Maritime provinces

“ But they offer to man wealth such as he cannot elsewhere win from the sea. The fisheries of the Newfoundland Banks were the earliest inducement which led Europeans to frequent those seemingly inhospitable shores. The Maritime Provinces were more easily accessible than Canada, for they abounded in commodious inlets where ships could enter and lie secure. ”

“ The people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government where the seafarers recruitment and placement agencies are located shall be responsible for the handling of emergencies involving seafarers overseas, and the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government where the places of the seafarers' household registration belong shall cooperate. ”

“ We watch with lively interest the prospect which the completion of our great water communications with the ocean, will open to us; and we fervently hope that the extension of trade thus opened to Her Majesty's North American Provinces will tend to strengthen the union between these Provinces and the Parent State. ”

“ Vessels bound from one Province to another, shall not be compelled to enter, anchor, or pay transit-duties; nor in any case can preferences be granted to one port over another, by any commercial laws or regulations. Article 13. New Provinces may be admitted into the Nation; but no Province shall be erected within the territory of any other Province, or Provinces, nor any Province be formed by the junction of various Provinces, without the consent of the legislatures of the Provinces concerned, as well as of Congress. ”

“ Nowhere on the continent is there a sanctuary quite like it. It is the Abbey of the Provinces, the shrine of primitive Canada. To muse in its stiff wooden seats, to meditate among its tombs is like sitting at the feet of an oracle to learn of history and stirring deeds. ”

“ The throb of the engine beating against the sea wall of Bonaventure Island startles from their ledges the hordes of gannets, puffins, kittiwakes and sea pigeons that range these sandstone shelves like china birds in a shop. Some fly off in such a storm of wings and gleaming breasts that the sky is blotted out and the ears stunned by the uproar. ”

“ The imperial government sustained the contention of the provinces—a contention practically supported by American authorities in the case of the Delaware, Chesapeake, and other bays on the coast of the United States—that the three miles' limit should be measured from a line drawn from headlands of all bays, harbours and creeks. ”

“ The British North America Act, referred to above, provided for the division of the Dominion of Canada into four provinces named Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and also made provision for the admission of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, etc., when such admission should be deemed advisable. ”

“ That the inhabitants and subjects of the United Provinces may, with their ships and vessels, furnished as merchantmen, freely use their navigation, sail, pass and repass in the seas of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Isles within the same, (commonly called the British Seas) without any wrong or injury to be offered to them, by the ships or people of this Commonwealth, but on the contrary shall be treated with all love and friendly offices ”

“ Confederation united the scattered provinces, extended our borders from ocean to ocean, gave us a country and a name, filled the minds of our youth with dreams of national greatness and hopes of an extending commerce spreading from our Atlantic and Pacific coasts to every corner in the world. The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway consolidated the country more than ever, brought the provinces into closer union, and inspired the hope that a great portion of the trade between the East and the West would pulsate through our territory. ”

“ All flags, without distinction of nationality, shall have free access to all the coast of the territories above enumerated; to the rivers which therein flow to the sea; to all the waters of the Congo and its affluents, including the lakes; to all the canals that in the future may be cut with the object of uniting the water-courses or the lakes comprised in the whole extent of the territories described in Article I. They can undertake all kinds of transport, and engage in maritime and fluvial coasting, as well as river navigation, on the same footing as the natives. ”

“ I am of the same opinion respecting the Canadas. I consider that, even as two provinces, they are too vast in territory already. Whether it be a woman looking after her servants and household affairs, or a captain commanding a ship, or a governor ruling over a province, large or small as may be the scale of operation, one of the most important points in good legislation, is the eye. A governor of a vast province cannot possibly be aware of the wants of the various portions of the province. He is obliged to take the reports of others, and consequently very often legislates unadvisedly. ”

“ Our isolated situation, being the northeastern boundary of the nation, with an interior frontier upward of 600 miles upon a foreign country and a large proportion of our territory lying between two Provinces of Great Britain and so situated as to render it greatly to the advantage of that nation to possess it; the inflexible determination which she manifests to pursue the course which interest dictates should not be forgotten; the extent of our seacoast; the exposed situation of our seaport towns, lying within a few hours' sail of the British naval depot in the neighborhood of Maine ”

“ OFF CAPE FINISTERRE. Towards the end of the year 1746 the French ministry came to a determination to increase their forces in Canada, and, with the assistance of the native Indians, to extend their territories by encroachments on the neighbouring provinces belonging to Great Britain. ”

“ Without reference to the Far West, or the Far North-West,—without regard to the Red River and Assiniboia or to British Columbia, there is before us the great fact, that out of the Canadas, and the British North American Provinces and dependencies, can be created a powerful Confederation attached to this country, and capable of the grandest development in spite of climatic influences. ”

“ In the meadow of tall herbage the slender sea-crows and grey herring-gulls mingle with indifference, maintaining their households, preening their coats, stalking awkwardly about their common domain, trying their wings at the edge of the cliff, chattering with such vehemence that the clamour sounds all day in the ears of the village. The gulls lay their eggs on the ground, their black neighbours build upright nests of twigs. ”

