Special views of the Canadians.
As regarded the operation of the Navigation Laws
with reference to Canada, it was far more complicated
than even that between the mother-country, her colonies
in the West Indies, and the United States. While
some of the shipowners of England had, as we have
seen, gone so far as even to demand protection against
the shipping of English colonists, the Canadians were
busily occupied with efforts in an entirely opposite
direction. They were not inclined, by a system of
protection, to force their trade in any particular
channel: for, so far as regarded the carrying-trade of
the North-Western American States, the Canadians
obviously could only secure its passage through their
territory by holding out superior advantages in the
way of cheapness of transit. For this purpose they
had already done everything that great enterprise
and expenditure could accomplish. They succeeded
as far as possible; and, at length, possessed a line of
communication at once more rapid and more cheap
from the interior to the sea than any existing in the
United States. The whole question then was confined
to the comparative advantages of shipment
from Quebec or Montreal, or from New York. If
those ports could be nearly equalised in respect to
freights to England, Canada would succeed in her
object; if the disparity continued as it did then, all
her efforts would have been unavailing.
Montreal, its shipping and trade. It was, generally, represented that the high rate of freight between Montreal and the United Kingdom was owing to the limited number of ships employed in the import trade of Canada. In the spring and latter end of the summer, ships, composing what was called the spring and fall fleet, arrived; and, so long
