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L. 
 
 DOMINION ELECTION. 
 
 .J 
 
 CAMPAIGN OF 1886. . 
 
 Eon. Edward Blake's Speeches. 
 
 IS^O. 8 (First Series). 
 
 General Railway Policy of Liberals. Cana- 
 dian Pacific R. R. Matters. Sea of 
 Mountains Slander Exploded. 
 Kansas Slander Exploded. 
 
 rOTE.— See Inside Cover for List of Mr. Blake's Speech.es in. first 
 Series. Apply to "W. T. R. Preston, Refornx Club, Toronto, 
 for Copies oi these Speeches. 
 
 , ;. a\ •.' Toronto: ' " 
 
 . HUNTER ROSE & CO., PRINTERS. 
 
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 List of speeches in this series. 
 
 No. I.— 
 
 No. 2. 
 No. 3. 
 No. 4. 
 
 No. 5.— 
 
 No. 6.--. 
 
 No. 7.— 
 
 No. 8.— 
 
 No. 9.- 
 
 No. to. 
 
 No. II. 
 No. 12. 
 
 No. 13. 
 No. 14. 
 
 (London) : General Review of Situation. Riel Question. ^ 
 (Owen Sound) : North-West Maladministration. Riel. 
 (Beaverton) : Independence of Parliament. The Boodle Brigade. 
 (Chesley) : Public Finances — Taxation and Deficits — Farmers. 
 (Simcoe) : Federal and Provincial Rights— Ontario — Nova Scotia. 
 (Guelph)— Elections near.— Tory Dodges— Nova Scotia. 
 (Owen Sound) : Principles of Liberalism— Duty of the Leader. 
 (Welland)— Policy of the Party— Functions of an Opposition. 
 (Oakwood) — Sir J. Macdonald on Functions of an Opposition. 
 ^£"j:/ra<:/j— (Guelph) : Home Rule for Ireland. 
 
 (Berlin): Firebrand Tory attempts to ezcite Germans. 
 (Galt & Orangevi>lle) .- Indian Starvation Policy. 
 (Pembroke) ; Maladministration felt at Cat Knife Hill. 
 fx/ra^/j— (Kendall) : Business Methods required in Public Affairs 
 — Degradation of Parliament— A few Boodlers. 
 (Hampton) : Civil Service Reform. 
 (Galt) : Burden of Public Debt. 
 (Orangey I lle) : Burden of Public Debt. 
 (Belleville): Burden of Public Debt— The Interest on Debt. 
 (Oakwood) : Burden of Public Debt— Our Public Expen- 
 diture. 
 (Newcastle) : Canadian Pacific Railroad Matters. 
 (Listowel): Canadian Pacific Railroad Matters— The last Sacri- 
 fice of $10,000,000— Collapse of Tory '* Boom " Policy. 
 (St. Thomas) : North-West Lands. 
 (Huntsville) : R.R. Policy — Sir John's Subsidies to "Guinea-Pig ' 
 
 Directors — Assisted Immigration and Railway Frauds. 
 (Parry Sound) : Railway Policy of Liberals. 
 (Orangeville) : Railway Policy of Liberals. 
 (Brantford) : The Kansas Slander. 
 (Listowel) : The Sea of Mountains. 
 -(WiNGHAM) : Blake's Tribute to Mackenzie. 
 (Stayner): Blake's Tribute to Sir Richard Cartwright 
 (Brantfoud) : Blake's Tribute to Paterson— Duty of Young Men. 
 — (Welland) : Liberal Party, Creeds and Classes. 
 
 (Orillia): Leaders and Newspapers — The "Mail" Crusade. 
 — (Aylmer) : Prohibition and Politics. 
 —(Toronto) : Interests of Labour— The Tariff. 
 (Welland) : To Knights of Labour. 
 (Belleville) : Legislation for Labour. 
 (Deseronto): Workingmen and Parties. , 
 (Hamilton): Workingmen and Parties. 
 —(Hamilton) : Provincial Issues— The Religious Cry — Liberals and 
 
 Catholics. 
 —(Lindsay) : North-West Affairs — Neglect, Delay and Mismao- 
 agement— Race and Creed Cries. ^ 
 
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 rigade. 
 
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 lie Affwrs 
 
 s. 
 
 st on Debt, 
 lie Expen- 
 
 ast Sacri- 
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 Men. 
 
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 liberals and 
 Mismao-l 
 
 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC. 
 
 ■ :.>■- 
 
 Policies of the Parties — Government Pro- 
 mises Unredeemed. 
 
 EXPECTATIONS UNFULFILLED. 
 
 A Hundred Millions of Expense Which Was Not to Have ^een Incurred— 
 Not Half the Expected Immigration— Expenditure for Immi- 
 gration Still Continued — Liberals Wish the Enter- 
 prise Well — The Government to Blame 
 for Shortcomings. 
 
 At Newcastle Mr. Blake said : — 
 
 I desire to-night to say something to you on the subject of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway policy of the Government. That ques- 
 tion is at this time, in one respect, in a new condition. The road 
 is now open for traffic. Our controversies of the past as to the 
 policy adopted by the Government cannot, of course, now change 
 that policy. The policy has been conaumTnated, and some of those 
 who are now favourably disposed to our views upon the general 
 questions, the living issues of the day, but who have supported 
 
 THE C. P. R. POLICY, 
 
 say : Why do ^ ou discuss that question now, for the affair is set- 
 tled ? Well, now, I am not foolish enough to insist that anybody 
 who agrees with me on the issues which remain for actual decision 
 should change his mind, and agree with me on the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway policy, in order to our acting together. There is a sense, 
 as I have pointed out, in which it is a dead issue — with regard to 
 which we can without difficulty agree to differ. The Liberal party, 
 including the humble individual who now addresses you, wishes 
 and has always wished well to the enterprise, although we have 
 differed from the Government as to the methods to be adopted for 
 its execution. Canada has invested too mvxih money, and has 
 staked itsjuture too deeply on the enterprise, for us to entertain any 
 other feeling than that of anxiety for its success. 
 
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 NOR HAVE WE BLAMED THE COMPANY 
 
 for securing the most favourable conditions they could squeeze out 
 of the Government, or for having made the use they thought most 
 advantageous to themselves of the powers which from time to time, 
 at the request of the Government, Parliament has yielded to them. 
 The company was one party to the bargain,and it is not contrary to 
 the usual ideas of right and fairness that they should ask for as 
 much as they thought they could get, or perhaps a little more. But 
 what we have disputed is the wisdom and policy of the other party 
 to the bargain, of the party which acted as trustee for the people, 
 of the Government and the Ministerial majority, in adopting cer- 
 tain methods, yielding certain conditions, and conceding certain 
 powers. We have condemned their policy, and we have pointed 
 out, as their proposals were laid before us, what we believed were 
 its mistakes, what were the errors in their arguments and calcula- 
 tions, and what would be the wiser, the more prudent policy in the 
 interest of the country. And now, when we are shortly once more 
 to submit our course to the popular judgment, we must be per- 
 mitted to discuss before the people the alternative views of the 
 two great parties on this as on other questions. We must be per- 
 mitted — if we believe, as we do still believe, that the policy of the 
 Government was rash, erroneous, and blame-worthy, and that ours 
 was wiser, more prudent, and judicious — to present those two poli- 
 cies, to state the arguments on each side, and to point out how far 
 time and events have already 
 
 VERIFIED OUR VIEWS, 
 
 and falsified those of our opponents. We cannot, then, altogether 
 set this aside as a dead issue, in the sense of agreei^ag that nothing 
 should be said about it. It was, and is, a most important question, 
 both in a financial and in a national point of view. Now, one of 
 your guides, in determining upon the choice of those who are to 
 administer your public affairs, is a consideration of the mode in 
 which those whom you have trusted have discharged their trust It 
 is the account we give of our stewardship that should largely guide 
 you ; and, if in a great public question there has been an issue be- 
 tween the parties, it is not merely allowable, but it is the duty of 
 the people to consider which of the two parties appears to have 
 been the wiser and more faithful counsellor, and to be largely 
 guided in their decision as to how they will trust in the future by 
 the record of the past. Before the year 1878 the policy of both 
 parties in this country was that the Pacific Railway should be 
 constructed after such a fashion as should not irwolve any further 
 
 
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 further 
 
 
 inorease in the rate of taxation. That policy was early defined as ; / 
 their own by the Conservatives, when in power, though their plans ^ ' '* 
 did not consii^t with it ; and it was afterwards defined as theirs by 
 the Reformers, and, so far as the obligations 
 
 IMPOSED ON THE COUNTRY 
 
 by the Tories allowed, it was acted upon by them. A formal reso- 
 lution to this effect was added to the vote of money for the Cana^ • 
 dian Pacific Railway b}'' an almost unanimous House, only eight 
 or ten voting the other way, and this clearly proves my assertion 
 that parties were then agreed upon this policy. At this time Mr. 
 Mackenzie's policy was sometimes criticized, not because it was 
 slow, cautious, and nisfgardly, but because it was too rapid, reck- 
 less, and expensive. I will read an extract from a pamphlet which 
 did great dutyfor the Tories in the election of 1878 — a pamphlet 
 of speeches and letters by Sir David Macpherson, which was distri- 
 buted broadcast throughout Canada as the Tory platform, and to 
 which the Tories largely attributed their success in 1878. 
 
 SIR DAVID MACPHERSON SAID : 
 
 But surely the whole expenditure between Lake Superior and the Red 
 River is premature and unwise. That section of the railway will cost not 
 less than twenty millions of dollars ; the interest will be one million of dol- 
 lars a year, and with the loss in working the road, which I shall not venture . 
 to estimate, will amount to an enormous sum to be borne by the taxpayers 
 of the Dominion. I may say my own opinion has always been that we should 
 have been content for the time to use the United States lines for our all-rail 
 route tf) Manitoba, and bet;in our Pacitic Railway at Pembina, thence at 
 Winnipeg and on through Manitoba and the North- West, combining with its 
 construction a comprehensive and attractive scheme of immigration, under 
 which immigrants would be assured of employment and land — employment 
 first and land afterwards. The lands retained by the Government in the 
 North- West, owing to the settlement of adjoining lands, would^have been en- 
 hanced in value, and their sale would have provided funds to aid in extend- 
 ing the railway as required, without overburdening the Dominion Exchequer. 
 In this way the C. P. R. east of the Rocky Mountains could have been built 
 as fast as required for very little money, and our prairie country would have 
 become quickly peopled. A similar course, as far as adaptable to British 
 Columbia, might have been pursued in that Province, and when the Govern- 
 ment decided to build the road as a public work no reasonable objection could 
 be urged against the policy. Had it been followed the Dominion, from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific, would have been more prosperous than it is to-day. 
 We should have been free from the heavy engagements that weigh upon us, 
 and free, also, from the financial peril that stares us in the face — imminent 
 if not inevitable. Our expenditure to this time upon the railway would havo 
 been comparatively small, and would increase only as might be convenient, 
 for it would be subject to our control. As it is, the outlay in connection 
 with the Pacific Railway, to the 30th of June, 1876, (according to the public 
 accounts), amounts to the large sum of six million two hundred and fifty-four 
 thousand, two hundred and eighty dollars. , 
 
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 210 
 
 
 ?'^ * f< • There was the Tory platform of 1878. Then we come to 1880. 
 {■r? ■ Up to that time no person had ever proposed a larger expenditure 
 J in cash than $30,000,000. 
 
 IN 1880 NEW PROPOSALS WERE MADE 
 
 for enormous public expenditures and very rapid construction. 
 , We opposed these proposals. Our plans were modest — some may 
 ' \ say they were timid — 1 believe they were only prudent. Our 
 plans were to complete the link between Lake Superior and Red 
 River which Mr. Mackenzie had been pressing forward, on the 
 ground that we ought to have as soon as possible a through sum- 
 mer route for immigration and transportation purposes within 
 our own borders. We advocated also the building of the road 
 , over the prairies as fast as, or even faster than, required for settle- 
 ment, and the building of branch lines as required. In the mean- 
 • / N time we proposed to continue the exploration of the routes for 
 the ends of the road and to complete those ends more leisurely 
 than proposed by the Government. By so doing, we argued, they 
 ♦ could be built more cheaply, and the North-West lands being 
 meantime developed and enhanced in value, they might become 
 a more substantial assistance as a basis for the contract for the 
 construction of the expensive ends. The great object, as we con- 
 ceived, was to forward the settlement of the fertile parts of the 
 North-West territory so that you might have a backbone for the 
 • ' Canadian Pacific Railway. (Loud applause.) To this end we 
 thought it very important that the road should be built upon such 
 a financial basis as should admit the lowest possible rates of freight 
 , . on produce coming out and goods going in, for one obvious diffi- 
 culty to be contended against there, is the distance from tide- 
 -i.' water. Therefore, 
 
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 WE WANTED THE ROAD BUTLT CHEAPLY 
 
 and the capital account kept down, so that the demand for inter- 
 est and dividends might be light. The changed policy of the Gov- 
 ernment has resulted in enormous expense, which has been greatly 
 increased by the haste in construction, and by enlarged operations, 
 not contemplated by anybody up to a late date. Our total cash 
 expenditure, of which almost all has been already incurred, 
 amounts, including the assistance granted to eastern extensions, 
 to the vast sum of $87,000,000. We have now engaged for nearly 
 three times the amount contemplated. That is over $400,000 for 
 each electoral district, or $1,700,000 for your united counties. 
 To meet this about $20,000,000 have been taken by enormously 
 increased taxation, and the public debt has been swollen to gigan- 
 
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 ^tions, 
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 lurred, 
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 fously 
 rigan- 
 
 tic proportions. And this is irrespective of the land. But the 
 plan of the Government also resulted in the creation of a gred 
 capital stock and bonded debt in addition to the subsidies. If 
 you issue bonds and stocks, as you know, the next thing is to see 
 that the tolls on traffic are high enough to pay interest and divi- 
 dends. Sixty-five millions of dollars of stock have been issued, 
 realizing only twenty-nine and one-half millions of dollars to the 
 company of which $21,000,000 went to pay and secure dividends, 
 leaving only 8,500,000 to go into the Road. This was because the 
 Government, against our protests, authorized the issue of the stock 
 at nominal prices and their appropriation to dividends, and so in- 
 troduced the . " . 
 
 VICIOUS SYSTEM OF STOCK WATERING, 
 
 which has done so much to enhance the cost of transportation and 
 impair the value of railway securities in the United States. You 
 know that the great effort is to force the people who use the rail- 
 ways to pay interest and dividends upon all these nominal securi- 
 ties. Besides this stock there are thirty-five millions of dollars of 
 bonds, making a total of one hundred millions of dollars of nom- 
 inal capital, apart from our subsidies. Large sums have also been 
 expended with the sanction of the Government, by reason of the 
 extra cost involved in the great rapidity of construction. I will 
 give you one proof of the fact that speed means cost. There is a 
 section in the mountains, which was estimated by the company it- 
 self and also by the Government engineer to cost just half as much 
 again if constructed at the rapid rate proposed, as if the work were 
 done in reasonable time. No doubt the same consideration applied 
 in other cases, and the Oovernment last session admitted that the 
 haste of construction had involved large additional cost. Great 
 sums have also been devoted to schemes and extensions not em- 
 braced in the original plan or even in the plan of 1880. The action 
 of the Govemement has 
 
 CREATED A MONOPOLY FOR TWENTY YEARS, 
 
 which has caused deep dissatisfaction among the people most di- 
 rectly affected by it. It was of the last consequence that the 
 North- West should be settled by a contented community, but in- 
 stead of that we have a people in many respects discontented. So 
 much have they felt the weight of this monopoly, and so anxious 
 have they been to* mitigate it, that within a short time the old 
 Red River route was reopened with a view to competition, and 
 again the people of Manitoba are earnestly at work and are charg- 
 ing their revenues very heavily for so young a Province in order 
 to open the Hudson Bay route and so find relief from this mono- 
 
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 poly. We cannot refuse them that relief, and 1 have eup- 
 j)orted their efforts to obtain it ; but you will see that the conae- 
 quencea of their aucceaa may be aerioua to ua all. If that ia the way 
 for wheat to go, it ia the v)ay for manufactured gooda to come, and 
 instead of trade connection between the West and the older Pro- 
 vinces, we catabliah a direct trade connection between the Weat and 
 Bntain. The policy of the Government was based Uj)on solemn 
 pledges and promises which they made to Parliament, and to the 
 people. The first pledge was that tlie bargain was to be a 
 finality. No more was to be given, no changes were to be made. 
 They told me when I complained of the extensive character of the 
 concessions that they were liberal, because ^ 
 
 THEY WERE TO BE FINAL, 
 
 there was to be no coming back to Parliament for relief. But 
 since then guarantees, loans, concessions, exchanges, grants and 
 further powers have followed in quick succession. (Loud cheers.) 
 There has hardly been a session of Parliament which has not seen 
 a fresh proposition for the Canadian Pacific Railway. So much 
 ior the question of finality. Then they promised that the progress 
 and completion of the work should result in a 
 
 VERY RAPID IMMIGRATION 
 
 
 ^>^'S 
 
 '^' 
 
 into the North-West from the Old World. From their calcula- 
 tion it followed that allowing for the natural increase we should 
 have had, by the year 1885, 313,000 whites at least in the North- 
 West, and by the year 1890, 680,000. And, remember, this calcu- 
 lation was on the basis of ten years' time being occupied in con- 
 struction, but later they halved the time, declaring that this 
 change would result in a still more rapid flow of immigration. 
 These promises which Sir John Macdonald made and Sir C. Tup- 
 per endorsed, are like some other political kites, with the same 
 names as makers and endorsers, which have been disc(junted from 
 time to time at the People's Bank, often renewed, but at last dis- 
 honoured, and which now lie under protest with no effects to meet 
 them. (Cheers and laughter.) But they did not confine them- 
 selves to promises. They told us that the promises were kept. 
 They gave us alleged figures of actual settlement. They said 
 that in the four years from 1881 to 1884, 148,000 souls had ac- 
 tually settled in the North- West. On the basis of their figures 
 weahouldhave had in the North-Weat in 1885, 250,000 mdtes, 
 but the census of the territories and our other information indi- 
 cate that there were ' ' . 
 
