s
continent. Colonel Synge, of the Queen's Royal Engineers, says:--

"America is geographically a connecting link between the continents of
Europe and Asia, and not a monstrous barrier between them. It lies in
the track of their nearest and best connection; and this fact needs only
to be fully recognized to render it in practice what it unquestionably
is in the essential points of distance and direction."[R]

Another English writer says:--

"It is believed that the amount of direct traffic which would be created
between Australia, China, and Japan, and England, by a railway from
Halifax to the Gulf of Georgia, would soon more than cover the interest
upon the capital expended.... If the intended railway were connected
with a line of steamers plying between Victoria (Puget Sound), Sydney,
or New Zealand, mails, quick freight, passengers to and from our
colonies in the southern hemisphere, would, for the most part, be
secured for this route.

"Vancouver's Island is nearer to Sydney than Panama by nine hundred
miles; and, with the exception of the proposed route by a Trans-American
railway, the latter is the most expeditious that has been found.

"By this interoceanic communication, the time to New Zealand would be
reduced to forty-two, and to Sydney to forty-seven days, being at least
ten less than by steam from England via Panama."[S]

Lord Bury says:--

"Our trade [English] in the Pacific Ocean with China and with India must
ultimately be carried through our North American possessions. At any
rate, our political and commercial supremacy will have utterly departed
from us, if we neglect that great and important consideration, and if we
fail to carry out to its fullest extent the physical advantages which
the country offers to us, and which we have only to stretch out our
hands to take advantage of."[T]

Shanghai is rapidly becoming the great commercial emporium of China. It
is situated at the mouth of the Yangtse-Kiang, the largest river of
Asia, navigable for fifteen hundred miles. Hong-Kong, which has been the
English centre in China, is nine hundred and sixty miles farther south.

With a line of railway across this continent, the position of England
would be as follows:--

To Shanghai via Suez, 60 days.
" " " Puget Sound, 33 "

Mr. Maciff divides the time as follows by the Puget Sound route:--

Southampton to Halifax, 9 days.
Halifax to Puget Sound, 6 "
Puge