Excerpt from The Popular Science Monthly Gnorance of the future can hardly be good for any man or nation; nor can forecast of the future in the case of any man or nation well interfere with-the business of the present, though the language of colonial politicians seems often to imply that it may. No Canadian farmer would take his hand from the plough, no Canadian ar tisan would desert the foundery or the loom, no Canadian politician would become less busy in his quest of votes, no industry of any kind would slacken, no source of wealth would cease to flow, if the rulers of Canada and the powers of Down ing Street, by whom the rulers of Canada are supposed to be guided, instead of drifting on in darkness, knew for what port they were steering. For those who are actually engaged in mould ing the institutions of a young country not to have formed a conception of her destiny - not to have made up their minds whether she is to re main forever a dependency, to blend again in a vast confederation with the monarchy of the mother-country, or to be united to a neighboring republic - would be to renounce statesmanship. The very expenditure into which Canada is led by her position as a dependency in military and political railways, in armaments and defenses, and other things which assume the permanence of the present system, is enough to convict Cana dian rulers of flagrant improvidence if the per manency of the present system is not distinctly established in their minds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.