« I 
 
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 , 213 
 
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 ONLY ABOUT 125,000. 
 
 Of the people who a^e there, only 50,000, as far as we can conjec- 
 ture, are immigrants from foreign parts. The Government told 
 us a great immigration would be secured by the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway Company itself, and we would be saved the large expense 
 of settling that country. But we paid in 1884 nearly S600,000 
 in promoting immigration, and in 1885, over SoOO.OOO. (Cheers.) 
 The Government declared that this policy would result in the 
 return to you of enormous sums from the sale of lands in the 
 North-West. In 1880 Sir John Macdonald declared that S71,- 
 300,000 would be paid or due upon lands by the year 1891, and 
 that the expenses of survey and management being deducted, 
 there would remain $09,000,000 either in cash or good mortgages, 
 and Sir Charles Tupper said that was a most moderate calcula- 
 tion which nobody could doubt would be more than realized. So 
 late as the year 1883, only three years ago, the Government told 
 us that 
 
 WE WOULD RECEIVE IN CASH $58,000,000 
 
 between 1883 and 1891 from the North-West lands. As a matter 
 of fact we received in gross, without any deductions, in the five 
 years from 1880 to 3885, about $4,000,000, and the net receipts 
 after paying expenses of survey, administration, and head office 
 were about $375,000 ! In that calculation I do not charge against 
 the receipts a single dollar for the Indian grants, mounted police, 
 immigration, local government, and other charges entailed upon 
 us by the North-West. And this is not the worst of it, because 
 the period I have just referred to included the years of the boom, 
 when the receipts for lands were comparatively large. Lately 
 the receipts have not covered the expenses. In Parliament the 
 other day, I asked these men if they would now venture to say 
 that the net return from sales of lands in the North-West would 
 be one-tenth part of the estimate of 1883, and they did not answer 
 that challenge. (Applause.) When they asked you to agree to 
 the expenditure upon the Canadian Pacific Railway they prom- 
 ised you in the most distinct, precise, and emphatic manner that 
 every dollar of principal and interest should be repaid to you out 
 of these lands. 
 
 THERE ARE THE RECORDED PLEDGES 
 
 given originally, repeated year by year afterwards, and declared to 
 be even more than realized. I give you now a counter declaration, 
 which I made years ago. So far from these statements being true, 
 / believe that not one dollar of the enormous sum of principaZ we 
 
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 Aav« speni m connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway will 
 ever he realized by you out of the net proceeds, after just deductions, 
 of the North- West lands. If we shall realize some fraction of the 
 interest accrued up to the time of the completion of the road, that 
 is as much a?* re can, as reasonable men, expect to do. And these 
 promises, pledges, and estimates on the faith of which only you 
 endorsed that project have so completely failed that they do not 
 now pretend to you they are to be realiz;ed at all. Well, then, la- 
 dies and gentlemen, they said we were through this policy to de- 
 rive a great benefit by the wonderfully rapid settlement and 
 opening up of the North- West which it would produce. Sir John 
 Macdonald stated that the settlers would take up land at a rate 
 equal to 59 acres per head for all who went into the territory. I 
 pointed out how absurd that estimate was. In the North- West- 
 ern States and Ten*itories the settlers had up to 1870 taken up 
 something like 10 or 12 acres per head, and cultivated 6 J acres 
 per head. Sir Charles gave us 
 
 A WONDERFUL CALCULATION. 
 
 > 
 
 ^>- v: . ■ ■ 
 
 He declared that one hundred thousand farmers in the North- 
 West would produce in one year six hundred and forty millions of 
 bushels of wheat. (Laughter*) Oh, he said it ; I heard it my- 
 self. (Renewed laughter.) I see that you practical farmers real- 
 ize the foolishness of such talk. But that is the sort of story with 
 which a majority were deluded, and persuaded to entrust with 
 power to carry out their scheme the men who were to do such 
 great things for us. It was promised that the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway Company should relieve us of the charge of building 
 branches, for that these gentlemen said the company would do that 
 in order to realize the profits from their lands. I do not mean to 
 say that they have not built any North- West branches, but I do 
 mean to say that they have not done what the Government pro- 
 mised, and that we are now giving about ten millions acres of 
 land in order to help on the building of branches, and a large por- 
 tion of that land is going to the Canadian Pacific Railway Com- 
 pany, which has become the proprietor of some of this branch 
 mileage, which it is thus building by the aid of further subsidies 
 from us. The Government agreed that they would secure a fair 
 arrangement as to freight rates, as between the North-West and 
 Ontario, and the North-West and Quebec. Montreal has a great 
 natural advantage over western cities in being an ocean terminus. 
 The wheat is likely to go down through to Montreal, where it can 
 be shipped across the ocean, and where the cars are emptied, there 
 it is likely they will be filled with goods as return freights. No- 
 body begi'udges that advantage to Montreal. But Toronto and 
 
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 215 
 
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 there 
 No- 
 to and 
 
 Hamilton and other western cUies have a minor natural advan- 
 tage in being nearer the North-Wost, and consequently being 
 able, other things being equal, to send goods to the North-West 
 more cheaply. 
 
 FROM THE COMMON POINT, 
 
 Callander it is a shorter distance to Hamilton and Toronto than 
 it is to Montreal, and we had a right to expect, and we were pro- 
 mised by the Government, that we should reap the full advantage 
 of that shorter distance. But we have not secured it, and the 
 Canadian Pacific is, it is said, about to make equal rates between 
 Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, and such like points, and the West. 
 The latest act of the Government in connection with the C. P. R., 
 was to reverse their own decision reached the previous year, and 
 to give up $10,000,000 of our loan to the company in return for 
 our being allowed to retain 7,000,000 acres of our land grant, 
 which is now unsalable. This transaction was accomplished in 
 favour of a company whose stock stands at a premium of between 
 forty and fifty per cent, on the issue price, and whose sharehold- 
 ers have regularly received large dividends upon their invest- 
 ment. That operation at one stroke added $10,000,000 to our 
 public debt, and $400,000 to our interest charge, to the advantage 
 of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and to the disadvan- 
 tage of the taxpayers of Canada. In all these things, as I told 
 you, I am not blaming the company. They were one party to a 
 bargain and the people were the other. The persons I blame are 
 the administrators of your afiairs, who made such bargains, who 
 effectuated such a policy, who asked you to endorse their pro- 
 ceedings upon representations which have proven so entirely 
 fallacious. Much of what I have said goes to show what a good 
 bargain, in their own interest, the company made, a consideration 
 which should help to raise their stocks and improve their posi- 
 tion. In truth, 
 
 NO COMPANY SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN EVER GOT SUCH AN . 
 , EXCELLENT BARGAIN. 
 
 They have the advantage of $87,000,000 of cash, or its equiva- 
 lent. They have secured nearly $11,000,000 from lands sold, 
 bonuses, and town sites, and they have left about 14,000,000 
 acres of land. If you value this at $1 an acre, the sum of their 
 public advantage is about $112,000,000, besides the great mon- 
 opoly and free road beds, and great exemptions. That, certainly, 
 is a gigantic bonus, which ought to make the company extremely 
 strong. But what I have shown you is that the Government, 
 which gave these immense, unprecedented concessions, has not 
 
 
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 216 ' > . 
 
 fulfilled its pledges or realised its promises. And you must re- 
 member that all the development which has taken place in the 
 North- West, and more, would have taken place under our policy ; 
 while the enormous debt which burdens us all, and which has 
 done so much to alienate Nova Scotia, would, under that policy, 
 have been very largely avoided. 
 
 As to the future, that will speak for itself. About both past 
 and future there were, during construction, many disputable 
 points on which I have not touched ; some of the greatest gravity. 
 Many positions were taken, many criticisms were urged, many 
 controversies were waged, as to details of the policy, as to me- 
 thods, as to results, on which I have not touched. 8ome I omit 
 for brevity. Some remain yet in the region of dispute ; while 
 the policy is consummated and argument cannot affect it now. 
 While I am ready, should my views be challenged, to give my 
 reasons, and prepai-ed, if shown to be wrong, to acknowledge my 
 error, I must say that I have not yet seen ground on any sub- 
 stantial question involved to change my opinions. But on any 
 of these points, the agitation of which might be supposed by 
 susceptible friends to bear injuriously on the prospects of the 
 company, I am very 
 
 WILLING TO BIDE MY TIME, 
 
 and let the future decide. I have never wished, even when it 
 was a duty to discuss the policy, still less do I wish to-day, to 
 say one avoidable word which might, if any words of mine could, 
 injure the prospects of the company. I believe no one has done 
 more than myself to show how magnificent are their subventions. 
 It has been my duty, however, in the past, and it may be my 
 duty again to criticise their methods, and to discuss their rela- 
 tions with the public. That duty I shall continue to discharge 
 firmly and freely when occasion calls. Rut this is not such an 
 occasion. I am concerned to-day to show, as I think I have 
 shown, by some though not all the proofs, that the C. P. R. policy 
 of the Government has not been wise, has not been justified by 
 events, has not realises their promises, has not effectuated their 
 pledges, and should rather weaken than strengthen their hold on 
 the intelligent electorate of Canada. (Loud and prolonged 
 cheering.) (8) 
 
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 217 
 
 tj iMii I "Ml I I _■■ I L JLI It if 
 
 ^'>. - 
 
 THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY, 
 
 IT WAS NOT TO COST THE COUNTRY A CENT — WHAT THE EXPENSE 
 
 HAS BEEN. 
 
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 large 
 3h an 
 have 
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 Id on 
 Inged 
 
 Speaking at Gait, Mr. Blake said : The Government promised 
 most emphatically, when they were persuading Parliament and the 
 people to agree to their policy of enormous obligations and rapid 
 construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that the cash re- 
 ceipts from the land would suffice to pay as the work went on all 
 the obligations and interest without increasing the taxation. 
 
 In 1880, 
 
 THE FIRST MINISTER USED THESE WORDS : 
 
 For the purpose of relieving the people oi Canada from the burden of tax- 
 ation, which tlie work would otherwise entail, we have ofiered every seoond 
 lot at an upset price, so that the road may be eventiMilly built without costing the 
 people one single farthing which wUl not be recouped. I believe that land can 
 be made productive under the terms of the resolution to complete the whole 
 of that road, to open that immense country, and give us a magnificent rail- 
 way from sea to sea, without adding to the burdens of the people, or without 
 causing any necessity for an increase of taxation. We can do it all by the sale 
 of the lands which we hold as a sacred trust for the purpose of defraying the 
 whole expense of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. 
 
 Again he said : — 
 
 As the road progresses the annual sale of lands will be more than sufficient 
 to meet all poaeible cost of the railway. 
 
 Again : — 
 
 The proceeds of the sale of the lands will meet our engdtgomeuts as the 
 work progresses, including claims for interest. 
 
 M.r. White, in amendment to a ^uotion by Mr. Charlton in the 
 same session, moved, and the House resolved : — 
 
 That the policy of the Governmant for the disposAl of the public land in 
 Manitoba and the North- West is calculated to promote the rapid settlement 
 of that region, and to raise the moneys requirji fur tlie cjistructioi of the 
 Canadian Paci6c Railway without further burdduing the people, anlthat it 
 deserves the support and approval of this House. 
 
 In the same year, 1880, the First Minister estimated'the cash pro- 
 ceeds of the lands actually to be received from that year to 1890, 
 inclusive, to be $38,600,000, The amount which would be then 
 due but not payable, but still a mortgage on the lands, and as 
 good as cash, bearing interest, he estimated at $*^2,700,000, or an 
 
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 218 
 
 aggregate received and due of $71,300,000. He estimated the cctst 
 of survey and administration of the lands at $2,400,000, and he 
 . brought down a handsome balance of net results of $68,900,000 
 before the year 1890. 
 On 10th February, 1882, 
 
 THE FIRST MINISTER MALE THIS STATEMENT :— 
 
 We have not forgotten the promise made by the Government, that they 
 would make the land in that country recoup to the Dominion the 925,000,000 
 that we have promised the Syndicate, and what the Dominion has already 
 spent, or is spending on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Thert is no reason in 
 ihe world, as I have urged again and again, why the people of the older Provinces 
 should put their hands in their pockets and settle that country, and improve it, 
 and build railways at their expense. That country, which ia going to reap the 
 advantages of those railways, should provide the cost of the improvements, 
 and the North- West, I am happy to say, is so rich, and will be so sought for, 
 that what was a reasonable proposition at the beginning is now a certainty, 
 namely, that it will be able to sell sufiScient land that, while preserving the 
 homesteading right, it would be able to repay to those who have contributed 
 to the taxes necessary in connection with building the road, the money with 
 interest added. 
 
 r 
 
 Again : — 
 
 It is safe — it is certainly beyond the possibility of doubt — to say that every 
 farthing, and every cent, and every dollar, that has been or will be expended 
 in building the Canadian Pacific Railway, not one shilling of this burden will 
 fall on our shoulders, or the shoulders of the generation that will succeed us. 
 We will be free from the whole amount of that debt. 
 
 Again : — 
 
 By this year, then, there will be 10,000,000 acres granted to colonization 
 companies under Plan No. 1, which means the eventual payment of $10,000,- 
 000 into the Treasury. . . . That will be $10,000,000, and with the 
 sales that will take place of railway lands in other portions, we will have, 
 either in money or in what is as good as money, solid mortgages on every one 
 of these colonization tracts, an amount equal to $2,500,000, so that in one 
 year we may fairly say we have got half of the whole $25,000,000. 
 
 On 2nd April, 1882, 
 
 THE FIRST MINISTER SAID: — 
 
 It was the policy of the Government that the country should pay for its 
 own railway. 
 
 And again : — 
 
 Seventy-five thousand acres are to be sold — they are not to be used for 
 homestead purposes — for the purpose of relieving the people of the older Pro- 
 vinces who, on the faith of this assurance and promise — and on that promise 
 only, accepted the burden, and have at the polls recorded their sanction of 
 this policy. . . . They endorsed this policy on the understanding that 
 eventually that country would pay the whole of the expense. 
 
 Then, on 12th April, 1882, 
 
 (8) 
 
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 T-i-' si ■ liJ." !<'<-, *T- 
 
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 ;»-■ ^?.. ft'''. »>. .* :Vki'' '>. 
 

 219 
 
 SIR CHARLES TUPPER SAID : — 
 
 (,•■ 
 
 The lands have so increased in value as to warrant us in the statement, 
 and to warrant the conviction in the mind of every intelligent man, that at an 
 early date we will not only have the $35,000,000 recouped to the Treasury, 
 but we will go on, and, if we have not wiped out our other responsibilities, 
 we will soon be in a condition to wipe out the engagements thrown upon us 
 by the late Government, as well as those incurred by our own in reference to 
 the work. 
 
 On the 4th of May, 1883, 
 
 SIR CHARLES TUPPER, 
 
 then Minister of Railways, read to the House the statement of the 
 Department of the Interior, as follows : — 
 
 Sir, — Having given the subject my best and fullest consideration, I esti* 
 mate that the receipts of this Department from the sale of agricultural and 
 coal lands, timber dues, rents of grazing lands, and sales of mineral lands 
 other than coal, with the royalties from the minerals, between 1st January, 
 1883, and 31st December, 1891, both days inclusive, will amount to not less 
 Ihan 858,000,000. 
 
 And 
 
 SIR CHARLES TUPPER 
 
 in the same speech, referring to a general estimate, said :— 
 
 This is the amount that we expect to receive from surplus revenue and the 
 sales of land from the commencement of this contract down to the time the 
 contract provides for the completion of the work. With that calculation be- 
 fore us — and I think all will admit that it is a safe calculation — I think we 
 may come to the conclusion, not only that our country will not be over^ 
 whelmed in debt, but that we shall be in the position the Imperial Govern- 
 ment is in to-day. Mr. Childers reduced the national debt 
 
 eight millions sterling last year, and he proposes to reduce it by eight millions 
 this year. So my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, proposes to reduce 
 our debt, so we propose to reduce these surpluses, not for the construction 
 of the Canada Pacific Railway, mark you, but for the reduction of the public 
 debt, that when the work is constructed from end to end, there will not only 
 be no increased indebtedness upon Canada, but at an early day the sales of 
 the land alone will recoup back to the Treasury of the country every dollar 
 that has been expended. 
 
