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Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 139, 3 September 1853, Page 5

Why Canada, is Prospering.—A few years ago Canada was a standing reproach to this country. Every traveller informed us, that on, the south of the boundary Hue, which separated British America from the United States, all was activity, improvement, and prosperity, whilst to the north all was listlessness, backwardness, and comparative poverty. Of the emigrants who landed in Canada, by far the greater number travelled on and settled in the States. The cause of this contrast was generally found in the necessary, or at least actual, defects of a colonial Government, and in the stimulus given to industry and enterprise by republican institutions. So strong was the sense of inferiority among the Canadians themselves, that at a very recent date—provoked, it is true, by the alteration in. our timber duties, and by the removal of the seat of Government from Montreal to Toronto— a great number of the merchants and other inhabitants of Lower Canada talked loudly of giving up their allegiance to Queen Victoria, and annexing their province to the United States. To the present day, it is the fashion of the senators and journals of the republic to talk as if, at the first outbreak of war, Canada would be overrun by their troops, and for ever lost to England. But the last ten years have witnessed a change in Canada, which wonderfully alters the actual comparison and the future prospect of things. The British province has made a spring iv population and commerce, which not only equals, but even exceeds, anything experienced during* the same decade in the United States. Between 1841 and 1851, according to a recent despatch from Lord Elgin, the Governor, the population of Canada increased from 1,156.139 to 1,842,265, being an advance of more than 59 per cent., whilst the increase v! the free population of the United States, within the same ten years was only 37 & per cent. In the province of Upper Canada, which is almost wholly English, the increase has reached Id-i^ per cent, in the ten years. The population of Upper Canada is now 952,004, and thatof Lower Canada 890,261 ; and of the latter 665,528 are of French origin. The commerce of the colony has also rapidly extended itself. The causos of the rapid increase in the population and commerce of Canada are, we apprehend, Ist., immigration, which during the last five years has gone on at an accelerated rate ; 2nd, the greater degvee-<jf.sel£gov^mmeut_.enJQyedby. .the Canadians ; and 3rd., the progress of internal itnpro viements, such as canals and railways. —Leeds Mercury,