Three chapters on a triple project : the canal and the rail / by William F. Coffin, Esq., Joint Sherrif of the District of Montreal.

We have to thank a writer who signs himself " A Subscriber," in the Montreal Herald of the 1st January, for the opportune reproduction of an article which appeared in The Economist of the 12th September, 1846, and which, in a tone of manly and cheerful self-reliance, demonstrates how little Canada has to fear under the operation of free trade, combined with a relaxation of the navigation laws, quoad the River St. Lawrence, from foreign rivalry, so long at least as " our merchants," and, let us add, our people at large, " stimulated by necessity and " convinced by reflection of the vast advantages they enjoy, " will turn attention to the fact, that the produce of Western " Canada, and of the northern parts of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, " and Michigan, must find an outlet, either by the way of the " Erie Canal, or by the St. Lawrence, to the Ocean."So long, indeed, as the St. Lawrence flows to the sea, so long will the tide of commerce fall into and follow its natural de- clivity.All that is required of us, is to improve the blessings which Providence has bestowed ; or, at the least, not to dam back and impede the current by perverse obstruc- tionsby legislative restrictions which can only protect " our rivals" ; or by an indolent indifference to the advantages we possess, and a neglect to profit by them.We have already employed, once or twice, the words " rivalry" and " rivals".We do so in no obnoxious sense.A fair and generous rivalry is a healthful stimulant, whether ap- plied to the individual man or to nations.It inspires deter- mination, it infuses confidence, it invigorates exhausted efforts, it impels anew.It keeps the individual, or the people, in " tip top condition," ready for any thing, and up to any thing.We have much to thank our " rivals" for, and for nothing more than their " rivalry."Let us profit by it. When DeWittClinton first devised his immortal project of the Erie Canal, his object was, not only to facilitate the inter- course of New York State with a rich, fertile, and inviting ono i 4 country, -the western Land of Promise, -but to " tap" the waters of the upper St. Lawrence, as the long link of lakes may be justly called, and to divert the tide of commerce from a rival river and a foreign state, into a new channel, more safe, more convenient and more expeditious, and therefore more economical ; more unimpeded by climate and natural obstacles, and, therefore, more inviting.Energy and industry and persevering science attempted much, and accomplished more.The over heaped and over crowded wharves of Buffalo, the serried canal, the teeming docks of Troy and Albany, do homage to the genius of DeWitt Clinton.But all human efforts have their limits.The traffic of the Erie Canal must be limited by its capacity.That capacity may be enlarged, but time will elapse, and money must be expended, while the trade of the west advances with such overwhelming rapidity as even now to embarrass and gorge the canal with a superfluity of business.It is admitted on all hands that the Erie Canal, however much enlarged or improved, can never do half the work required of it.Buffalo has, and ever will have, enough of trade, and to spare.In sparing us some of its trade, it would be well if it would spare us some of its energy.While the Americans, aware of the incapacity of the Erie Canal to meet the demands of com- merce, press forward with undertakings of the most arduous and costly character, involving enormous outlay and immense labour, not to compete with this canal, but to receive the over- flowings of its trade, we stand supinely by, and, with the work already three parts done to our hand, with the power, at the cost of a trifling additional effort, of assuring to our waters for ever, the preference and the precedence in the carrying trade of this section of the American continent, permit the golden opportunity to escape us irrecoverably, and abandon that which nature and reason identify as our own, to the superior enterprize and intelligence of neighbours whom, in this instance, it would be the height of self-adulation to style " rivals."It may be instructive to enumerate here some of the public works completed, or actually in progress, in the State of New York alone, with a view to a participation in the profits of the immense trade of the West.We may take, as the most remote and first in order, the New York and Erie Railroad, extend- ing from Dunkirk, a port on Lake Erie, to the River Hudson at Piermont, which, connected by steamboats, crosses the river at that point and descends the east bank to the city of New York.Then we have the great Erie Canal extending

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