 These are some and some only, of the statements made by the 
 Government. I told them, on the other hand, that the sales of 
 these lands 
 
 WOULD NOT MEET THE COST 
 
 incurred in the local government and development of the country, 
 and in the surveys and administration of the lands ; that they 
 would not pay the interest on the expenditures in respect of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway, and that they would thus, of course, 
 produce nothing toward the principal. I told them that their cal- 
 
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 culLtions were extravagant, wholly unwarranted by the experi- 
 ence of the past or by any reasonable expectations of the future, 
 and to-day, I airi sorry to say, I am able to prove that we were right 
 and they were wholly wrong. The results from 1880 to 1885 show 
 net receipts of about 3 or $400,000 over the ost of survey and local 
 and head office administration of the lands, allowing nothing for 
 the cost of Indians, Mounted Police, Local Government, immigra- 
 tion, and so forth. But that is not the worst. The boom years 
 are included, and in the latter two years the receipts do not cover 
 the expenses of administering the lands alone. The results of the 
 settlement are of the same character. And the prospects for the 
 future do not warrant us in believing that there will be many 
 early sales. I cannot give you better proof of that than by refer- 
 ring you to Sir John Macdonald's speech in London, in which with 
 singular inconsistency, while contending that he had redeemed his 
 pledge, that the sales of land would pay the expense of the Cana- 
 dian Pacific Railwaj'^ as the work proceeded, he asserted that the 
 free grants would absorb all the immigration that could reason- 
 ably be expected for the next twenty-five years. Now, if every 
 immigrant for twenty-five years is to be absorbed by the lands 
 which are granted free 
 
 HOW MUCH ARE WE GOING TO SELL ? 
 
 (Applause.) It is evident that the charges will absorb all and 
 more than the receipts. The arrears of interest on our payments 
 for the Canadian Pacific Railway already reach many millions of 
 dollars, and will not be met if you set against the receipts the 
 charges ; still less will there be anything to pay current interest 
 or to be applied redeeming the principal. What is that principal ? 
 It amounts, for payments made or pledged, adding together those 
 under and those outside the original contract, to a grand total of 
 $83,000,000, apart from yearly subsidies. 
 
 . • MR. M'LELAN, THE FINANCE MINISTER, 
 
 said last session that the money we borrowed for the last Canada 
 Pacific Railway loan, was costing us more than four per cent., and 
 thus that we made money by receiving back part of that loan in 
 advance. Assumed that we borrowed all the amount, and that 
 the interest and charges on our transcontinental railway expen- 
 diture cost us 4^ per cent., the annual charge would be $3,735,000. 
 There is also in connection with some of the eastern extensions of 
 the system a yearly subsidy of $250,000 for twenty years, and ' 
 another of $30,000 for fifteen years, making $280,000 a year more 
 for a long term of years. There is thus a yearly charge of over 
 four millions ; and a principal of $83,000,000. This we have to 
 
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 221 
 
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 pay. (Applause.) Now, I have given you in a few figures the cash ■' 
 cost of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the country apart from 
 lands. I have pointed out that these raen told you it would 
 
 lU and 
 
 laments 
 
 ions of 
 
 ts the 
 
 terest 
 
 cipal ? 
 
 those 
 
 otal of 
 
 panada 
 it, and 
 loan in 
 that 
 3xpen- 
 ^5,000. 
 tons of 
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 If over 
 lave to 
 
 COST YOU NOTHING, 
 
 that they were going to make enough out of the sale of lands to 
 pay for it, principal and interest, as the work went on. But I 
 have shown you that we have already paid many millions out of 
 increased taxation, and we will have to pay scores of millions 
 more in the same way ; and this story about the lands paying for 
 the railway is proven to be an absurd and exploded fiction. And 
 yet 
 
 SIR JOHN MACDONALD, 
 
 speaking at London, said : — 
 
 I was laughed at in introducing the measure oriG;inally when I stated 
 that the twenty-five millions which we were to advance, that we were to give 
 as a gift, as a subsidy — I do not refer to the loan now — that every farthing of 
 that would be repaid by selling the land, made valuable by building the rail- 
 way. Gentlemen, that, like all my other predictions, will be carried out. 
 Under our system even-numbered sections are kept for homesteading, and 
 these even-numbered sections cover such a large area of land that they will 
 absorb all the population that is likely to come into that country for the next 
 twenty- five years. The odd-numbered sections we keep and put into the 
 market at a very reasonable price, and every acre of it that is sold is funded 
 for the purpose of paying the cost of survey, the cost of administration, and, 
 finally, to pay off the twenty-five millions we were oblir;ed to borrow in 
 England for the purpobe of the grant to the Canadian Pacific Railway. 
 Gentlemen, we were told at the time we introduced that measure that we 
 were putting a tax, not upon ourselves, but upon every farmer in the older 
 Provinces ; that we were taxing posterity ; that our children and children's 
 children would feel the burden of those twenty-five millions. I submit, 
 gentlemen, it is now a matter of certainty, it will not happen in a day, in a 
 year, or in some yearo, for a nation can aflford to wait, but I tell you it is 
 certain that those lands will be sold, that the money will form a fund to pay 
 oflf the twenty-five millions. Tfien voe will have that great railway finished, 
 jlnished without putting any burden upon the people of Caaada ; the twenty-five 
 million a7id every farthing cf it will be paid out of the prod^ice of the 
 lands of the North- West, and not one cent of it will fall upon you, your farms, 
 or your children. 
 
 Now, you will observe. Sir John alters his prediction ; he 
 confines it to the twenty-five millions of cash subsidy, but T have 
 proved to you that he and Sir C Tupper both promised that the 
 lands would pay principal and interest of the whole cost of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway. If they say that only the $25,000,000 
 will be repaid out of the lands, there remains the trifle of 
 $58,000,000, the rest of the cash cost of the road, which, with 
 enormous arrears of interest, and the yearly subsidies, you must 
 make up your mind, * (S) 
 
 I 
 
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;.;;:■•-/ • ^^ :• ^ ^' . • 222 . .' ; -. .. • 
 
 
 
 p'/ 
 
 ^ COMES OUT OF YOUR TAXES. • 
 
 He says now that the cost will not be paid as the work is done, 
 that " it will not happen in a day, in a year, or in some years," 
 but I have shown you that the promise was that the money 
 would be paid out of the lands, principal and interest, as the 
 work went on ; that six years ago they said they would make 
 $69,000,000 by 1891, and that three years ago they said they 
 would make $58,000,000 in hard cash between 1883 and 1891 ; 
 while in fact they will net nothing at all. 
 
 Sir John says the homesteads will absorb the immigration for 
 twenty-five years to come. If that is so the debt will have been 
 in the meantime far more than doubled by the interest. The 
 interest charge, even at 4 per cent., will in that time double the 
 debt, apart from the compound interest all together. You will 
 have to pay in simple interest an amount equal to the principal 
 before he begins the process of recoupment. The truth is — and 
 we may as well face it — we will have to pay these four millions 
 a year out of our taxes. (Applause.) We will have to redeem, 
 as a public obligation, this vast principal of 83 millions ; we will 
 have to settle the whole. The Government cannot escape 
 
 FROM THE FACT THAT THE DEBT AND THE TAXATION, THE PUBLIC 
 BURDENS, HAVE BEEN ENORMOUSLY AND PERMANENTLY INCREASED 
 BY THE BUILDING OF THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY, REGARD- 
 LESS OF THE OTHER DISADVANTAGES OF THEIR CANADIAN PACIFIC 
 
 Railway policy, which I shall not discuss to-night. They 
 
 HAVE BROKEN EVERY PLEDGE. ThEY HAVE DECEIVED THE PEOPLE. 
 
 It is for the people to give them iheir reward. (Loud 
 applause.) 
 
 CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY MATTERS. 
 
 THE LAST SACRIFICE OF $10,000,000. 
 
 COLLAPSE OF THE TORY BOOM POLICY. 
 
 
 li. 
 
 ^ Hon. Edward Blake, at Listowel, said : — Some recent Minis- 
 terial utterances lead me to say a few words to you upon one 
 single point of the Canadian Pacific Railway policy of the Govem- 
 
 (8) 
 
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 '223 • . 
 
 ment, that concerning the grants to the Company, and particularly 
 the last transaction of taking back some of our waste lands in 
 satisfaction of their debt. First let us try to grasp the magnitude 
 of these grants, the money part of which, contrary to the solemn 
 promise upon which the Government induced Parliament and the 
 country to consent to their policy, must be paid out of your taxes 
 instead of being, as they alleged, paid out of the proceeds of sales 
 of North-West lands. Now, gentlemen, the whole 
 
 EXPENDITURE OUT OF PUBLIC RESOURCES 
 
 on the transcontinental line — and by the transcontinental line I 
 mean the whole schemes projected from ocean to ocean, because 
 they have made and promised a considerable expenditure outside 
 of the original contracted line between Callander and Port Moody, . 
 I say the whole of this public expenditure, made or pledged, 
 including the receipts by the company through its land grants 
 and bonuses is 
 
 NOW ABOUT $98,000,000. 
 
 This takes no account of their free road-bed and station grounds 
 and other privileges, exen\ptions and monopolies of enormous 
 value. The public expenditure for the main line from Callander 
 to Fort Moody is of course less than this, because about $17,000,000 
 represents to-day the capitalized value of the sums given or " 
 pledged in cash, or by yearly payments, in connection with the 
 other elements of the transcontinental scheme. The distance from 
 Callander to Port Moody is 2,550 miles, and the grants for this part - 
 of the scheme are these — Government works and surveys, $35,- 
 000,000 ; cash subsidy, $25,000,000 ; cash lent the Company and 
 settled last session by the resumption of waste lands, $10,000,000; 
 proceeds of the Company's land grant bonds, local bonuses, and sales 
 of town sites, about $11,000,000, making a total of $81,000,000; 
 besides about 14,000,000 of acres of land available for sale, which 
 they still retain. These gifts. are equal in round figures to $31,750 
 and 5,550 acres for each mile of the road. If you reckon the un- 
 sold land grant to be worth $1 an acre, the grants amount to $95,- 
 000,000, or $37,250 for each mile ; if you reckon the unsold land at 
 the too high rate of $1.50 per acre, at which the Government took 
 part for their debt, the grants amount to $102,000,000, or $40,000 ' 
 for every mile of the 2,550 miles from Callander to Port Moody. I 
 am convinced, taking the road all over and having regard to the 
 exceptional advantages for railway construction during the last few 
 years, when the cost of construction has been lower than ever be- 
 fore, that had the road been built at moderate speed and with pro- 
 per economy, had not the rash, the insane policy of extreme haste» . 
 with all its incidents and consequences, been adopted, the road - 
 
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 -(■:" ,- 
 
 
 COULD HAVK BEEN BUILT FOR THAT MONEY, ' 
 
 and the Canadian Pacific Railway, built at the public expense, 
 might still be public property. These colossal grants have been 
 supplemented, as I have told you, by the equivalent of $17,000,000 
 for outside operations, making a grand total of from $112,000,000 
 to $119,000,000, according as you reckon the value of the unsold 
 land. These grants are enormous and unprecedented. They are 
 beyond comprehension ; we cannot grasp such figures ; they are 
 equal to more than half our whole net public debt ; they are equal 
 to over half a million for each electoral district in Canada ; they 
 arc equal to a yearly charge for interest and charges, calculating 
 the cost at 4J per cent., of over $5,000,000, or for each electoral 
 . district about $24,000 a year. They are equal to over $120 for 
 each head of a family in Canada. It was with this state of things 
 in view that the Government agreed last session to release $10,- 
 000,000 of the debt, and add $4-00,000 a year to the public charge. 
 This is the last transaction included in my figures. Sir John 
 Macdonald in various places has made statements on this subject. 
 At Winnipeg he said : — 
 
 "There were only ten millions more of the debt, and the Company said* 
 * Take your choice : we will pay you the other tea millions, or if you wish to 
 free our land of any mortgage to the Government, so that we can go into the 
 markets of the world and get money to build branches for the purpose of 
 extending and developing the C. P. B. , you may take out of the land grant, 
 out of the moat fertile part of the great North- West, enough land at $L.60 an 
 acre to pay your ten millions.' 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, you all read the papers, and you know the estimates 
 made, especially by Mr. Blake, as to the value of the lands. 
 
 '' In his celebrated speech, which has been so often quoted, he stated that 
 the lands, at the lowest valuation, were worth $3.76 an acre. 
 
 '' I believe they are worth that, and that we made a good bargain for the 
 lands, at less than half their valie. In consequence of its being free of debt, 
 there is no railroad in the world which has such substantial credit as the 
 C. P. R" 
 
 At London he said : — 
 
 "There now remained only another ten millions to be recouped, and the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway Company came to us and they said, " We have 
 until 1890 to pay this. We have paid you twenty millions five years before 
 the time. We will now do one of two things : we will pay you the money in 
 1890, if you wish to free us of all obligations, and get done with the inoon- 
 renient relation between the Government and the Company of debtor and 
 creditor. We will pay you in land the whole balance of the debt at $1.50 an 
 acre. Now, gentlemen, that land was to be taken out of the railway belt, 
 that land was to be taken out of the 25 millions of acres that we had agreed 
 to give them, and which they had earned, that land extending 20 miles eaoh 
 aide of the railway ; some of the finest land that has ever laid out of doors, 
 to use a familiar expression. It recalls to our recollection that Mr. Blake, in 
 $is place in the House of Parliament, has valued thai land at a minimum, at 
 
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 the least value, at $3.7o an acre. Mr. Charlton said it was worth $5 an acre, 
 and the Company off<)red us, in order to get rid of the obli^'ation, the land at 
 ^1.50 pur acre. Well, we hud to consider it, and the Goveriunent came to the 
 oonoluaion, and I think you will aifroe with us, it was a correct conclusion, if 
 the land at its lowest is worth $3.75, wo were making rather a good bargain 
 out of the Canadian Pacitic Railway Company to get the land at less than 
 half price. (Cheers.) So we took the land at $1.50 an acre, and we have 
 those lands now ; we are selling those lands, and we are making a fund out 
 of the sales as the lands aro sold, in order to redeem the bonds, to redeem 
 our obligation to our creditors, to apply to the payment of the ten millions. 
 So that, gentlemen, we are now free from the Canadian Pacific Railway, the 
 Canadian Pacitic Railway ia free from iis ; the lifting of the mortgage on the 
 railway for this' ten million frees them entirely. They are the most enter- 
 prising body in the world ; they are extending their road in every possible 
 way ; they are building branch roads wherever branches can be useful to the 
 <;onntry and to the road as a commercial enterprise. They can now go into 
 the market free from all debt to issue their bonds, and with the prestige, 
 with the credit they have gained by the fact that the road is now completed, by 
 the fact that they own the road, and that the Canadian Government or Cana- 
 dian Parliament cannot interefere with them — that they can go into any of 
 the markets of the world, and the very people that would not look at their 
 bonds at any price tliree years ago will only be too glad to get them at their 
 market value." 
 
 You know how much confidence they have in me ! They 
 have often told you how correct my judgment is ! (Cheers and 
 laughter.) And so of course, 
 
 THEY WERE QUITE SATISFIKD 
 
 wlien, ae they allege, I, of all men in the world, valued the land 
 at $3.50 an acre, that they must be making an excellent bargain. 
 (Laughter.) Sir John is never tired of this alleged , quotation of 
 my opinion. Everywhere he repeats it, and depends on me ! He 
 says, " This is Mr. Blake's estimate ; " and it is extraordinary, and 
 even flattering, to know how much they depend upon Mr. Blake's 
 alleged estimate — when it suits them ! (Loud applause and laugh- 
 ter.) Gentlemen, it was not so. 
 
 THEY MADK THE ESTIMATE THEMSELVES. 
 
 Sir John Macdonald gave an estimate as far back as 1879 
 find repeated it in 1880, of the value of North-West lands within 
 a certain distance of the projected rail way. He declared what 
 the land was worth in each of several belts on either side of 
 the railway, valuing the several belts at different prices cor- 
 respondent with their distance from the line. Only a few 
 months later in the same year they brought down a new railway 
 polic}^ under which they were to give lands along the line to 
 the present company, and, in dealing with this new policy, I 
 said : — A few months ago you valued these lands at such and 
 such prices. Now that the situation has, as you say, everyway 
 
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 improved, and that the railway is to be built through the lands 
 faster than was then expected, thus increasing their estimated 
 market value, you surely must believe the lands to be worth at 
 least as much as your own estimate of a few months ago. Here 
 is what I said on that subject in 1880 : 
 
 " What about the lands? These lands are to be within 24 miles of the 
 railway. According to the estimate of the Qovernment, made by them in 
 the recees before last session, and which they published to the world as the 
 terms of sale of railway lands ; confirmed by them during last session, when 
 they brought it down and declared it to be a moderate estimate ; further 
 confirmed by them when they asked Parliament to sanction their going on 
 with the work on those reguHtions and principles ; and still further con- 
 firmed, in a sense, when they announced, as they have repeatedly an- 
 nounced, that the prospects of selling land in the North-West are infinitely 
 brighter to-day, that the land is worth more to-day than it was a year ago. 
 According to this view, which we may take as a minimum estimate, there is 
 established for lands to be found within twenty-four miles of the railway, 
 an average price $4.04 an acre. (Hon. members, hear, hear.) Well, the 
 hon. member for Niagara and other hon. members think that a wholly 
 ridiculous estimate. 
 
 " Mr. Plumb— We do. 
 
 " I did not hear that the hon. member for Niagara thought it a ridiculous 
 estimate when his chief and leader propounded it last year. * * * 
 But now the case is different, and the case being different alters the case, 
 and the hon. gentleman, the case being altered and his chief being absent, 
 sneers at and ridicules hia chief's estimate of the value of the land. 
 
 " I may explain, sir, since there appears to be a little incredulity on this 
 subject, how it is. The ten-mile range, or rather the two ranges of five 
 miles, near the railway, were valued at five dollars an acre, ♦ * ♦ 
 the two fifteen-mile ranges near to this, making thirty miles in depth 
 altogether, were valued at i^ ; and eight miles of the next range the three 
 dollar range." * 
 
 I thus showed tliat the average value, as estimated by the Go- 
 vernment themselves, of the land they were about to grant, was 
 $4.04 an acre. 
 
