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Although, perhaps, it is hardly necessary, it may be repeated that the chances of delay by fog on the northern, or Halifax and Quebec, routes are less than on that to New York. The steamers of the Cunard Company in the early days —indeed, for half the term of its existence —used to call at Halifax on every outward and homeward voyage —a practice which was only discontinued when other competing steamers began to pass direct between Liverpool and New York ; and it was the boast of the company for all that time that they did not lose a passenger —a fact which would seem to show that the route has never been considered a dangerous one. Efforts have been made to create a prejudice against the value of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence route for fast travel. But if vessels of about eighteen knots can, and do, use it with safety, surely that is the best answer to any statement of the kind. From 1880 to 1907—that is, in twenty-seven years—only five passenger-vessels had stranded on the route in question, four of which accidents, it may be mentioned, were adjudged to be due to incompetent and careless navigation. To careful navigators it presents no serious difficulty. It will not be long before there is a channel, 1,000 ft. wide in its narrowest part and 40 ft. deep at the lowest tides, right up to Quebec —the advantages of which are obvious. The question is also under consideration of laying cables between Quebec and Belle Isle on the up and down tracks of steamers, which will enable them, by means of instruments on board, to keep on a certain defined route in the gulf and river, and to be in electrical communication all the time, and thus further decrease the present very slight chances of accidents. Indeed, thanks to the continual provision of additional aids to navigation, the constant employment of wireless telegraphy, and an ever-increasing intimacy with the route, the causes that makes for accidents are, as far as is humanly possible, nearing year by year the irreducible minimum. Lord Brassey stated recently that after much experience of the Gulf of St. Lawrence he fully concurred in the opinion that it had no difficulties which could not be surmounted by proper navigation and such aids as the Canadian Government was supplying, and had supplied ; and, further, that he was convinced that the all-red route would be carried into effect at no distant date. It may be mentioned, by the way, that mails and passengers could also be conveyed by fast steamers on the Canadian route, and reach New York quicker than at present; and it certainly would be a more speedy means of conveyance to all points in the Western United States. So that, in addition to serving Canada and the British dominions in 4 the Pacific, the proposed new service would probably be used for a portion of the American mails, and, at the same time, lead to an increase in the not inconsiderable American passenger traffic which at present passes by the Canadian route. We start, therefore, with a voyage to Canada of from four and a half to five days. The present ordinary time from Montreal to the Pacific by the Canadian Pacific Railway is about four days ; the journey has been done, and will certainly be done as a regular thing before long, in three and a half days or perhaps less. The voyage from Liverpool to Vancouver will thus be a matter of about eight and a half to nine days at the outside, and rather under than over the latter figure. As regards the Pacific portion of the route, the distance from Vancouver to Auckland is 6,330 knots. With boats making the voyage at a speed of only eighteen knots, the time required would be about fifteeen days —excluding stoppages for coal, say at Fanning Island (3,205 miles from Vancouver) and Suva (5,089 miles from Vancouver), for which an allowance of one day might be made—or, say, sixteen days altogether. Allowing for a slight delay at Auckland, or some other New Zealand port, a further three days would be necessary to reach the terminal port, making the time occupied on the Pacific from Vancouver to Sydney (7,429 miles) nineteen days at the most, and with vessels not nearly so fast as are suggested for the Atlantic part of the service. Therefore, taking nine days as the duration of the journey to Vancouver, sixteen days thence to Auckland, and a further three days to Sydney, we have a total of twenty-five days to New Zealand, and twenty-eight days to Australia. By the Eastern route passengers and mails now reach Sydney in thirty to thirty-one days, and New Zealand in thirty-four to thirty-seven days. The saving, therefore, in the case of New Zealand by the all-red route would be some ten days, and to Sydney two days, as compared with the time via the Suez Canal; but it is only fair to state that the times of the latter service will probably be somewhat shorter under the new contract than those fixed by the present agreement. In dealing with the subject from the Australian point of view, it must be remembered that by far the greater portion of the population is found in the eastern part of the continent, and that passengers and mails, in order to reach New Zealand by way of Suez, have to be conveyed along the entire coast-line north or south of Australia, according to the route which may be traversed. These figures in themselves are sufficient justification for an endeavour to open up, and make use of, this important alternative route, apart altogether from the advantages it offers from other points of view. While it will, as already stated, be largely used for passengers and mails, it must tend to make the different parts of the Empire affected by it better known to each other ; and who can doubt that benefits, from the commercial aspect of the case, will follow a more intimate acquaintanceship \ It cannot fail to stimulate a greater interest in the general well-being of the various countries, and to have important results in encouraging emigration and the investment of capital for the development of the resources which they possess. Anything which promotes such expansion must greatly benefit the railways and steamship companies in the dominions beyond the seas, now engaged in the conveyance of products to and from their own markets and to and from the markets of the United Kingdom and to the rest of the world. When we look at the comparatively small populations of Canada, New Zealand, and the different States of Australia, compared with the immense areas of land they possess, only waiting for cultivation to produce food and raw materials of all kinds ; when we remember that they form, with portions of South Africa, the most suitable remaining portions of the earth for the settlement of white people, we are forced to the conclusion that there is a future before the British Empire much greater even than we perhaps dream of to-day. This is, of course, assuming that it always remains under one flag and one

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