“ These two groups of islands, forming one county, are of late109 years greatly advanced in importance, and possess an aggregate population of 60,000 inhabitants, who are chiefly engaged in maritime affairs and fishing adventures. From their local position also in the North Sea, they lie much in the track of vessels sailing in the higher latitudes, and correspondence with them regarding the destination and insurance of ships is often of the greatest importance to commercial men. ”

“ In short, it is not only size that counts but a combination of great extent with other favoring forces. If we add together the eighteen provinces of China proper, Japan, European Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Great Britain, they equal only about the same geographical area as the United States exclusive of Alaska and our island possessions. ”

“ The population of all the provinces may be fairly estimated as numbering 3,500,000. Many of the inhabitants are of French extraction, and a few German settlements exist; but two-thirds of the people of the provinces owe their origin either to the United States or to the British Islands, whose language we speak, and who ‘people the world with men industrious and free.’
“The climate and soil of these Provinces and Possessions, seemingly less indulgent than those of tropical regions, are precisely those by which the skill, energy, and virtues of the human race are best developed. ”

“ Dominion over maritime territory is not subject to any limitation. Thus any strait through which the right of passage of foreign vessels can be forbidden (as the Solent or the Inland Sea of Japan) , or bays so land-locked that they cannot be held to form part of any ocean-highway, are maritime territory. ”

“ This province contains within itself the germs of enduring prosperity: a splendid bay many miles in extent, where countless ships can ride close to the shore, with lakes and rivers branching from it, form so many natural harbours, docks, and canals; whilst it abounds with sugar plantations, forests of timber fit for shipbuilding and other purposes, precious stones, and many tropical productions, the latter of which can be all procured in a degree only limited by the amount of labour and the facility of bringing things down to the ports for shipment. ”

“ Although the boundary between the upper austral and the transition provinces is indefinite, it is easily to be seen, from the geographical distribution of cities, agricultural population, manufactories, colleges, and other institutions of learning, etc., that the climate of the province under review is on the whole the one in which the greatest intellectual advance has been made and the one which holds out the greatest promise for the future. ”

“ The British Provinces of North America, especially Canada West,—formerly called Upper Canada,—in climate, soil, productions, and the usual prospects for internal improvements, are equal, if not superior, to any northern part of the continent. And for these very reasons, aside from their contiguity to the northern part of the United States,—and consequent facility for the escape of the slaves from the South,—we certainly should prefer them as a place of destination. ”

“ The whole empire is divided into twelve great provinces, one only of which has 2000 great cities within its bounds; and the whole is so extensive, that one may travel continually for six months in any one direction, besides the islands under his dominion, which are at least 5000 in number. ”

“ The ships would be better administered and governed, by persons who understand that better, through the continual practice which they have in these islands in maritime and military affairs; for at times persons come in the said offices who have no experience whatever in the one branch or the other, which is ordinarily the cause of much loss.
[In the margin: "Place the decree with the letters of the governor and Audiencia."] ”

“ Barbadoes, Jamaica, Florida, Virginia, New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland became a world of great opportunities, and with plans for the expansion of trade went plans for naval and military activity. ”

“ But, as on the west they are determined to maintain contact with the mother-country, so, on the east, they are not prepared to renounce their claim to a frontier more just and more secure than might be assigned to them by the next happening in the give-and-take of politics or by any future treaties which they might be able to conclude with the rural and maritime communes after the proclamation of an open port and of generous statutes. ”

“ Here, in the Province of which this city is the capital, you have the great ocean and highways so near you that your brave and hardy maritime population can furnish your mercantile marine with many of the best sailors in America. In the territory, comprised within your limits, you occupy a central position through which much of the land traffic of this part of the American continent is likely to be conducted, and your climate gives to all who cultivate your soil abundance of agricultural resources in corn and pasture land. ”

“ Thus, you see, a foreign region, settled and owned by the mother-country, may, with nearly equal propriety, be called either a colony or a province; while one that belongs to a nation or a kingdom by conquest or purchase is a province, and nothing else. Thus, for example, Canada is a province of Great Britain, won from the French by conquest, as you will learn to-morrow evening. From this you may see, that although a province may, yet a colony can no more exist within the boundaries of a mother-country, than can a man live at home and abroad at one and the same time. ”

“ Let us look beyond this Island and beyond even those difficult mountains, and see what our neighbours and friends to the south of us are about. An army of workmen—exactly double that now employed in this Province—are driving with a speed that seems wonderful a railway through to the coast. In another year or two a large traffic, encouraged by the competition in freights between it, the Central and the Southern Pacific will have been acquired. You are, by the very nature of things, heavily handicapped here, and a trade, as you know, once established is not easily rivalled. ”

“ I invite your attention to the view of our present naval establishment and resources presented in the report of the Secretary of the Navy, and the suggestions therein made for its improvement, together with the naval policy recommended for the security of our Pacific Coast and the protection and extension of our commerce with eastern Asia. Our facilities for a larger participation in the trade of the East, by means of our recent settlements on the shores of the Pacific, are too obvious to be overlooked or disregarded. ”

“ All lands, mines, minerals, and royalties vested in Her Majesty in the Provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, for the use of such Provinces, shall belong to the Local Government of the territory in which the same are so situate, subject to any trusts that may exist in respect of any such lands, or to any interest of other persons in respect of the same. ”