 Now have I not demonstrated by the clearest proof the fact that 
 
 THIS WAS THEIR, AND NOT MY VALUATION ? 
 
 What is to be said of the candour and honesty of public men 
 who endeavour to persuade you that they relied on my values, 
 when they knew I was only quoting their own ? 
 
 I think mine was not an unfair argument, I was applying; their 
 own valuation to their own bargain ; and they couldn't well com- 
 plain of that ! (Applause and laughter.) But even if it had 
 been my estimate in 1880, and if I had been wrong then in my 
 valuation of North-West lands, I want to know whether that 
 would justify a bargain made for the purchase of North-West 
 lands in 1886 ? , Suppose this had been my estimate, instead of 
 theirs, and that subsequent events had proved it was wrong, oi 
 
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 227 
 
 BIX 
 
 Huppose the value and prospects of sale had changed in 
 years, what sensible man would say. — " You are justified in buy- 
 ing these lands in 188(5, because in 1880 a gentleman in whom 
 you had no confidence whatever valued them higher ?" Why, 
 when I used my argument in 1880 they repudiated their own val- 
 uation and declared it ridiculous ! But not one of you but knows 
 that the pricj of land in this country fluctuates. Not one of you 
 but knows that there have been great rises and falls in the value 
 of real estate in the ^^orth-West. It is absurd to talk of lands 
 there having a fixed and immutable value. The value goes up 
 and down according to circumstances, especially in a new 
 country subject to such fluctuations and contingencies as the 
 North- West. 
 
 HAVE THERE BEEN NO BOOMS 
 
 and no collapses in the North- West ? They acknowledged that a 
 boom happened — they caused it. They acknowledge that a 
 collapse has occurred. They caused it too. They say that they 
 cannot even give away the land as rapidly as they desire. Sir 
 John Macdonald himself said at London that the immigration to 
 the North-West would be absorbed by the free grants and home- 
 steads for twenty-five years to come. What chance is there, 
 then, of selling farming lands meanwhile ? Do you want ten 
 million acres more to sell when you expect to give all free that 
 will be wanted for the next quarter of a century ? It is absurd ; 
 and yet they say they made a most excellent bargain for the 
 country. They tell you they have bought land cheap for you, 
 and that they are going to make money out of the purchase ; 
 and still in the same speech, yes, and even in the same sentence, 
 Sir John declares that the position of the Company is greatly 
 strengthened by this sale. It could not have been, in this aspect, 
 a very good sale for both the Company and the Government as 
 well. If the Government got the land dog cheap, at half price, 
 surely the Company must have sold too cheap and lost money ! 
 (Cheers.) As a matter of fact, it is correct that 
 
 r 
 THE COMPANY WAS VERY MUCH STRENGTHENED 
 
 by this transaction, for the moment it was cabled that the Gov- 
 ernment had agreed to buy the lands at this price, the Company's 
 stock rose several millions of dollars, just because the Company 
 had made so good a bargain and the Government such a bad one. 
 (Cheers.) Now then, I dealt in 1885 with this whole question 
 of North- West lands. I then dealt with their pretence that the 
 old valuation was mine. I repudiated it then. I gave them my 
 views on the general subject then ; and if they, in 1886, were re- 
 
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 lying on my opinions, it was to those views of 1885 they should 
 have referred. Remember, this 3})eech was made just a few 
 months bofore they made this bargain, and shortly after the Com- 
 pany had asked them to agree, and they had refused, as they did 
 in 1885, to make the purchase. This is what I said: — 
 
 " Now, the hon. gentleman referred to my valuation of the North- West lands, 
 as he called it, in 1880-81. I pointed out what the Government valuation 
 had been in the preceeding year. I was not, therefore, measuring their 
 corn in my bushel, but in their own, and I think 
 
 ' THAT IS A FAIR WAY. 
 
 They have valued the lands at such and such prices, and the following 
 session, within a few months, with no variations of circumstances except one 
 of improvement having occurred, they brought up a proposal to hand over 
 the picked lands — nothing which was not cultivated — lands fairly fit for 
 settlement — that was the character of the lands ; they were proposing to 
 hand them over to the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I said : Now you are 
 bringing forward this as a barg{),in. You told us the lands were worth on 
 the average so much money last year. Are the circumstances worse now ? 
 No ; they told us they were better. Then the lands must be worth as 
 much ? Yes, that could not he denied. " Well, if you were giving so much 
 lands to this railway, and if according to your conception, they are worth 
 so much money, then of course you are giving them the equivalent of so 
 much money. That was my argument. But I have never said that the 
 price of the North- West land was a fixed figure. On the contrary, I hj^ve 
 pointed out that under different circumstances, in varying years, under 
 varying influences, the price of the lands in the North- West, as in other 
 new countries, would rise and fall, and that we have to deal with the facts 
 as they were presented to us at the time at which we were called upon 
 to deal. I cannot say what the North- West lands will bring in the near or 
 the distant future, but I can refer to some tests of the value of those lands 
 at the present time, and that I will venture to do. I say that their value in 
 the future is speculative ; on the average, no doubt, in the long run, the 
 value will improve, the country will improve, but what you should deem 
 them worth to-day, or in the near future, is a question which passes my 
 poor head to answer, although hon. gentlemen answer it in various ways 
 according to the exigencies of the situation. I pointed out last session that 
 they could not be relied on as present sources of revenue to meet the 
 interest on the loan, and now after the collapse which occurred during -ind 
 since last session, and after the outbreak of this session, what are we to day 
 is their value ? Now, I will give you some teats." 
 
 I then proceeded. to refer to the North- West Lands Co., and 
 went on as follows : — 
 
 Well, then. 
 
 TAKE THE COLONIZATION COMPANIES. 
 
 " In the year 1884 the Minister of Railways stated that there were some 
 23,000,000 acres applied for by colonization companies, that $10,000,000 were 
 already provided for, and that the rest would be provided for very soon, be- 
 cause they would go on selling an increased average and enlarging the price. 
 We do not know, of course, what the Government measure is ; they have 
 promised to bring one down, and they admit that they are about to bring a 
 proposal to relieve the colonization companies whose bargains made with them 
 by the Government are too hard, and cannot be performed. Take again the 
 
 
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229 
 
 CALCULATION OF THE OOVBRNMENT ITSELF. 
 
 On the 4th of May, 1883 they brought down calculations that they would , 
 realize $58,000,000 in cash for the lands in the North-West by the year 1891. 
 How many millions will they dare say they will realize now ? Will any man 
 amongst them say they will realize $58,000,000 ? Will any man say thut they 
 will realize one-half of $58,000,000 ? If they will not will they say that cir- 
 cumstances have not changed, or that their calculations have been verified ? 
 Take their action in June, 1883, when they passed an Order-in-Council de- 
 claring that in future they would give no lands to railway companies in the 
 North-West at a price which would i.et the Government less than $1.50 
 per acre. They were afraid that the former price gave too large a margin of 
 profit to the railway companies which had not been fortunate enough to se- 
 cure land at$l per acre, were to pay at least $1.50. Now, we had this con- 
 dition of things, that while in June, 1883, the Government declared that 
 future sales to railways should be at a price which would net the Government 
 $1.50 per acre, the companies making tlieir profit beyond, in September, 1884, 
 they decided u|>on the policy of giving lands free to the railways, and 
 why ? Because they found that 
 
 THE RAILWAYS COULD NOT SELL 
 
 the lands at one dollar even and make money on them, and in ordei to make 
 that money which they intended the railways should make, it was necessary 
 to give them free. JJoes not that show a change of situation as to the lands in 
 tlie North- Wed. Surely there is but one answer to that. When you find the 
 Government declaring in June, 1883 that it would be sufliciently profitable 
 to the railway companies to get lands at $1.50, and in September, 1884, say- 
 ing we must give them free to the railway companies in order that they may 
 make some profit on them, who will deny that there is a change — I do not 
 know how long it will last — with reference to the North-West lands 1 And 
 what more 1 Why, Mr. Van Homo, in September, 1884, declared that he 
 was not sanguine, with a gift of practically 9,600 acres a mile for 100 miles 
 of the Manitoba South- Western Railway, passing through the best part of 
 Southern Manitoba and long settled, that he would be able to build that line, 
 although he started out with a basis of credit of 50 miles of completed line, 
 for which the company charges something like $25,000 a mile. That is the 
 statouieut of a gentleman who, in his otlicr capacity as Vice-President of the 
 Canadian Pacific Ilailway, is certainly deeply interested in not depreciating 
 the value of the lands of the North-Wost. Does not that show a change f 
 Take the dealings of the Bell Farm Company with the Government, by which 
 their agreetueiit is modified very materially. Take the fact that there are 
 only tivcnty three homesteads on a 400 mile stretch of thi Canadian Pacific Eail- 
 toay through the prairies. Taking all these facts, I ask you whether there is 
 any immediate prospect of realizing considerable sums from the sale of lands 
 in the North-West. Now, these gentlemen do not like this, because they 
 told us, when they asked us to assent to the Canadian Pacific Railway con- 
 tract in 1881, and again when they asked us to assent to the loan of 1884, 
 that they were going shortly to pay o& the railway obligations which the peo- 
 ple of Canada were incurring out of the lands of the North-West ; they told 
 us they would all be recouped out of the lands ; and having told us that, 
 they do not like to hear these statements which ^convict them out of their own 
 mouths of gross miscalculations." 
 
 So that you see a few months before the bargain I explained 
 fully the past, and stated my views as to the present value of 
 North-West lands as established by the experience which we had 
 
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 been gaining, and with reference to the sales and prospects of sales. 
 Surely if it were my judgment and estimate on which they wished 
 to rely they would have turned to my speech of 1885, and to the 
 fact that in the same year I denounced the proposal as one not fit 
 to be entertained. But now 
 
 THEY WISH TO GULL THE PEOPLE 
 
 by pretending, forsooth, that they acted on my valuations. It is 
 as dishonest as it is shallow to make any such pretence. (Cheers.) 
 There was another element to be considered in judging of the 
 prudence of this transaction. That is the proved demand for public 
 lands in the North-West of late years. That demand had fallen 
 to nothing. Look at things as they were in the early years, in 
 Mr. Mackenzie's time, when there were yet no railways, when 
 these men alleged there was no North- West progress, and com- 
 pare the figures with their own. (Applause.) The entries for 
 public lands in the North-West were for 1875 1,021, covering 
 liJ 3,000 acres ; for 187G, 807, covering 153,000 acres; for 1877, 
 2,283, covering 400,000 acres ; and for 1878, 4,065, covering 632,- 
 000 acres ; and in the last year they were 724 sales. Then came 
 the present Government. 
 
 THEY CREATED THE DISASTROUS BOOM, 
 
 with its thousands of nominal entries and its delusive and short- 
 lived prosperity. In 1882 it rose to its height ; there were 
 16,740 nominal entries, covering 2,700,000 acres, with 3,703 sales. 
 In 1883 it showed signs of contraction. There were 11,217 nomi- 
 nal entries, covering 1,800,000 acres, with 1,034 sales. Before 
 1883 closed it was ended. In 1884 the bubble had already burst, 
 the collapse had already taken place. They now attribute that 
 collapse to the rebellion. Now, the rebellion was their fault, and 
 so they cannot thus escape. (Cheers.) But the rebellion did not 
 take place till 1885 ; and in 1884 there were but 661 entries, but 
 four per cent, of those of 1883, a reduction of 96 per cent., 
 covering only 94,000 acres, and one single sale, while in 1885 it 
 had become worse ; there were but 129 entries, covering 21,000 
 acres, and one single sale. (Cheers.) If they wish to charge the 
 falling off" between 1884 and 1885 to that page in 
 
 THE BLACK LEDGER OF THEIR CRIMES 
 
 which is headed " North- West Rebellions " they are welcome. 
 (Loud cheering.) But so it was, that the demand had fallen to 
 nothing, that there were but 79 homestead entries, 49 pre- 
 emptions, and one single sale in the year before this great bargain 
 
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 by which we bought ourselves so rich ! (Laughter and applause.^ 
 So it was, that even compared with the progress in the " bad times ' 
 of Mr. Mackenzie their figures should have made them blush and 
 ]>ause just at the period when they secured more land to sell ! 
 Again, but 139 persons had, up to the close of 1885, taken up 
 homesteads on a stretch of 400 miles along the C P. R. in the 
 North- West. How absurd it is to talk of this as a bargain ! How 
 absurd to tell you that you are to clear the ten millions and interest 
 •lit of these lands ! (Applause.) In truth, there is 
 
 lomi- 
 efore 
 )urst, 
 that 
 and 
 not 
 but 
 ent., 
 85 it 
 000 
 the 
 
 )me. 
 In to 
 |pre- 
 
 tain 
 
 NO PROSPECT 
 
 of the Government netting within any reasonable time an^ 
 appreciable sum out of North- West lands. Remember that the 
 Government cannot sell in detail to as great advantage as private 
 persons. There will be no special prices for special farms ; and 
 you may as well make up your minds to the inevitable, and set 
 your shoulders to the wheel, for you will have to foot the bill. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Now, you must remember there is another thing to be con- 
 sidered also. We were promised that the Company would be our 
 great immigration agent. We were told that, as owners of 25,- 
 000,000 acres, their interest, in getting the country settled, so as to 
 secure the advantage to them of settling up their own lands, would 
 make them incur the cost and save us the expense of bringing in 
 immigrants. But, by this bargain, to the extent of 10,000,000 
 acres, we have taken away the necessity laid upon the company 
 of bringing in immigrants. Sir John Macdonald said that the 
 company first made the offer that, if we preferred it, instead of 
 paying back in cash all that we had loaned them, they would 
 transfer to us 7,000,000 of acres. He indicates that the company 
 didn't want it particularly, but he took the ofier because 
 
 IT WAS SUCH A GOOD THING 
 
 for the country. (Laughter.) That, I fear, is not a candid state- 
 ment of the case. It appears from public documents that the 
 company asked for the arrangement the year before. I opposed 
 it in the House on the rumour getting out The Government then 
 refused the Company's request. The Company, it is plain, pressed 
 it again as part of the settlement of the debt this year, and at 
 length succeeded. If you think this transaction took place to 
 benefit Canada, with its existing possessions of this and scores of 
 millions of acres of waste land which cannot now be sold to 
 immigrants, that is a fiction of which you had better disabuse 
 your minds. It has no existence, in fact. This was a 
 
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 it 
 
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 FURTHER AND ENORMOUS BOON . 
 
 to this great Company ; and when you consider the colossal gifts 
 which had been lavishly made before, and the gigantic sums in 
 principal and interest which we were called to pay, when you 
 consider how prosperous and flourishing they reported the present 
 condition, and how bright and glowing the immediate future of 
 this great corporation — the creature of our bounty, — I think you 
 will agree that this further concession, this cancellation of ten 
 millions of their debt for seven inillions of our waste and unsale- 
 able lands, was extravagant, needless, improper, and impolitic, 
 and deserves your condemnation at the polls. (Loud and pro- 
 longed cheering.) 
 
 i| 
 
 NORTH WEST LANDS. 
 
 A CORRECTION MADE BY THE LIBERAL LEADER — A DIFFERENCE 
 IN THE FIGURKS BUT NO DIFFERENCE IN THE CONCLUSION 
 TO BE DRAWN. 
 
 In his speech at St. Thomas Hon. Edward Blake said : — I ob- 
 serve that Mr. White has pointed out inaccuracies in some figures 
 I gave lately about North- West lands. These figures I took from 
 a book which I have caused to be kept up for some years, giving 
 particulars of the statements in the blue books. On reference to 
 the gentleman who did this work for me, I am informed that he 
 finds that for the last two years he by mistake took only one of 
 two sets of figures for the totals. I feel it my duty at once to 
 acdnowledge and correct the inaccuracy. Here is a table which I 
 believe gives the facts : — 
 
 NORTH-WEST LANDS. 
 
 I 
 
 lit' 
 
 Year. Entries. 
 
 1877 2,283 
 
 1878 4,065 
 
 1882 16,740 
 
 1883 11,237 
 
 Less cancelled 375 
 
 1883 (net) 10,862 
 
 1884 7,700 
 
 Less cancelled... . 2,366 
 
 1884 (net) 5,334 
 
 Acres. 
 
 400,424 
 
 682,591 
 2,099.145 
 1,852046 
 
 100,000 
 
 1,752,046 
 
 1,087,256 
 
 367,280 
 
 719,976 
 
 Homesteads. 
 
 832 
 1,753 
 7,383 
 6,039 
 
 375 
 
 5,644 
 3,753 
 1,394 
 
 2.359 
 
 Pre-emptions 
 594 
 1,588 
 5,654 
 
 4,120 
 
 2,762 
 572 
 
 1,790 
 
 Sales. 
 767 
 665 
 
 3,703 
 
 1,034 
 1,185 
 
 1,185 
 
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V.:W 
 
 ^^wp 
 
 TF 
 
 Sales. 
 767 
 065 
 
 3,703 
 
 1,034 
 1,186 
 
 1,185 
 
 Year. 
 
 1885 
 
 Less cancelled.. 
 
 1885 (net) 
 
 Entries. 
 
 .. 2,317 
 . . 2,236 
 
 233 
 
 Acres, Homesteads. Pre-empteons. Sales. 
 
