom I conversed in Canada expressed himself pleased and contented with the change, as far as the increased means of living were concerned; for it would be unjust to them and to this country were I not to add, that the almost universal sequel to these expressions of content on that score was, 66 But, after all, there's nothing like the old country,' for those that can live in it." The English farmers and labourers whom I met |