expenses of war? Between the years 1797 and 1815, 630 millions
of money were expended for carrying on war. Again, the very magnitude of
the undertaking and length of the Railway is in its favour, for--listen
again to the Quarterly: "We believe it may be affirmed without fear of
contradiction, that the working details of a Railway are invariably well
executed in proportion to their magnitude. A little Railway--like a
little war--is murderous to those engaged and ruinous to those who pay
for it." Now if in England experience has taught all this,--shall the
good people of Halifax, New Brunswick, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, &c.,
be allowed, perhaps encouraged, to go on slowly endeavouring (at an
immense expense and outlay for such young communities) to make a variety
of small Railways,[see Note 40] thus acknowledged to be ruinous, and the
mother country remain quietly looking on when she has now the power of
greatly assisting them, and to her own advantage, by planning and
arranging one grand route and system of Lines throughout the whole
country,[see Note 19] and under Providence the means of opening that
route in an incredible short space of time? Let then England, her North
American colonies, and the Hudson's Bay Company, join heart and hand,
and with the great power of steam which it has pleased the Almighty to
place at the command of man, there will soon arise a work that will
be the wonder and admiration of the age--and such a mercantile and
colonizing road will be open to Great Britain, that at no future period,
(at least within the imagination of man,) will she ever again have to
complain of too great a population on her soil, and too small a market
for her labour.

Let us now then proceed, my dear friend, to consider how this great
work might be commenced, and its probable results when accomplished. In
the first place let us look a little to the immense annual cost to
England for her prisons and her convicts,[see Notes 47 and 50]--much of
that crime arising probably from the want of employment, and consequent
poverty.[see Note 20] Even at this moment five millions are spoken of as
a sum required to be expended in new prisons for a favourite system.[see
Note 41] In 1836 it was suggested "as well worthy of consideration,
whether it would not be advisable to cease transporting convicts at so
great a cost to distant settlements, and instead to send them to a
nearer place of exile, where their labour might be rendered in