 481,814 1,569 690 168 
 
 365,269 1,296 940 
 
 81 
 
 126,545 
 
 263 
 
 350 
 
 168 ^ 
 
 You will observe that during 1877 and 1878, in Mr. Mackenzie's 
 time, there was fair progress, and that the advance of 1878 over 
 1877 was considerable, the entries being nearly double. Then 
 coming to 
 
 THE BOOM YEAR 
 
 of 1882,you will see an utterly abnormal, and in truth an unreal and 
 ruinous expansion, with two and three-quarter million acres taken 
 up, with nearly 17,000 entries — 7,400 homesteads, 5,600 pre-emp- 
 tions, and 3,700 sales. Then in 1883 you find the failure of the 
 boom. The entries were half as much again, and the sales were 
 nearly four times as numerous in 1882 as in 1883. Then comes 
 1884, with all the signs of collapse ; the entries fell to 7,700, less 
 than half of the number in 1882, and the ominous entry of cancel- 
 lations became prominent; they numbered 2,366, reducing the net 
 gain in entries for the year to 5,334, less than one-third of those of / 
 1882 ; the net gain in lands taken up was but 720,000 acres, little 
 more than one-fourth of 1882 ; the net gain in homesteads was 
 but 2,359, and in pre-emptions, 1,790, while the sales numbered 
 1,185. The figures had got so low that, having regard to the 
 change of circumstances and the lapse of years, the progress com- 
 pared most unfavourably with that of 1877 and 1878. Then we ' 
 come to 1885, and reach the lowest point. The entries fell to 
 2,317, hardly more than half those of 1878 ; but there were no less 
 than 2,236 cancelled entries, so that the net gain was nominal, 81 
 only. The land taken was only 480,000 acres ; but 355,000 acres 
 were cancelled, leaving only 126,000 acres to the good, as against 
 680,000 acres in 1878. The net gain in homesteads was but 263, as 
 against 1,753 in 1878. There was an absolute lojs in pre-emptions , 
 of 350, the cancellations exceeding by that figure the new pre- 
 emptions. And the sales fell to 168, not 5 per cent, of those of 
 1882, and little more than one-fourth of those of 1878. These 
 figures tell you plainly how completely 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED 
 
 to fulfil its promises. How utter has been the collapse of its 
 policy ! How hollow its dreams of large settlement and enormous - 
 receipts from North West lands, v herewith to recoup Canada for 
 the uncounted millions it has lavished ! Who now dares to say, 
 as was said in 1883, that we shall realize fifty-eight millions out 
 
 (8) 
 
 
 I'd 
 
 : »il f, 
 
 i! 
 
 •tf> 
 

 • v. 
 
 '^^^^^. 
 
 >•>;'; 
 
 J'., 
 
 234 
 
 of North- West lands by 1891 ? You have been grossly deceived 
 and misled ; your future has been mortgaged and your taxes have 
 been squandered upon false pretences ; and you have now to pay 
 the heavy price of your misplaced confidence in the Tory 
 Government. (Cheers.) 
 
 RAILWAY POLICY. 
 
 Reimbursement of Local Expenditure. 
 
 ■ - /■ . 
 
 In his speech at Orangeville Mr. Blake referred to the items of 
 railway expenditure made and pledged, and in the course of his 
 remarks, he said : — 
 
 You have heard it said, no doubt, that I have been pandering 
 to Quebec] and have been willing to say or do anything to catch 
 the French vote. I have not hesitated to claim justice for the var- 
 ious Provinces, even though it might be turned to my prejudice 
 in Quebec. Let me give you an example. You will remember 
 that some sessions ago a proposition was laid before the House 
 for the payment of several millions of dollars to the Province of 
 Quebec in part reimbursement of the 
 
 PROVINCIAL EXPENDITURE ON CERTAIN RAILWAYS 
 
 built in Quebec ; and which it was proposed should be treated as 
 extensions of the Canadian Pacific Railway. 
 
 I took the ground that, adopting this policy we should give 
 equal justice to the other Provinces. Let me quote some extracts 
 from my speech, as explanatory of my views : — 
 
 Now in the Province of Ontario, in accordance with her system of local 
 government, which has developed to a much greater extent than in any of 
 the other Provinces, minuter systems of local government, by means of 
 municipal institutions, municipal taxation, and municipal expenditure, th© 
 Local Government has provided more largely for railways, through municipal- 
 ities, than that of any of the other Provinces, 
 
 The general results in the Province of Gntario are as follows ;- Govern- 
 ment aid paid and promised $6,520,000 ; to this is to be added the settlement 
 of the claim of the Canada Central for a large specific grant of land in the 
 Province of Ontario, made by the Legislature before Confederation, and in 
 respect of which the courts held there was a legal claim against, not the Pro- 
 vince, but the lands of the Province for an indefinite amount. This waa 
 
 (8) 
 
 
 if'- 
 
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 ■■■%.' ^ % 
 
V ■.. 
 
 
 as 
 
 loca^ 
 ty of 
 
 IB 01 
 
 the 
 [ipal- 
 
 I'em- 
 
 leut 
 
 the 
 
 id in 
 *ro- 
 
 235 
 
 settled for $550,090 in respect of railway construction which took place after 
 Confederation. This makes a total of $7,070,000 as the Goveriiment ex- 
 penditure made and to be made. To this is to be added the municipal aid 
 — I am sorry 1 have not been able to get all the grants, but the grants I have 
 obtained information of are about $8,000,000, making a payment in all of 
 over $15,000,000 by the Province, irrespective of a very large amount of the 
 old Municipal Loan Fund debt, which was an asset of the Province of On- 
 tario, and which was remitted to the municipalities — had been expended in 
 the earlier railway construction. That I do not take into account at all, as 
 my effort has been to ascertain what has been expended in the Province on 
 railways since Confederation. One other observation is fit to be made, with 
 reference to the expenditure of over $15,000,000, and to which, I have just 
 alluded, in Ontario, and it is this, that no less a sum than $3,200,000 of that 
 expenditure has been made on lines which have been declared to be now, 
 practically, parts of the Canadian Pacific Railway — the Canada Central an 
 expenditure of $850,000 ; the Toronto, Grey & Bruce, which, it is said is to 
 be the main artery to the Canadian Pacific for a considerable time to come, 
 and which has been leased under arrangements, to which Parliament has 
 given its sanction, by the Canadian Pacific Railway as part of the Ontario & 
 Quebec — $1,450,000 ; the Credit Valley, which forms a link in the line of 
 through communication, which Parliament has sanctioned the acquisition of 
 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, $900,000, so that, as I have said, $3,200,- 
 000 of provincial and municipal money has been expended in the Province 
 of Ontario for enterprises now practically part of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
 way, and deemed to be of very great importance on the proper working and 
 complete realization of the benefits to be derived from that enterprise, and 
 under the demands made upon municipalities in respect to these liberal rail- 
 way grants, very considerable diflSculties have arisen and very great burden» 
 have been imposed upon many thriving municipalities. 
 
 I then proceeded to show that in Nova Scotia $2,712,000 had 
 been expended in like manner, apart from lands, and in New 
 Brunswick $1,876,000, besides a large area of lands, and I went 
 on as follows : — 
 
 Speaking roughly, it in very ex«;raordinary how closely in the whole of the 
 Provinces the railway expenditure approximates the basis of population. In 
 the Province of Manitoba over $900,000, I believe, has been given municip- 
 ally to various railways, either to the Canadian Pacific Railway or to railways 
 which have had more or less connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway. I 
 have shown you an expenditure in the five Provinces of over $30,000,000, and 
 there is this observation to be made with respect to that expenditure : that 
 he railways upon which it has been made are, many of them, aye, most of 
 hem, aye, almost all of them of infinitely greater importance, railways which 
 can infinitely more properly be called railways of great advantage to Canada 
 within the meaning of our constitution than many of those lines which the hon. 
 gentleman has sought to bring within our jurisdiction, and many of those 
 proposed railways for which he is now advocating a federal subvention. I do 
 not intend to go over the list, but this fact is notorious. Let each member con- 
 sider the lines in his own Province which have been built since Confederation 
 and he will see with the very greatest facility that the observation I have made 
 is just and correct, namely, that those lines which have been constructed are of 
 infinitely more importance, of infinitely greater consequence and infinitely more 
 national in their character than any of the lines now proposed to be aided, and 
 indeed more important than any line which can be projected. They are the 
 main lines that were required at that time. * * * Now a third proposal ia 
 
 (8) 
 
 ; ' I 
 
 ■?■'■, '^^. 
 
 - 1, 
 
 [\ ^.v *..•;:;;<• ;..^5^. 
 
 ^ )■ 
 

 • ( 
 
 • / 
 
 
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 / / 
 
 I 
 
 I- 
 
 made, namely, that there should be a payment to a Province, in respect of 
 past expenditure on certain of its Provincial railways. I maintain that this 
 18 a principle now brought forward for the first time, and which, if it is to be 
 applied at all, must have an application more extensive than that proposed 
 to be given to it. I maintain it is not just to apply that principlB in one 
 Province, and not to the other Provinces. I maintain that the claims ayid 
 rights of the other Provinces ought to he recognized, when this new policy is in- 
 avgurated. We know what the truth is in this matter. We know perfectly 
 well, it is quite notorious to us, that the finances of the Province of Quebec 
 are in a distreBscd condition. * * * I do not think the people of Quebec will 
 dissent from the spirit in which I now address myself to them, namely, that 
 it is fair and reasonable, under these circumstances, when a new policy of 
 this kind is being proposed, to consider what its real basis is, to consider what 
 the real condition of the other Provinces is, relatively to that basis and other- 
 wise, and to see whether what, is being proposed, as it stands, and without 
 afi'ecting proper remedies for the application generally of the new principle 
 you propose can be called just. I have pointed out the railway expenditure 
 of the Provinces which have expended money on railways, and have shown 
 you it bears an approximate relation to the population and resources of the 
 various Provinces. I have shown you that other Provinces stood in the same 
 position as Quebec with reference to this railway expenditure, I have shown 
 you, for example, that the Province of Ontario has, through oui municipali- 
 ties, expended ^3,200,000 on railways which are now part of the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway, and I say that, in dealing with these lines, dealing nith the 
 question of railway expenditure, proposing to recoup Provinces in respect to 
 railway expenditure, the proper, just and equitable mode of dealing with the 
 case is to place all the Provinces on the same relative' footing, to do justice, 
 not to one, but to all. I have no desire to interfere with the aid it may be 
 necessary to give in the interests of Confederation at large to place on a some- 
 what better footing the finances of Quebec, but whether the hon. gentleman 
 of that Province agree with me or not, I am prepared to advocate in the 
 House, while I yield what I think just, the claims ot justice to all ; and I be- 
 lieve that justice to all is not done by these resolutions. I believe that 
 justice to all requires a wider application and a sounder basis for the appli- 
 cation of the principle which the hon, gentleman proposes to incorporate in 
 our legislature, and 1 moved, seconded hy Mr. Laurier, the loilowing amend- 
 ment : — 
 
 '* But this House feels bound to express the opinion that Canada, when 
 (as proposed by the said resolution) recouping one of the Provinces for part 
 of the past local expenditure in railways, should have regard to the past local 
 expenditure in other Provinces in railways, almost all of which have been 
 declared to be for the general advantage of Canada, and this House regrets 
 that the Government, while pioposinji a measure of relief to one Province, 
 has not taken steps with a vif w lo a fair and proportionate meafaure of relief 
 in respect of all local expenditure in the other Provinces." 
 
 That was the position of the Liberal party, and you will judge 
 whether that position was sound and reasonable, you will judge 
 how iar it is fair or right that the Governments of Ontario, Nova 
 Scotia, New Brunswick and the other Provinces and their muni- 
 cipalities should - 
 
 !t I 
 
 CONTRIBUTE WITHOUT AUY RECOUPMENT 
 
 from Ottawa, many, many millions of dollars, to the construction 
 
 (8) . 
 
 
 ■> V 
 
 :.*..-.;'^i.'': 
 
, when 
 tor part 
 1st local 
 ve been 
 [regrets 
 lovince, 
 If relief 
 
 judge 
 
 IJudge 
 
 Nova 
 
 Imuni- 
 
 iction 
 
 •. / 
 
 RAILWAY POLICY OF TlIK LIBERAL TARTY. 
 
 aUINEA-PIG DIRFXiTOPS OF SIR JOHN S SUBSIDIZED ROADS — ASSISTED 
 IMMIGRATION, AND JOI]j;iN(J IN PRINTING — CONVERSION. OF 
 
 THE " MAIL." 
 
 Hon. Edward Blakk, in the course of a speech at Huntsville 
 sail! : — It is a long time, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, 
 that I have promised myself the pleasure — and many a time I 
 have talked with your former representative, Mr. Cockburn, 
 about it — of visiting the district of Muskoka. I am very 
 glad an occasion has arisen when I am able to conjoin a visit 
 to your lovely lakes and brilliant woods, which I have been 
 enjoying this morning, with a visit to what, after all, must be the 
 chief charm of a country <o any public u)an or to any man 
 worthy of the name, tl.c people who inhabit it. (Applause.) I 
 am glad to see your faces as well as the Lcnuitifnl scenery in the 
 midst of which you live, the loveliness of whir;h must compen.sate 
 you very largely for the trials, ditHculties, and privations which 
 haj^pen to the pioneers who settle up a new and somewhat rough 
 country. I am myself the son of an old settler, who, more 
 than half a century ago, went into the completely unbfoken 
 forest and there hewed out for himself the space in which he put 
 up ' 
 
 THE LOG HOUSE IN WHICH 1 FIRST SAW THE LIGHT. 
 
 « 
 
 (Applause.) Early in ray public life I was called upon to repre- 
 sent a new county, though not quite so new as this, the county 
 of Bruce. And I have just had the pleasure of speaking to two 
 former inhabitants of Bruce who cast their tirst votes for me in 
 1867. (Loud applause.) It has thus been my lot' both by birth 
 and political connections to take a deep* interest in the situation, 
 
 . , • - ^ ' ... (8) .-. 
 
 -... K 
 
 237 ' . . ^ 
 
 of public works, which are of enormous importance to the country 
 at large, and a great part of which have been absorbed by the 
 Canadian Pacific, while the Government of one of the Provinces 
 receives a large recoupment in respect of similar works constructed 
 within its borders. I think justice to all <lemanded the adoption 
 of my amendment, which I rejoice to say was sustained by the 
 solid body of the Lil>eral party. (Loud and prolonged applause.) 
 
 M 
 
 ■ Kn 
 
 m 
 
 ii 
 
 <! 
 
 , 
 
 Ii! I 
 

 ■ \ 
 
 t 
 288 
 
 
 struggles, and wants of those who have been pioneers in Canada. 
 I was early brought face to face with one of their prime needs, 
 that of easier and cheaper means of transportation and communi- 
 cation. I knew what the condition of things was in Bruce 
 when I first went there I know the changes which followed in 
 four or five years, when I was called upon to take power in 
 Ontario, about the close of 1871 ; I was called upon to do so at 
 a time when it was necessary practically to set on foot what liad 
 been inaugurated on paper only, a large scheme of Provincial 
 railway aid to meet that great necessity. Under these circum- 
 stances, taking stock of the circumstances and the needs, as well 
 of some of the older portions of the Province as of the new 
 districts, my colleagues and myself determined that a very much 
 larger appropriation of the public funds than that proposed by 
 our predecessors would be necessary in order to do justice to all ; 
 and though the House had been elected under the auspices of 
 my opponents, I did not hesitate to bring down a plan involving 
 more than 
 
 DOUBLE THE AMOUNT THET HAD PROPOaED 
 
 for railway aid. The amount was one and a half millions a 
 that time. I proposed to add $400,000, and also a further sum 
 of two millions, payable in annual amounts extending over 
 twenty years — thus more than doubling the cash value of the 
 grant. And being called upon practically to apply the grant, so 
 far as the applications then betore us enabled us to assist the 
 districts, it was my good fortune to propose, with the assent of 
 my colleagues, grants for almost all the new districts in 
 which there were then railway schemes, including Grey, Bruce, 
 Simcoe, Renfrew, Victoria, Addington, Hastings, and Ninissing, 
 and even this then very new district of Muskoka. It fell to me 
 to propose the grant out to Washago and later to Gravonhurst, 
 which was then the furthest point to which railways in this 
 quarter had been projected. The Conservatives allege that the 
 Relorm party is not a party of practical, progressive men, that 
 we ot^ect to large practical steps taken to improve the condition 
 of the country, but those who know the course of the Reform 
 party will at^ree with me that whether we were out of office, or 
 whether we were in office, our course has been entirely ditierent. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 After showmg how larg:ely the Mackenzie Government aided 
 railways, Mr. Blake contrasted the honest manner in which 
 the Liberal Ministry granted subsidies with the proceedings of 
 Sir John Macdonald regarding the Railway Section of the 
 Boodle Brigade. He proceeded : 
 
 I have never objected — on the contrary I heartily approve — of 
 
 • . , V (8) 
 
 
 _t*^i.S!;:iiM.'i.i;' ii.:. -'^ii-Mi f'diiA;.!:''., iai>>,:'s»' -.'^■i,' 
 

 239 
 
 IB a* 
 sum 
 over 
 : the 
 it, so 
 the 
 tof 
 in 
 ruce, 
 sing, 
 o me 
 urst, 
 this 
 the 
 that 
 ition 
 form 
 e, or 
 rent. 
 
 tided 
 
 7hich 
 
 rs of 
 
 the 
 
 i— of 
 
 a member of Parliament who considers his district entitled to aid 
 on behalf of a certain railway, pressing fairly upon the Legislature 
 and the Government the just claims of the district. T think that 
 is part of his public duty as the representative of that district. I 
 have objected strongly, however, and I object before you, to the 
 combination of the assumed discharge of public duty with a pri- 
 vate and personal pecuniary interest in the subsidy or the enter- 
 prise which derives its commercial value from the subsidy. 
 (Cheers.) Look what happens. The Government conies down,, 
 as it did last session, at the close of the session, with proposals^ 
 for between thirty and forty grants to different railway enter- 
 prise.M. We were called upon to swallow them all at once. It was 
 rather more than my digestion was capable of dealing with, but 
 it had to be done. (Laughter.) We find case after case in which 
 these applications are made by members of Parliament. Is that 
 in itself objectionable ? No. 
 
