The new route to the Far East across the Canadian
Dominion is wonderfully quick. The mails; for example, which left Yokohama, in Japan, on August 19th, arrived in Vancouver at noon on August 29th, and in Ontario at 9 on September 1st, the run across the continent, 2,802 miles, having occupied 76 hours 55 minutes. They reached New York seven hours later, and were expected to be in London on the evening of the 8th, the total time occupied being twenty-one days. Even this may be reduced by employing more powerful steamers between Japan and Vancouver, and ultimately, no doubt, the total journey between England and the farthest point we care to reach in Asia will be invariably finished within three weeks. Within the writer's lifetime, it used to take twelve. Whether all this rapidity of communication will produce any beneficial result, remains to be seen; but that it will produce one great consequence is certain. The Americans will hunger for Canada. They have no particular desire for more territory ; but fast trains, through communications, and bustling move- ments raise their cupidity to fever-heat.
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