TO EUROPE BY WAY OF HUDSON BAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 79

TO EUROPE BY WAY OF HUDSON BAY.

The utt«r blockade of east-bound freight on all tJie railroad' lines of the Northwestern States and Western Canada has given great impetus to the agitation for a short route to Europe by way of Hudson BaV. Any schoolboy looking at a knows that d*:etajßC«s east and west a*e shortei tow*rd the Pole titan toward* tie equator. From Japan to Liverpool by way of San Francisco is 11,000 miles; by way of Seattle, 10,800 miles ; by way of Van- , coover-Montreal, 10,000? by way of Prince Rupert — the new Grand Trunk terminus — and Montreal, 9300 miles; by way of Prince Rupert aod Hudson Bay, 8270 miles. — Significance of Churdhiill. — Take a map and look at the Atlantia seaports. New York and Montreal aw both on tibe broodiest belt of America, — both at the greatest possible distance from, tie Western shipper. Look at the littie fur post of Churchill, up on Hudson Bay. It is from 1500 to 2000 miles nearer the Western shipper than New York or Montreal. , The spokes of ft wheel run* ning from San Francisco and Denver and Salt Lake and Portland and Vancouver \ and Edmonton to a hub at Churchill am just half as long as the 'spokes of a i wheel running from these points to Montreal or New York. That is the fact as to distance. It means th»t*a railroad to Hudson Bay would cat the haul of the big trans-continental rood* in half and move Liverpool 2000 miles nearer Western shippers. One hardly needs to add that such* a project has been, and will be, furiously opposed by Eastern se«n ports and railroads , that feed those seat* ports. For 25 years railroad projecta from Winnipeg to Hudson. Bay have sunprji , been blanket charters smothered and kepS ' in abeyance by rival railroads. — Congested Traffic— The inrush of immigration, the iooreastf of wheat yields, have proved' the uttoj* inability of the existing transportation lines to handle the ingoing and outgoing freight of the West. Within the past si months different charters have been take) out for different railroad schemes connecfj ing wdith Hudson. Bay. One of these w» obtained by Mr Hill, wbo used to ridicul ' a Hudson Bay road as a. venture tb» would be "«now«d up for ten months o the year and iced up the other two." 33m Hill charter plans to feed the freight o Dakota and Minnesota into the Saskai chewem Valley and from tibe Saskatchewan „ to Hudson Bay. Builders are at wor! on ihe> southern end of this project noV.T Another of these six Hudson Bay charter*; is owned by the new Canadian trans* continental line— the MacKenzie-Mann road. Of the. 400 miles needed to. COttnejaJ

Churchill -with the Tailtoads of the Saskatchewan, the MacKenzie-Mann roa<s has already 80 built-, to connect with the Pas, at the maubh of the Saskatchewan, a railroad with trains running, not "just an iron tonic for the cows," as the funny papers hare always described roads to Hudson Bay. Asked, if an ocean steamship line would be established from Churchill to Liverpool, Mr MacKenzie retorted: "What do you think we are building a road to Hudson Bay for?"