 IT MAY BE THE DUTY 
 
 of the member to make the application. But we find in a great 
 many of the cases that the rtember has a double interest, not only 
 that of a public man and a representative, acting for his district, 
 but also a private interest which may cause' himself to be en- 
 riched or impoverished, according as the grant is given or with- 
 held. 
 
 In this connection Mr. Blake referred to the case of Mr. Burns, 
 M.P., for Gloucester, N.B., who owns eleven-twelfths of the atock 
 in the Caraquet Railway, which has received three bonuses aggre- 
 gating $224,000, of which his proportion was over $200,000. This 
 he said was but an instance, and though one of the most readily 
 stated, it was not by any means worse than some others. He 
 proceeded : — 
 
 Now, I say to you, we must put a stop to this thing. (Cheers.) 
 I am very glad to notice amongst certain startling developments 
 on other subjects, that there is some sign of our voice on this 
 subject, having reached as far as — how far do you think — as far 
 even as the Mail newspaper. (Laughter and applause.) The 
 change is not all I could de.sire, but when a man sees a glimmer- 
 ing of the light I am prepared to hope for V)etter things. (Laugh- 
 ter and applause.) This is what the Afail said on the 24th 
 September : — 
 
 " It ia of the last importance that members ♦of the House should be free 
 from corrupting influences, and that their independence should be jealously 
 guarded." 
 
 '' But if members are to be debarred from taking part in public or private 
 enterprises which are likely to receive Government aid in the shape of money. 
 Parliament will be weeded of some dtsirable men." 
 
 8) 
 
 
 1 
 
 V .; 
 
 ^■A 
 
 =11 
 
 I \ 
 
 J 
 
 
 '■>•: *4fc- ■•.>■>-...».> t 
 

 rv 
 
 /^* 
 
 
 240 
 
 Now, there are four or five millions of people in this Canada of 
 ours. I believe thev are five millions of intelligent, capable, pro- 
 gressive people. We have plenty of moderate capitalibts, of rail- 
 way contractors, railway engineers, railway promoters, speculative 
 persons, but it is gravely stated that unless the 211 men who are 
 chosen out of these four or five millions of people to conduct the 
 public business ; to legislate upon public affairs ; to decide upon 
 the public policy ; to determine the public expenditure are allowed 
 to engage in these enterprises, " Parliament will be weeded of 
 some desirable persons." (Loud laughter.) How is this serious 
 diflSculty to be got over ? I believe we can best get over it by 
 realizing that there is no difficulty at all. I think we can find 
 plenty of people outside of our legislative halls to promote and 
 build these subsidized railways. But that does not yet suit the 
 Mail — the Mail says the common-sense plan would be to distin- 
 guish between the bona Jide promoter and the mere guinea pig — as 
 they are called in England — you will observe that the Mail, by 
 inference, admits that there are members of Parliament who are 
 
 '■•^ 
 
 \^' 
 
 MERE GUINEA PKJS. 
 
 How is this distinction to be made ? The Alail says provide a 
 stake test, as is done in France. It seems an extraordinary thing 
 for the Mail just now to look to France as a guide. (Laughter 
 and applause.) The Mail says : — 
 
 " The common-sense plan would be for the House to distinguish between 
 the bonri Jide promoter and the mere guinea pig, whose only capital is his poli- 
 tical influence or his capacity for log-rolling. Th^s could be done, we think, 
 by providing a stake test, as it was termed in France — that is by compelling 
 the promoter or director who happens to be a membel" of Parliament, to prove 
 on oath, when the scheme comes up for a Government bonus, that he has in- 
 vested in it a substantial nmouut (tj be fixed by the House) of cash actually 
 his own, and not lent or advanced to him by others. By this means the mere 
 politician who wants to turn his influence or his supposed influence with a 
 Government to account, would be kept out of ventures of the kind, whilst no 
 hindrance would be placed in the way of the member who was a le.itimate 
 business man." . , 
 
 I contend that 
 
 THIS PROPOSAL IS INADEQUATE. 
 
 No harm will result to the railway enterprises of the country 
 if you say to the members of Parliament : — " It is not compatible 
 with your public duty that you should smirch your reputations, 
 and place yourselves in invidious positions, by working for subsi- 
 dies from which you are to get personal pecuniary benefit." 
 Acting on any other principle there is danger, great danger, of 
 
 .. ^ (8) 
 
 ■ -V:.>- 
 
 
.' <• 
 
 
 ' A ' 
 
 u 
 
 1- , 
 
 241 
 
 . < 
 
 abuse ; and, so far as I know, Tiot a fnngle one of the membera of 
 Parliament whom J have accused of acting wrongly in this con- 
 nection could anmver the stake teat. (Laughter and applause.) 
 The putting in of a substantial stake is the last thing they think 
 about in connection with these enterprises, through which they 
 are to acquire great political influence and tens or hundreds of 
 thousands of dollars at the same time. Who are they ? Are they 
 railway builders, railway engineers, capitalists ? No. Tliey are 
 doctcrSt lawyers, country merchants, politicians, people of that 
 kind, who never thought of building a radway until they found 
 they could draw upon the public treasury to help them out in the 
 business. (Loud and prolonged applause.) 
 
 Having referred to tne Mail's sudden conversion to the prin- 
 ciple of Manhood Suffrage, Mr. Blake proceeded to consider the 
 same paper's somersault on Assisted Immigration. 
 
 He said : The burden of immigration expenditure has been 
 enormously increased. Instead of being removed it has been 
 trebled oi* more. We objected to it because it was not only 
 
 extravagant but 
 
 AITENDED WITH JOBBERY. 
 
 
 ;^ 
 
 ntry 
 
 Itible 
 
 lions, 
 
 ibsi- 
 
 jtit." 
 
 |r, of 
 
 We objected to it because the assisted passage system has been 
 perverted and used injuriously to the fair claims of labour, and 
 because the attempt to force immigration into the older Provin- 
 ces had resulted unfavourably, and we insisted that the whole 
 system should be modified, the expenditure cut down, and a sim- 
 ple effort made to announce to the tenant farmers of England and 
 other places the capabilities of various parts of the country, so 
 that we might induce those to come whom we desired to secure 
 the advantages which we had to offer. These views have been 
 stated by myself and many others. Let me quote part of my < 
 
 language at Hampton a few months ago : — 
 
 " We have long contended for a change in the system. The Gov- 
 ernment promised us, when the Canadian Pacific Railway contract 
 came down, that the Company would save us the bulk of our then 
 comparatively small expenditure, and that the immigration system 
 would be carried on as in the United States by the transportation 
 companies. But since then we have been paying much more 
 heavily than before. . . . . . . . • . 
 
 " Now, the system of State-aided immigration has proved an ' 
 entire failure, and worsa 
 
 MANY UNSUITABLE PERSONS 
 
 have come in ; many also who were not entitled to avail them* - 1 
 
 selves of assistance, and many were induced to come by false re- > ' ^| 1, ] 
 
 \ (8) ' ■■ ' -^v; 
 
 ' . ..■■■,. <•■, '.*» V I 
 
 ■■.■.•■ \ ^ > , ♦ , ' 
 
 .•>>/J!..-.lifc.»-.-t 
 
 » ■ 
 
 r 
 
 rV4 . 
 

 f .■ 
 
 
 ■^ >-^t, 
 
 ^ / 
 
 242 
 
 presentations, I do not say made by the Government, but made 
 by energetic but not ^'^ery careful individuals who were paid out 
 of the bonus a commission by the transportation companies on 
 each head, and who represented this as a golden land, in which 
 employment could be found at once at high wages. These poor, 
 deluded people often come to our doors in Toronto with pitiful 
 representp.tions of the stories told them in the Old Country, on 
 the faith of which they emigrated.. In our present condition there 
 is no use trying to force immigration into the older Provinces. 
 We adjoin the United States, and there is the utmost facility 
 of travel accommodation between that country and our own. The 
 condition of the labour and land markets there necessarily affect 
 us, and if we were, by some extraordinary means, to force a large 
 number of people into our older Provinces, just as water finds its 
 level, so would the population, and either the new comers would 
 flow over into the United States, or they would 
 
 » - T»TSPLACE A CERTAIN NUMBER 
 
 of our own people who would have to pass across the line. The 
 unhappy fact is that we do not do more, if we do as much as re- 
 tain our natural increase. And our labour market has, so far as 
 relates to mechanics, been injuriously aifected by the course of 
 the Government. . . . We in Canada employ a 
 
 large immigration staff, and we pay for the publication of im- 
 mense numbers of pamphlets. But the publication of these 
 pamphlets furnishes gross instances of 
 
 THE JOBBERY WHICH FLOURISHES AT OTTAWA. 
 
 I _■ 
 
 \ ■ 
 
 l^^. 
 
 Take the case of the Montreal Gazette, for example. We 
 have a Government printer, who works under a regular con- 
 tract. He is bound to print whatever we require at certain 
 fixed r.ites. But instead of sending the work to this contrac- 
 tor, newspapers friendly to the Government are employed. The 
 principal proprietor of the Montreal Gazette until recently was 
 Mr. Thomas White, who is believed to be still directly or in- 
 directly interested in that newspaper. The transaction to which 
 I am iabout to refer took place while he was a member of Parlia- 
 ment, but before he became a Minister. The statement was made 
 in the House by Mr. Somerville, a practical printer. Amongst the 
 publications of the Montreal Gazette, was a pamphlet on British 
 Columbia, of which the Government ordered 460,520 copies. The 
 price charged by the Gazette was $9,211.15. Mr. Somerville esti- 
 mated that this was an overcharge on the basis of the contract on 
 ordinary rates of $5,805.82, the proper charge being $3,405.33. So 
 
 (8) 
 
 •-oi" 
 
 <^XM^''-'^'k 
 
We 
 
 con- 
 
 rtain 
 
 trac- 
 
 The 
 
 was 
 
 ■ in- 
 
 Btrlia- 
 made 
 tthe 
 itish 
 The 
 esti- 
 icton 
 3. So 
 
 ■.K 
 
 I •' 
 
 '■■■■>*'.■ '*■ > ♦ .•-■.', 
 
 243 
 
 that is where the money goes. In this same year the Montreal 
 Gazette received $19,770 for work, almost all of which should 
 have been done by the Government contractors, and it was stated 
 in the House that the prices for some portions of the work were 
 even larger in proportion than those I have mentioned. * 
 The fact is plain that the money paid for printing is used as a 
 corruption and jobbery fund. Scores of thousands of these pam- 
 phlets are sent, not abroad, but to our own people to promote, not 
 the influx of settlers from abroad, but migration from one part of 
 Canada to another. The system is vicious. The assisted immi- 
 gration should be abolished, the expenditure largely curtailed, and 
 the whole Department admii._istered honestly and on business 
 principles, inrtead of after the present fashion. 
 
 It is gratifying that the process of conversion has extended to 
 this subject as well, and that to-day we find that, though a little 
 while ago we were abused by the Conservative members for the 
 suggestion we made, though so late ago as the 12th August the 
 Mail itself was against us, there is now a change. The Mail, on 
 12th August said : — 
 
 "The few dollars each new arrival costs the Dominion, though much 
 complained of in some quarters, is more than repaid the first year he is here, 
 not alone because he brings capital with him, but because he at once becomes 
 a consumer, and as such, an employer of labour. At the same time the im- 
 migration policy discourages the importation of labour to compete with that 
 now in Canada." 
 
 Mr. Blake then quoted the Mail's late article opposing the Im- 
 migration expenditure, and proceeded — 
 
 Gentlemen, my heart is cheered, I am greatly encouraged, when 
 I find that after speaking for so many years on all these topics, 
 not able, apparently, in all that time, to create the slightest im- 
 pression upon the Tory mind, without the slightest sign of any 
 ^ood effect, 
 
 ALL AT ONCE THE DAY BREAKS, 
 
 and the light of conviction spreads and grows, and that on three 
 important questions within a space of three days we find adhesion 
 on the part of the chief Conservative organ itself to many of the 
 views which we have been pressing forward. (Cheers.) How 
 important a lessen does that teach us ! It teaches us that wo must 
 not despair, no matter how stolid our Tory opponents appear to 
 be, no matter how little they appear to realize the truth of what 
 we say. We do not know at what moment there may be a whole- 
 some impression made, and they may admit that they were wrong 
 and we were right all the time, and propose to join with us in 
 accomplishing these good ends. (Loud laughter and applause.) 
 
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 244 
 
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 LIBERALISM AND PROGRESS, 
 
 WHAT THE REFORM PARTY HAS DONE TO PROMOTE RAILWAY 
 ' DEVELOPMENT. 
 
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 Mr. Blake, after some introductory remarks, at Parrj Sound, 
 said : — I may be pardoned for saying that it is a subject of special 
 pleasure to me, as well as of pride, to reflect that from my lips first 
 proceeded the suggestion of the measure which conferred upon the 
 vast mass of Young Liberals of Canada the franchise at an age 
 and under circumstances earlier than those at which under previ- 
 ous laws they could be acquired. I thought it well to 
 
 GIVE THE YOUNG MEN A STAKE IN THE COUNTRY 
 
 by allowing them the privilege of the franchise at an early age, 
 and so educating them up to the discharge of the noblest duties of 
 citizenship. But I said also what I am glad to see is now realized, 
 that it would not do that the young men of the country should 
 have these privileges unless they felt the accompanying rei^ponsi- 
 bilities, and that it was important and necessary, in order that 
 the measure should do good instead of evil, that it should be 
 ficcompanied by an increased activity and interest on the part of 
 the young men in political affairs. Remember that in a very few 
 years upon you will devolve the conduct of affairs in this our 
 country, and that whether you are to have a country worth exert- 
 ing yourselves for in the future will largely depend upon your 
 exertions during the next few months. (Loud and prolonged 
 applause.) We had a very pleasant journey to Parry Sound by 
 road ; I hope the next time I come it may be by rail. (Cheers.) 
 There is nothing more inaccurate amidst the various inaccuracies 
 which beset the presentation of Liberal views, when they come 
 from Tory writers and Tory platforms, than their statement of 
 
 OUU RELATIONS TO THK PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS OF THIS COUNTRT. 
 
 To hear them sometimes you would believe that we Reformers 
 were people who did not see any good in public improvements, 
 and were always objecting to the country going forward. I say 
 the very reverse of that is the case, for, regarding the Liberal 
 party when in power or in Opposition, I state, and, what is more, 
 I can prove, its course has been just the opposite of that. (Cheers.) 
 It is quite true that with reference to the great work of which 
 Mr. Cockburn has spoken, the Canadian Pacific Railway, it WIt^ 
 
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 245 
 
 /- 
 
 and is our belief that the work has been carried on too rapidly, 
 and at an enormous expenditure, in part unneeded, of our public 
 resources. We have believed, and 1 have stated in Parliament 
 repeatedly, that a slower and more economical prosecution of the 
 great work in certain parts would have enabled us to complete the 
 enterprise with great economy of money and with a better pros- 
 pect of immediate and permanent results for the road, aad would 
 have permitted us to spend in various parts of the Dominion 
 which were already partly settled, and whose progress required 
 in the general interest certain improvements of Dominion import- 
 ance, some of those many millions which have been unnecessarily 
 expended, in consequence of the extravagant bargain and of the 
 unnecessary speed and expense of construction of the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway. Public improvements of general consequence in 
 these portions of the country, which bear their full share of the 
 taxation of the country, we have always contended for, and I can 
 point, I think, with some measure of honest pride, to the course 
 which we took in the session of the Ontario Assembly in 1871. I 
 was called upon to a.ssume t'ue responsibilities of office on the defeat 
 of John Sandfield Macdonald's Government. At that time, as you 
 know, $1,500,000 of the public money had been appropriated for 
 the purpose of aiding local railways. I investigated the situation. 
 Called to office during a session of the Legislature, it was a , 
 difficult and laborious task, in the midst of general legislation^ 
 and carrying on public affairs in a House elected under our 
 opponents and predecessors, to grasp the whole situation. I 
 found, after considering the whole matter, that it would be right 
 to 
 
 TAKE THE BOLD STEP OF ASKING FOR A LARGE INCREASE IN THE 
 
 APPROPRIATION 
 
 already made. Having found that, it was my duty to run the 
 risk. I ran the risk, and proposed that $400,000 should be added 
 to the amount to be given in cash, and that $2,000,000 more 
 should be appropriated on time, thus more than doubling — con- 
 siderably more than doubling — the amount which the Legislature 
 was enabled to devote, and by my bill pledged itself to devote, to 
 the development of the railway facilities of the country. I was 
 immediately called upon to deal with the application of a large 
 portion of the fund. In some cases the materials showing the 
 financial ability of the companies to build the railway projected 
 were not forthcoming, but within a few weeks we proposed aid to 
 railways which benefited almost all 
 
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 246 
 
 THE NEWtR SECTIONS OF THE COUNTRY, 
 
 the then new counties of Bruce and Grey, the northern parts 
 of Siracoe, even the southern part of what was then the Muskoka 
 District, the counties of Victoria, Peterborough, Hastings, Ad- 
 dington, Frontenac, Renfrew, all the northern parts of Ontario, 
 «,s far as there was any scheme pix)jected at that time. We assisted 
 and provided the basis upon which about two thousand miles 
 of road have since been built, largely through these sections. 1 
 think I give you in this the best proof that the policy of the 
 Liberal party was then a practical, progressive, bold, and vigorous 
 policy of railway construction thioughout Ontario. 
 
