Page:The empire and the century.djvu/452

 G. R. PARKIN, LL.D., C.M.G.

geographical position of Canada stamps with great significance her future relations to the British Empire and to the world. The Dominion rests with broad frontage upon both the Atlantic and the Pacific. On the Atlantic her ports command the shortest route to Europe, and furnish an unrivalled naval base for giving security to the greatest food route of the United Kingdom and the greatest trade route of the world. Behind these ports are waterways leading to the very heart of the continent—almost to those prairies which promise soon to yield the largest available surplus of one of the world's prime necessities—wheat.

The frontage on the Pacific is not less significant in view of the general expectation that this ocean is likely soon to be the centre of a vastly increased commerce. Wherever lines of transportation from the prairies may penetrate the Rocky Mountains there can be found, in British Columbia, harbour space for any commerce that may come. Thence is the shortest route to the ports of our ally, Japan, and to what will, we hope, be the open door of China. Thence, too, is easy communication, already partly developed, with the islands of the Pacific, Australasia, India, Central and South America—tropical and subtropical countries which are the natural commercial complement of a northern land.

On both sides of the continent, in immediate contact 409