RAILWAY TO HUDSON BAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14532, 21 November 1910, Page 4

RAILWAY TO HUDSON BAY.

We are commonly asked to believe that the great attraction of Canada consists in the immense amount of land which she can offer to the immigrant, and that with this attraction New Zealand cannot possibly compete, In one sense this is quite correct, for Canada can offer hundreds of millions of acres while we could only offer a few millions. But how does Canada manage to have plenty of land for immigrants, while New Zealand is not even able to prevent her own people- from streaming across to Australia 1 ? Canada has land to offer because she expends boundless energy and millions of money in making available for settlement land which has hitherto been quite inaccessible. Twenty years ago, a railway to Hudson " Bay would have been looked upon as fantastical yet it,is actually foreshadowed • in ; the - GovernorGeneral's Speech at the opening of the Dominion Parliament, and in all probability will be completed long before a train rims from Auckland, through Waihi, to Gisbprne.. This

Hudson Bay line will turn land- now waste and profitless into settled and productive country,', from which the Government will get revenue; the railway profit and the whole of Canada increased trade and reduced expenses; it will draw many thousands to Canada who would otherwise go somewhere else it will afford a wider market to British goods as well as land for British people. Will not railways do the same for New Zealand if pushed with due regard to settlement possibilities and for trade developments Yet though our favoured islands know nothing of Hudson Bay winters the Government shows no energy whatever in opening the back country lands which would carry teeming population if freed from depressing tenures and incomprehensible restrictions, and made available by convenient railways. . That hopeful English emigrants will soon be going to Hudson Bay while New Zealand emigrants are already going to look for land in Australia is one of the' political paradoxes of the time, which is hardly laudatory of our national administration.