 ♦ » * * * #♦ # 
 
 After referring to the grant for the Parry Sound Colonization 
 Railway, Mr. Blake proceeded : — The appropriation was not in 
 fair proportion to that granted, for example, to the Baie Chaleurs 
 Railway. The Tories have told you that the Opposition have 
 been for the last few years pandering to the French. They say 
 we have been w^anting to get hold of the French vote. There 
 was a railway in the Province of Quebec aided last session as 
 well as yours. It was this Baie Chaleurs Railway. It passes 
 through a country easy for railway construction, following the 
 valley of a great river. It is a country which has been settled 
 for more than a hundred years, and is now thickly inhabited. It 
 is a country in which, thauks to the old settlement and to the 
 natural conditions, labour is cheap, and where the wood supply 
 and food supply necessary are easily, obtainable. It is a country 
 where the rails can be got in cheaper than they can be got in here 
 by a great deal. For the hundred miles of this road the Gov- 
 ernment gave an average of $6,200 a mile, and that they gave in 
 a specially advantageous way. They gave $15,000 a mile for the 
 first twenty miles, $6,400 a mile for the second twenty miles, and 
 $3,200 a mile for the last sixty miles. I thought that was un- 
 just. (Applause.) It was unnecessary. My belief was, from all 
 I could learn, that a smaller subsidy was sufficient to secure the 
 construction, and I, who am said to be pandering to the French 
 and anxious to secure their votes, opposed so large a grant. (Ap- 
 plause.) I declared that in view of the circumstances and of the 
 grants being made to other roads, I saw 
 
 NO GROUND FOR MAKING SO LARGE A GRANT, 
 
 but I didn't hear Mr. O'Brien say anything about it. 
 (Applause and laughter.) He did not seem to be afiected by 
 the contrast between $3,200 a mile for a railway for this district 
 
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 2-47 
 
 and $6,400 a mile for the Baie Chaleurs Railway. He heard rliy 
 speech, but never a word did he say as to the inequality and re- 
 lative injustice of these grants. I gave then something of the 
 reason why. I will give it to you — not the reason why Mr. 
 O'Brien didn't speak — (laughter) — but why, in my opinion, so 
 large a grant was given to the other railway. I found that there 
 were in the directorate of that road a few influential members of 
 Parliament and their immediate friends and connections who had 
 eleven-twelfths of that railway in their own hands, so that 
 eleven-twelfths of the profit out of the railway were to be reaped 
 by these members and their immediate connections, all strong 
 supporters of the Government. (Applause.) I pointed out that 
 fact to the House, I gave the names of the members and their 
 friends and showed that in fact this was 
 
 A PARLIAMENTARY RAILWAY, 
 
 owned by a few supporters of the Government, and that the Gov- 
 ernment were putting money not required for the interests of the 
 country, into the hands of their supporters, giving them enormous 
 profits upon the creation of the road. I congratulate you, not 
 with reference to the colonization railway, but with reference to 
 the Northern Pacific Junction Railway that, as I pointed out at 
 Huntsville, even if the bonded debt has been increased, if the 
 tolls are heavy, if you have no larger amount to pay, you have 
 some compensation. 
 
 DALTON M'cARTHY'S GRAB. 
 
 t 
 
 You have the satisfaction of knowing that a prominent member 
 of Parliament, and a supporter of the Government, has got an easy 
 berth with a salary of $3,000 or $3,500 a year as President of the 
 Northern Pacific Junction Railway Company, practically due to 
 the subsidy, and has made, in common with a few of the original 
 promoters a very handsome sale of the original stock which they 
 lookup, at enormous profits, also practically paid out of the sub- 
 sidy, arid that a few others have made great profits out of the con- 
 tract. So that if you don't get all the good out of it that you 
 might, you know that some estimable citizens, not residents here, 
 it is true, and in whose fortunes perhaps you do not take a very 
 deep interest, but still some prominent members of the body 
 politic have got their full share of the good things of this life 
 through the agency of the railway. (Prolonged cheers and 
 laughter.) 
 
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 -. •' •. ■:V\. ' ■ • ' ■. 248 ■ '. 
 
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 THE KANSAS SLANDER. 
 
 ANOTHER TORY FALSEHOOD — HOW MR. BLAKE S ONE REFERENCE 
 TO KANSAS HAS BEEN DISTORTED. 
 
 Mr. Blake, in the course of his speech at Btanttbrd, said :— 
 It has been the habit, as you know, for a great many years, for 
 the Tory party to pay special attention to me, and in season and 
 out of season to attack me for something said, or something 
 alleged to be said, by me, and I have lately thought that at some 
 of these meetings I would trespass upon my audience for a little 
 to discuss some of these attacks. To-night I want to take a very 
 famous sample ; I want to trouble you with a few words upon 
 
 THE GREAT SUBJECT OF KANSAS. 
 
 (Cheers.) For six years the statement has been constantly circu- 
 lated by the Tory press and politicians that I was in the habit of 
 descanting upon the superior advantages of Kansas, the greater 
 charms of Kansas, its finer climate, its greater fertility, its 
 superiority as a place for settlement over our own North- West, 
 and that I recommended it as preferable to Canadians and Euro- 
 peans alike. If, as they suppose, my words have hurtful weight 
 where they are heard, they have given them the widest circulation 
 and the greatest weight they could, and now every devoted Tory in 
 the rank and file, I believe, supposes it is part of my daily con- 
 versation to laud Kansas and decry the North- West, and to 
 recommend people to the one and away from the other ; indeed, 
 I dare say they believe it is my daily morning prayer that Kansas 
 may prosper and the North West decay. (Cheers and langhter.) 
 I see the Mml says the other day, " Fond as Mr. Blake is of sound- 
 ing the praises of Kansas," and the Brockville Times, " Mr. Blake 
 has long advocated the claims of Kansas as superior to the North- 
 West for emigration." And so I might go on ad nav.seam. And 
 not merely their organs sound this note, but 
 
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 THEIR LEADERS BLOW THE BELLOWS 
 
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 And swell the doleful song. Sir John Macdonald said the other 
 day, " We were told that the people had better go to Kansas," 
 and added that I " had announced that Kansas was the country for 
 profit, while Canada might be the country for sentiment." And 
 so again I might go on ad nau8eam. Now, I am no believer in 
 that kind of patriotism which adopts the functions of the am^ 
 bassador of old, who was "sent abroad to lie for the good of his 
 
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 ' 249 .. • 
 
 country. (Laughter.) I believe in the virtue of the truth, and I 
 believe that great barm has resulted to Canada, both at home and 
 abroad, through the adoption of other tactics. But it is one thing, 
 where occasion calls for discvission, to speak the truth ; and quite 
 another, without cause, to give circulation to di'^^uted and dam- 
 aging assertions. / spoke only once in my whole political career 
 on the subject of Kansas. (Cheers) I spoke for cause. And if I had 
 said what they allege I said, I submit to you that, on the Tory 
 view of the eiibct ot my statement, it would have been the part 
 of patriotism, assuming my alleged statement true, to have let it 
 die, instead of needlessly giving it for these many years the widest 
 publicity, and so creating the greatest harm. And were my al- 
 leged statement untrue, it would still more clearly have been their 
 duty to take the same course, and not to injure the country by 
 the needless cfrculation of statements at once incorrect and dam- 
 aging. (Cheers.) But what is to be said of 
 
 PATRIOTS WHO HAVE COINED A STATEMENT, 
 
 who have distorted and misapplied my words, who have them- 
 selves cooked up a mess which they call injuriotjs, and have 
 presented it as mine all over Canada and the world for six long 
 years, howling all the while about the harm it was doing to dear 
 Canada ? (Cheers.) What, I say, is to be said of men who have 
 themselves done the harm which they impute to me ? (Renewed 
 cheering.) Why, it is clear, ladies and gentlemen, that their 
 object has been, at the expense of what they deemed the public 
 interest, to hurt a political opponent ! (Loud applause.) 1 leave 
 it to you to deal with such lovers of their country. (Renewed 
 applause.) I spoke ll>ut once — and . 
 
 UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES ? 
 
 In 1880 the Tory Government proposed that we should undertake 
 the immediate construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 
 British Columbia and elsewhere. They declared that it could be 
 done without cost to the country. They promised enormous im- 
 migration to the North-West and enormous receipts from sales of 
 the public'lands. Under their figures we ought to have had in Mani- 
 toba and the North- We.^^t, in 1885, about 313,000 whites ; and by 
 1891 about 080,000 whites. Under their figures we ought to have 
 received from the public lands $38,000,000 in cash by 18!)0, and 
 to have due and secured at the same date $3ii,700,000 more. 
 Under their figures the whole population was to take up an 
 average of 59 acres of land per head ; and Sir Charles Tupper 
 calculated that 100,000 North- West farmers would produce 
 
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 250 
 
 040,000,000 bushels of wheat in a year. (Loud cheers and 
 laughter.) In support of these astounding statements, on which 
 they asked the House to rely in agreeing to their policy, they 
 themselves referred to and gave ligures of the progress of the 
 Western States, and particularly did they refer to the progress of 
 the States of Kansas and Nebraska. (Cheers.) I felt tihat the 
 House was being misled, that the calculations were fantastic, that 
 the inferences were unsound, that the predictions would fail, and 
 that the country would — unless the truth were then told — be 
 plunged, under an entirely false impression, into enormous 
 engagements which must be met out of loans and taxations, and 
 not out of the resources they promised, or by the realization of 
 the hopes the held out. It was my hounden public duty, so be- 
 lieving, to show the trnth ; and I did show it. (Cheers.) It was 
 under these circumstances I spoke. Now, what did I say i They 
 have been repeatedly challenged to produce my words, and they 
 have not dared to do so. I will reproduce them now. This is 
 what I said : — 
 
 I hold that it is impossible to contrast the situation of the two countries — 
 Canada and the United States — on the general question of foreign immigra- 
 tion, without concluding that our future is not to be measured by the 
 estimate of theirs. What has happened in the West with reference to them, 
 cannot be expected reasonably to happen in our West, with reference to us, 
 so far as the result is to be obtained by any foreign emigration. I have 
 already stated that the foreign emigration to the United States for the 
 decade ending 1800, was 2,000,000 ; for that ending 1870, 2,500,000, and for 
 the present decade it is supposed it will amount to 2,700,000. These figures 
 are enough to convince us that the rapidity with which western lands have 
 been settled, so far as that rapidity is due to the direct, or indirect eflFects of 
 foreign immigration, is not a rapidity which we can hope to reach in our 
 North-West. Nor can I agree that the area of land in the United States 
 available for settlement, although it is, no doubt, being rapidly diminished, 
 is as yet at all reduced to such proportions, as to force the current of emigra- 
 tion to our North-West. There are still large areas of land in that country 
 which are available for settlement, and which for those who happen to prefer 
 the United States, will give them an opportunity of settling there for some 
 years to come. The United States, in a sense, command the market in this 
 respect. The emigration to the States, as far as I can understand, has been 
 composed in later years to a very large extent of the Teutonic races. The 
 Germans have played a very large part in the settlement of the United States. 
 They exist there in very great numbers, and they exercise therein powerful 
 influence. The same opinions which led the inhabitants of that and all the 
 countries of Europe enjoying but partially developed constitutional Govern- 
 ment, when deciding to leave their native lands and seek foreign shores, to 
 choose the United States as their goal, have derived further strength from 
 the knowledge that there are settled in the great Republic millions of their 
 brother Germans, and the descendants <.f their brother Germans It is 
 therefore natural that we should expect, for several years to come at 
 any yate, that the bulk of the Teutonic emigration will go, as it has 
 gone hitherto, in the direction of the United States. The next important 
 factor in the emigration to the United States has been from the people 
 
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 261 
 
 of the country from which I am descended, and we know that the cir- 
 cumstances of that countr)' are' such that, unfortunately for us, and for the 
 British Empire, there h:.^ been a strong impulse on the part of a very large 
 and important part of the population of Ireland to prefer the Republic. 
 In this case the sins of the fathers have been visited upon the children The 
 wrongs and injustice inflicted upon the majority of the Irish population in 
 former days — at least the memory of those wrongs and that injustice, the 
 recollection of transactions which no man would at this day vindicate or 
 defend, has remained with those now on the soil, and obliterates, or at any 
 rate obscures, in their vision, the more liberal conduct and the more just 
 course which has animated British policy in this respect of late years. That 
 circumstance has led to a large emigration from Ireland to the United States ; 
 and we know what the condition of Ireland still is. But 1 hope for great 
 things for Ireland, and for the Empire, jrom the events of tie last few days. I 
 hope and trust that the advent to power of the Liberal party, supported by a 
 great majority, decided liiberals and Radicals, will result in frtish measures 
 for relief and justice to Ireland, which will tend still further to weaken her 
 old feelings of hostility and disafifection, and to make the Empire in this 
 regard a United Empire, I hope we shall see, among other things, a 
 moderate measure of Home Rule for Ireland, and witness by the application 
 of that measure the creation and maintenance of true and real bonds of 
 union between Ireland and the rest of the so-called United Kingdom. But 
 things being as they are, and having regard also to the financial condition of 
 the bulk of the Irish peasantry, no wise man can expect, that within a short 
 time, that within the next few years, there will be any serious change in the 
 current of Irish immigration. So far as the Roman Catholic Irish are con- 
 cerned, we must expect that the tide of immigration will continue for some 
 time to set towards the United States. I hope the proportion may be 
 diminished. I should rejoice greatly to see the Irish people recognize the 
 advantages we offer them and establish themselves within our borders, but 
 still I believe that for some time we cannot count on a decided change. The 
 set of emigration has been sufficiently shown by the figures 1 have given, and 
 naturally with the imperfect information available to those coming from 
 other parts of Europe, and apart from all consideration of soil and climate, 
 the notion of the important position and situation they would occupy under 
 a Republican form of Government — the idea that as citizens of the great 
 Republic they would have a greater and more active shar^ in the government 
 of their country — has actuated a great number of emigrants from the 
 European Continent to choose the United States as the field where their 
 energies and their talents could be most fully displayed, and the advantages 
 of citizenship most fully exercised. Among the obvious material advantages 
 presented to the minds of such persons is this : — That the National debt of 
 the United States has been reduced in 14 years by $603,000,000. It has 
 been reduced by 30 per cent, of tbe amount at which it now stands, and that 
 great reduction has been effected m the face of grent ditticultie'i and obstacles, 
 and notwithstanding a period of depression which thoy have experien j d, and 
 which seems likely now to be followed by a period of revived prosperity — 
 perhaps of inflrition — T say that the contrast in this respect, np(»n which I 
 shall take occasion later further to enlarge between the condition of the 
 United States and that of the countries from which emiij;ranta have come, is 
 a contrast calculated to allure them to the Republic. Though the statistics 
 for the current decade of the United States are not yet available, 1 am able 
 to refer to some figures showing the later progress of two States especially 
 alluded to by the hon. member for Card well a few days ago, Kansas and 
 Nebraska. We were correctly told that Kansas had increased from 360,000 
 in 1870 to 650,000 in 1879, thus showing^an increase in nine years of 490,000. 
 
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 252 
 
 I have already pointed out the elements of which the increase in the popula- 
 tion of the Western States ia composed, and the domestic and foreign 
 recruiting grounds from which the country draws her increase. These 
 considerations alone show that the results in Kansas do not prove that our 
 North- West is going to have a population of 550,000 in ten years as stated, 
 for none of the conditions ure parallel. But apart from the fact that Kansas 
 had in 1870 360,000 of population to start with from which came a large 
 natural increase forming an important part of the 490,000, it is to be 
 remembered that Kansas had moreover in 1870 over 1 ,500 miles of railway 
 in operation, and during the decade her railway facilities were increased to 
 2,300 miles. There is no doubt, I believe, that this State has shown the 
 most remarkable development in the history of the world. lu 180G the State 
 of Kansas was the <wenty-fourth in rank in the United States as a corn 
 producer, and in 1878 she had run up to the fourth. In 18G6 she was 
 twenty-fourth in rank as a wheat producer, and sbe had run up in 1878 to be 
 almost the first in rank, producing in that year 32,000,000 bushels of wheat. 
 With all these advantages, with all these proofs of an unexampled progress, 
 with that large domestic and foreign recruiting ground to which I have 
 before alluded, we find her increase of population in nine years was but 
 490,000, and we are told th«t the North- West, without the advantages which 
 were possessed by Kansas, is to have an increase through immigration of 
 650,000 in eleven years. Now, Sir, I will refer to Nebraska. In that State 
 also there has been, as the hon. member said, very rapid progress. In 1870 
 the population was 122,000. In 1879 it was 380,000. Th« increase in the 
 nine years was 244,000. There was thus, of course, a substantia] nucleus, 
 the natural increase from which would form an immaterial part of the total 
 increase. There was also a great domestic and foreign immigration. There 
 was also great railway facilities throughout the period. In 1870 there were 
 705 miles of railway in operation, and in 1878 1,320 miles. Yet with all 
 those advantages there was only an increase of 244,000 in the nine years, and 
 even that increase was due to the circumstances to which I have referred 
 which give the States a greater power of settlement than we can hope for. 
 These are the figures for the two States whic'' hon. (?''.itlenien have chosen, 
 and I believe rightly chosen, as presenting th*j strongest grounds for their ex- 
 pectation. I do not thitik they furnish good grounds for these expectations. 
 I do not think that the only experience to which we can infer, having regard 
 to the differences between the two countries, justifies us, however sanguine 
 •r fervent our hopes may be, justifies ua as busiuess men, and dealin>4 with a 
 business transaction, and calculating the cash returns, we may count on from 
 the North- West lands in the next few years, in concluding that there will be 
 an emigrant population of 550,000 in that country at the end of eleven years, 
 and in incurring, on the faith of that result, enormous liabilities, which, if 
 not met out of the lands, must be met otherwise. Such a thing may happen. 
 I wish it wotild, but 1 do not think it is probable, because the experience of 
 no other country, making allowances, proves that it can happen in our case. 
 The statement, 1 think, is purely conjectural, is highly improbable, and 
 cannot be sustained by any analogous occurrence. 
 
