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and a striking comparison has been drawn between the progress of America and the want of movement in Canada:

'On the lower side of the boundary line the whole scene has been one of advance in enterprise and steady, vigorous pushing forward over mountains, plains, and valleys of tilled fields and thriving settlements, of sumptuous cities, of toiling, prosperous peoples. On the other side a narrow, jealous, obstructive policy had set out all intrusion upon a wilderness of any but stealthy trappers, and the desolate wintering agents of a monopoly in the pelting traffic.' *

Canada, from its political constitution, has never been so progressive as the United States; in the sea-bordering states of the one there has, too, been a population constantly added to by emigrants, pushing westward almost of necessity. In Lower Canada there has lived a people rather stationary in numbers, unenergetic, clinging to home, contented with a quiet lot. The habitant is an attractive and pleasant being, he is unique, he unites the joyous nature of the Frenchman with some of the hardihood and reserve of the Northman. But he is essentially uncolonising. There was again, too, the want of communication not only between the northern territories of the company, but also between the western lands and Europe. To this day the highway between Great Britain and Canada is really by New York or Boston, a fact which should never be forgotten when the difference of growth between Canada and the United States is considered. Apart, therefore, from the mercantile policy of the company, there were causes which tended to stay western colonisation. Thus it is doubtful whether, even had the policy of the company been different, it would have resulted in an earlier peopling of the North-West. Even yet enormous tracts of land to the south of Hudson's Bay are still unpeopled and almost unexplored, though the time seems to be approaching when this region will be made accessible to the farmer and the miner.

From first to last there was no concealment about the policy of the company, but it did not keep back anxious colonists. Nearer the Atlantic there were hundreds of miles of land still waiting to be occupied. What it did was to retain in its own hands a particular trade. Those who wandered into the West in opposition to it came not to settle, but to secure wealth by trade with the Indians or by hunting the beaver. When the growth of civilisation

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showed that the era of colonisation for these wilder regions was approaching, with natural reluctance to change the company ceased to hold the West as a hunting-ground. Thus the work of the Hudson's Bay servants entitles them to be regarded as builders of the existing empire. Now, as we have already said, the company has ceased to govern, and can only be reckoned among the leading mercantile corporations of the empire; yet, though the years have brought changes in dominion, and have altered the system of the great company, it is not difficult for one now wandering in the West to realise its working and existence in the past. The big plain structure, the store of the Hudson's Bay Company, is to be seen to-day, the most conspicuous object in every frontier settlement of the Canadian NorthWest. Its barn-like proportions hold every commodity Indian, half-breed, or white settler can need. In exchange for his peltries the Indian obtains his comparatively civilised and very unpicturesque dress, his blankets, still gaudily decorated to satisfy his love for colour, his tobacco and pipe. The white man finds provision for his more civilised wants for the household or the field. And though these border communities are steadily becoming less distinct and more commonplace through the opening up of the country, yet the fur-bearing animals are still plentiful in that vast region, a wilderness, if more or less explored. The skins of the sable, the mink, the otter, and the beaver are brought to the post in March, as oncoming spring hurries the Indian runner before her over the crumbling snow crustthe roadway for his dog team.

Even the rare black fox from time to time is in his load, to find its way to the cities of the Old World. In the bargaining and bartering between white man and red man at lone stations among the illimitable pine woods there is still to be seen that same trafficking which was begun by Grosseilliers and Radisson and the servants of Rupert and Arlington more than two centuries ago.

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ART. IX.-1. Exposition internationale universelle de 1900. Catalogue général officiel.

centennale de l'art français.

Euvres d'art. Exposition

2. Exposition internationale universelle de 1900. Catalogue général officiel. Tome second. Groupe ii. Œuvres d'art. Classes 7 à 10.

AT

T one page of his diary, Delacroix notes how he has been to the house of a friend to see some pictures. They were some half-dozen, but they included two or three of Constable, for whom the French artist had a just and great admiration. At the end of the entry Delacroix writes, 'C'était trop de choses dans une journée.' In this spirit, doubtless, should we go to look at pictures, if we desire rightly to appraise them and draw from them the fullest measure of profit.

But how would such a plan be possible in the case of the vast galleries of paintings which Paris at this moment opens to its visitors? And yet, to pass such by upon the other side is equally impossible; unless for those happy persons who have learned so much about painting that they have no more to learn, or are such understanding lovers of the past masters that nothing modern can ever satisfy them. For we have in these galleries no less than a completer presentment of the art of painting in Europe and in America than we may hope to see again. For that matter, even the Japanese toto divisi orbe are not unrepresented. Wherefore, unless we lean to the opinion of M. Gauguin, that the truest inspiration of the artist is to be found in Fiji and among so-called savages, we may assume that we have here something like the chronicle and brief abstract of the painting of the world. This profusion or profligacy of pictures is not all in one place. The greater part is to be seen in the great Palais des Beaux-Arts, in the Exhibition, beside the Champs-Elysées entrance to it; but, though one of the buildings of the Exhibition, not destined to destruction with the rest. It is to replace the old Palais de l'Industrie, formerly the home of the annual salons.' Then, again, certain among the separate pavilions-which have been sadly slow in getting into order-have their little collections of painting and sculpture: that of our own Canadian colony is by no means to be overlooked. And if these things suffice not for the lover of pictures, the show which is generally known as the old salon' is held in Paris this year as usual;

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