assuredly will, and a Chinese war as certainly
may, deprive us of, we might be met with
many objections. But we shall point out the
identical articles, in some cases, and good
substitutes in others, ready to our hands,
profusely scattered over the face of our own
colonies to waste, and needing nothing but
collection and preparation.

In a former paper upon the Hudson's
Bay Territory,* we alluded to an attempt
to open a tallow trade between those
northern possessions and this country, by
a private dealer at the Red River settlement.
Unfortunately, the Hudson's Bay Company
took alarm at the novel proceeding of melting
and shipping some of the waste tallow of the
North American buffaloes; and, with a ready
and a strong hand, put down the bold
innovator. From that day we have heard no
more of Red River tallow; and the exports
of a territory equalling the greater part of
Europe in extent, is still confined to skins and
furs; while many other valuable natural
resources are left to rot and to waste.

* Vol. viii., p. 449.

A portion of the great American
continent which maintains its claim so completely
to the title of Private and Confidential, is
necessarily known to but a small number of
persons; nevertheless, we are not altogether
without data respecting its natural resources.
That the country is rich in animals, the
valuable fur trade so long carried on by
the Hudson's Bay Company sufficiently
attests. Besides the bear, the beaver, the
martin, and other creatures, whose furs alone
are sought for, there are vast herds of horned
cattle subsisting on the open grass-lands and
wooded dells of the great central plains lying
between the base of the Rocky Mountains and
the border of the forests that skirt Hudson's
Bay. These creatures have been seen not in
hundreds, but in tens of thousands, wild, and
in fine condition. Their flesh has been
tasted by travellers, and reported to be
excellent food. Sir George Simpson, at one
time Governor of the Company's territories,
tells us, in the account of his journey through
that magnificent region, that the only
criterion for judging of the abundance
of these animals was the immense
number of carcases which strewed a part of
the districts in which there had been a severe
drought, and  where the wild cattle of the
prairies had died from want of water. Sir
George reports their bodies to have been
scattered over the country for miles.

Tens of thousands of these wild herds
perish yearly in Rupert's Land; and, by the
simplest commercial arrangements, they
might be made to yield tallow, hides, and
horns, for the benefit of this country. There
are no geographical hindrances or commercial
difficulties in the way. The sole obstacles are
a certain knot of gentlemen who, under the
style and title of Directors of the Hudson's
Bay Company, have decreed, in some
unexplored corner of this great metropolis, that,
within their own exclusive three million
square miles of private territory, there shall
be no trade in tallow,—no traffic except in
beaver skins and martins' tails; even though
the want of tallow should leave the whole
world as completely in the dark as their own
benighted policy.

Throughout their enormous tract of country,
there are ample means of transport. To the
north-east, the waters of Hudson's Bay offer
a ready access to many hundreds of miles
of territory. To the southward and northward
the lakes, and the large rivers pouring
down from the Rocky Mountains into them,
present an easy means for transporting any
quantity of produce. Nature has, indeed,
done all in her power to open up this part of
the American continent, but man (meaning,
of course, the half dozen dozing Directors)
has effectually closed it against the industry
of the world.

In no way inferior to tallow in importance
to our merchants and manufacturers is
Russian flax. Forming as it does so large a
portion of the entire imports of the country,
the mills of Leeds, Belfast, and Dundee,
cannot fail to suffer, when the great falling-off
in that source of supply takes place. Besides
Russia, the only foreign markets are Egypt,
Flanders, and France. The two latter furnish
none but the finer and most costly fibres, the
demand for which is limited; whilst the
capability of Egypt is already taxed to the
utmost for this article; but the northern
provinces of the East India Company have
been producing for years past, enormous
quantities of linseed, which is shipped to this
country and to the United States of America.
The quantity annually exported does not fall
short of fifty thousand quarters. The stalk
or straw of all this seed is veritable flax;
yet no commercial use is made of it. Whilst
our manufacturers were paying from one to
two millions yearly to Russia for flax, a
scarcely less quantity has been left to waste
in our own Indian possessions—rotting on
the roofs of Indian huts, trodden under foot
by Indian cattle, or blazing away in
impromptu fire-places, helping to boil Indian
meals of rice.

Possessing such an abundant supply of
cheap cotton, which is better adapted to
their use, the Hindoos have never cared to
trouble themselves about their flax-straw.
Besides, a degree of skill is needed to prepare
it for market, which has hitherto been to
them not only objectless, but unattainable.
Attempts have been made more than once to
prepare the flax of British India for
manufacture, but without full success; although
samples have been sent to this country and
reported upon most favourably, considering
the limited means at the command of the
experimenters. Those who would argue, that,
because these first attempts have been abandoned