 Well, sir, I failed to convince the House. The policy of the 
 Government was endorsed ,by the House, and afterwards by the 
 country. But ^ ^ 
 
 EVENTS HAVE VERIFIED MY VIEWS. ' 
 
 We had, so far as can be judged, only 125,900 whites in 1885 
 in the North-west, instead of 313,000. We had netted a mere 
 
 :.....' . -^ V (8) 
 
 V 
 
 
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 A V*i> 
 
 r'" 
 
 253 
 
 i»fi ' 
 
 -r 1 
 
 trifle out of North- West lands, and any early prospects of the real- 
 ization of net results from that source may be abandoned, for the 
 First Minister himself declared the other day that the free grant 
 lands will absorb the immigration for the next ([uarter of a cen- 
 tury. If so, how much are you going to get for the sales of lands ^ 
 (Cheers.) Then the surplus of wheat for export has not yet indi- 
 cated the correctness of Sir Charles Tupper's calculations which 
 are mentioned to-day only to be ridiculed. (Laughter.) We will 
 shortly have expended on the transcontinental scheme the equiva- 
 lent of $87,000,000 paid out of the treasury, and a vast sum for 
 interest, all payable out of taxes and loans. My words have 
 come true. I wish from my heart that I could tell you 1 had been 
 mistaken. But my words have come true. Now I have shown 
 you the kind of advantages I mentioned, as possessed by the States, 
 including Kansas, in calculating the rate of our immigration from 
 the rate of theirs ; the initial population, the existing railways, 
 the home reserve for immigrants, and the European drift to the 
 States. I have shown you the circumstances under which I spoke, 
 to save you, if I could, from being misled into vast engagements, 
 and deceived by delusive estimates and fallacious comparisons. I 
 have shown you how J have ever since been belied. / Ttiade no 
 contrast or comparison as to soil, climate, or other physical con- 
 ditions or elements of growth between the North- West and Kansas, 
 (Cheers.) / did not declare that Kansas ivas in these respects or 
 any like respects superior to the North- West. (Cheers.) I e (press- 
 ed the hope that the hulk of our "iuigratory people would go to the 
 North- West instead of to the States, and that we might in time di- 
 vert a substantial part of the European emigration. Sir, for 
 these many years I have been doing my best to promote the real 
 interests of the North- West, which have been checked, hampered 
 and imperilled by misgovernment. (Cheers.) And now, but a 
 little while ago, an article was published in the Mail in which 
 they offered substantially the very views I had propounded in 
 1880 as to the comparative position of the two countries. 
 
 ')|''| 
 
 i 
 
 ■•^'•i 
 
 :»i: 
 
 J of the 
 [by the 
 
 1885 
 mere 
 
 THE "MAIL USED THIS LANGUAGE: — 
 
 We have repeated boom estimates and quoted boomsters' figures about 
 everything, until we have created in our minds the vjsion of a regioij which 
 does not exist anyviihere on earth, and now that it ha^ been shattered by the 
 prosaic revelations of the census, we are weak enough to feel sorry at being 
 undeceived. . . . The truth is that, all things considered, the popu- 
 lation of Manitoba and the Territories is quite as large, placing it at 125,000 
 whites, as we had any right to expect it to be. It must be remembered that 
 in all the new regions in the United States, the larger part of the population 
 is American-born — hailing from the older States. There is no exception iu 
 this rule. In Dakota for instance according to the special census taken in 
 that Territory last June, 269,700 settlers out of a total of 415,000, 75 per 
 
 • - ' . 8) 
 
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 ■ ■ 254 ,,'■'■ 
 
 Cent, wure nativo AmericHiiB, leaving unly 2ri per cent., or 145,000, to the 
 crudib of immigration. The guine strange ethnic process is at work in our 
 Territories, for, by the census just taken, it appears, that of a white popula- 
 tion of 23,000, no fower than 14,200, or a little over 00 percent, are of Cana- 
 dian origin. But if wu must assume in accordance with this law, that the 
 greater part of the futnro population of the Nortli-West is to consist of the 
 overllow from the ohlor Provinces, then it is evident that the increase of popu- 
 lation is sure to be slow, as compared with the increase in the newer regions 
 across the line, since our reservoir of population is but one-tenth as large as 
 theirs. Moreover, it is well-known that those immigrants who, next to the 
 native-born settlers, have helped to develop Dakota and Minnesota, viz., the 
 Scandinavians and fJermans, are not to be procured for our North- West just 
 now. They avoid our territory because they do not approve of our political 
 instittitions. This is an unpalatable truth, but there it is, and we must take 
 account of it. The nativity tables of tlio foreign-born population in Dakota 
 have not yet been compiled in detail, but the Swedes and Norwegians rank 
 first in number, and the Germans are well up. So that being practically shut 
 off from German and Scandinavian immigration, and having, as compared 
 with the Americans, but a small overflow from native sources, it is manifest- 
 ly absurd to expect any tremendous rate of development in our North- West 
 just at present. Our time will come when the homestead lands in the United 
 States are exhausted. 
 
 The article then proceeds to point out the last report of the 
 Commissioner at Washington, showing that these reserves have 
 shrunk to comparatiuely small proportions, and, after a quotation 
 of that kind, it proceeds : — 
 
 In the course of a few years Dakota will be out of the field. The Immi- 
 gration Bureau of that Territory says in one of its monthly publications (that 
 for February) that at the end of 1885 the area of vacant Government land 
 rated as agricultural land and open to settlement was estimated at 20,000,000 
 acres, of which 18,000,000 lay in Northern Dakota. For six months ending 
 Slst December, the area of land entered on or filed was 1,524,000 acres — 
 say 3,000,000 a year. At this rate the vacant land will be pretty well ex- 
 hausted in seven years, and a most formidable competitor to Manitoba and 
 the Territories disposed of. . Canada may then surely reckon on immigration 
 from the continent of Europe, provided efibrts are made beforehand to make 
 the people acquainted with the wealth of our resources. Meanwhile we pro- 
 bably need not look for any miraculous development of the North-West. 
 There will be a steady influx of settlers from the United Kingdom, with a 
 sprinkling from the continent of Europe ; but the main stream of immigra- 
 tion will, doubtless, consist of young Canadians, who, but for our enterprise 
 in opening up this great region, would find their way to the United States, 
 where so many thousands of our people settled in the days when we had no 
 free prairie homesteads to ofler. 
 
 You thus see that 
 
 THE "mail" has adopted ^Y ARGUMENTS OF 1880. 
 
 But I am obliged to admit that there have been some disparaging 
 comments on the North-West ; and from important quarters too. 
 A Uttle while ago an authority of great weight used this lan- 
 guage; — 
 
 
 ''X : 
 
 K: 
 
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 <■*. 
 
 ^.i- 
 
 
^raging 
 jrs too. 
 lis lan- 
 
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 \' " •.'/'^/- ■• ''^ •' .■ 256 . ^' ' ' • /^'^ '. v 
 
 t ^ ■ " •' . 
 
 I . . , 
 
 Cartier believed that Manitoba and the North- West conld be made a 
 French Province. A sudden rush of immit^rants from Ontiirio and from 
 Englimd into tlio North- VV -*■ upsot that CHlculation for a wliile ; hul it is ,* 
 
 now clear that henceforth ' jre will be no more rushes. The North-West 
 will doubtless receive a fair share of Gn<{liHh-8poHkini( settlers every year, 
 but we may safely abandon the boomater's dream, Europe transferring itself 
 bodily to the plains in order to pursue the cultivation of No. 1 hard. De- 
 velopment will be comparatively slow, for the climate is ai^^ainst a miraculous 
 expansion, and the competition of the North- Western, Western, PaciHc, 
 South- Western, and Southern States, with their infinite variety of products 
 and climate mtist, for many years to come, stand in the way of the rapid 
 peopling of our territory. So that, as a French speaker in Manitoba con- 
 tended not long ago, Cartier's scheme is still quite feasible, since, if any one 
 race be better fitted than another to take permai unit root under a semi-Arctic 
 snow, where thrift, endurance, and the faculty o; being content with little are 
 called for, it is the French-Canadian. 
 
 The same great authority, on a iccent date, used this lan- 
 guage : — 
 
 It is only fair to add, however, that in all probability the Government 
 now in power has taken too sanguine a view of the North- West development. 
 It has been the habit, in making up calculations of future progress, to ignore 
 the fact that Minnesota and Dakota offer to the poorer class of settlers advan- 
 tages fully equal to those held out by Manitoba, while the Western, South- 
 western, and Southern States present to the well-to-do immigrant, who can 
 afford to choose his climate, an infinite and incomparable variety of attrac- 
 tions. 
 
 Who do you think has been guilty of the want of patriotism 
 involved in this language ? Some Grit, of course ! Some Grit it 
 must have been ! No one but a Grit would talk like that ! I 
 do not know, in the present state of things, whether it was or 
 not, you shall judge for yourselves ! I can only tell you it was 
 the Mail newspaper! Loud and prolonged laugliter and ap- 
 plause.) Can you believe it ? Here we find the fatal competi- 
 tion of the North- Western, Western, Pacific, South- Western, and 
 Southern States, with their infinite variety of products and cli- 
 mates ! Here we find the statement that Minnesota and Dakota 
 offer to the poorer class of settlers advantages fully equal to those 
 held out by Manitoba, while the Western, South-Western and 
 Southern States present to the well-to-do immigrant, who can af- 
 ford to choose his climate, an infinite and incomparable variety of 
 attractions ! The language is not only positive, it is not only 
 comparative, it is superlative ! The writer absolutely revels in 
 the advantages of the States. They are infinite, they are incom- 
 parable, they are overwhelming. ^ 
 
 And all are fish that come to this net ! 
 
 Do we find a poor settler ? He will have in Minnesota and 
 Dakota advantages fully equal to those in Manitoba ! 
 
 Do we spy out a well-to-do settler ? He is pointed to the West- ' . 
 ern, South-Western, and Southern States, as ottering an infinite 
 and incomparable variety of attractions 1 (s) 
 
 1 
 
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 256 
 
 Do you luant a climate ? Then go there ! Do you want pro- 
 ducts ? Then go there ! 
 
 But when the Mail turns to the North- West, which has already 
 been condemned as inferior to those more favoured lands, what 
 are the expressions of eulogy and hope, what is the attractive 
 description of that country ? " The climate is against a miracu- 
 lous expansion ; " " the competition of the States must for many 
 years to come stand in tlie way of the rapid peopling of the 
 North- West." " The region is under a semi-Arctic sun, where 
 thrift, endurance, and the faculty of being content with little are 
 called for." 
 
 AND LA.ST AND WORST OF ALL, 
 
 you have it suggested that this Siberia, with its semi- Arctic sun, 
 is best fitted for those deadly enemies of the Alail, that race it 
 fears so much, and whose institutipns it desires to subvert, the 
 French-Canadians ! The French- Canadians, whom the Mail 
 sometimes wants to send to the North Pole, and sometimes to a 
 much warmer, but even less agreeable climate. (Cheers and 
 laughter.) 
 
 Now, I am not going to discu.ss the accuracy of these state- 
 ments. They may he true, even though the Mail has said them. 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 But, if it were I who had said them, how would the Tories 
 rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing ? (Loud and pro- 
 longed laughter.) And so I leave the subject. I THINK iT IS 
 
 WdRTH DISCUSSING AS AN EXEMPLIFICATION OF TORY TRUTHFUL- 
 NESS, Tory patriotism, and Tory faip play. The truth is, 
 
 THAT WHILE THE TORIES HAVE BEEN SP. NDING THEIR TIME CIRCU- 
 LATING SLANDERS ABOUT ME, THE LIBERAL PARTY HAS BEEN DOING 
 ITS BEST TO PROMOTE THE REAL INTERESTS OF THE NoRTH-WeST, 
 AND TO AVERT THE ILLS OF TORY RULE. (Loud cheers.) 
 
 'M 
 
 .■^ "■ - • ' 
 
 ;.Y:v>-f.A* 
 
 
 B^ 
 
ones 
 pro- 
 
 iT IS 
 [FUL- 
 
 :h is, 
 
 3IRCU- 
 )OING 
 EST, 
 
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 257 • . '. •■■ "■ . 
 
 . > 
 
 ^ SEA. OF MOUNTAINS. 
 
 MB. BLAKE REPLIES TO HIS AOOUSERS. 
 
 Eleven Year§ of Calumny borne In gllence— The time for 
 
 Speccb has come— A complete ansM^er to the Stock 
 
 Tory Charge, " Want of Patriotism." 
 
 Hon. Edwaed Blake, in the course of his speech at Listowel, 
 said ; — It has occurred to me that it might be well to take a 
 minute to point out some of the misrepresentations, and perversions 
 of my words ; and some of the unjust attacks made upon me by 
 the Tories for words said — attacks which have done them ex- 
 cellent service for years, in the sort of war they wage. Some- 
 times they pervert and distort an innocent phrase I may have 
 used ; and so make me out a wrong-doer. Sometimes, 
 
 WITHbUT ALTERING THE PHRASE, 
 
 they treat it, though true and innocent, as if it were false and 
 criminal. The sentence I am going to discuss to-night is a very 
 short one ; and I must admit I am correctly quoted, though with 
 an inaccurate context. Doubtless you all have heard of the high 
 crime and misdemeanour I committed ten or twelve years ago in 
 describing the mainland of British Columbia through which the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway was to pass, as a " sea of mountains." 
 I said it but once. Y'et it has been constantly in the newspapers 
 and in the mouths of Tory orators ever since. (Laughter.) The 
 Tory newspapers have spoken of me here, there, and everywhere, 
 as having committed a most outrageous act in calling British 
 Columbia a sea of mountains, and I observe that both Sir John 
 Macdonald and Mr. White when they were at Victoria the other 
 day referred once and again to this outrage of mine. They have 
 done all they could to create prejudice and hostility against me on 
 the part of my fellow-countrymen in the western portion of the 
 Dominion because I called British Columbia a sea of mountains. 
 I did call it a " sea of mountains ;" that is quite true ; but I did 
 so in this connection and under these circumstances : I was 
 speaking in 1874 of the bargain made by Sir John Macdonald to 
 construct the railway within a limited time ; I was pointing out 
 the difficulties attending its construction ; and discussing British 
 Columbia from an engineering point ot view, as a country through 
 which the railway was to be pushed, I called it a sea of mountains. 
 And now after eleven years^ I repeat the phrase, and maintain its 
 
 ' ' (8) 
 
 
 
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 268 
 
 4" 
 
 fc;,.'*' 
 
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 fitneRS. The phrase was not, as you all know, original— it was 
 not my own invention. That was not pretended. But how as to 
 its application to British Columbia ? Well ! I am afraid 
 
 ; . ' I can't even claim CREDIT FOR ORIGINALITY 
 
 in that. I am afraid I cannot honestly say I was the first person 
 to apply the term " sea of mountains " to British Columbia. 
 Where shall you find it earlier ? Whence was it drawn ? I will 
 tell you. Look at a book called " From Ocean to Ocean," the 
 record of Mr. Sandford Fleming's expedition as a Government 
 ofiicer, as eng.'neer-in-chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway under 
 the Tory Government in 1872, look at this book, the diary of the 
 secretary of that expedition, a Government officer, the Rev. 
 George M. Grant, now widely known as Principal Grant of 
 Queen's University, Kingston ; look at this book, copies of luhich 
 luere distributed by the Tory Government free of charge ; copies of 
 wliich were supplied to the members of Parliament at the expense 
 of the public, because it was thought of public consequence that it 
 should be widely read. Look, I say, at this book, and you will 
 find the reverend secretary declare in the preface that he tells " a 
 round unvarnished tale," and expresses the hope that " its truth- 
 fulness may compensate for its defects," and then turn to the 
 description of British Columbia and you will hear him state : — 
 
 "THE GREATER PART OF THE MAINLAND IS A SEA OF MOUNTAINS." 
 
 (Cheers and laughter.) Am I then to blame for adopting the 
 phrase of the Tory Government officer in describing the country, 
 as found on a Government expedition to spy out the land in re- 
 gard to its railway characteristics ? No ! Let them go crucify 
 Dr. Grant ! (Cheers and laughter.) Once again let me refer you 
 to a very lively work. Lord Duff'erin's Travels in British Colum- 
 bia, admirably written by Mr. Molyneux St. John, of which tlie 
 title, strange to say, is, " The Sea of Mountains." (Cheers and 
 laughter.) The author says : — 
 
 In Victoria they have taken with bad grace Mr. Blake'a perfectly justifiable 
 remark about " A Sea of Mountains. " But he might with perfect truth have 
 spoken of Bute Inlet as a sea of mountains in a gale of wind. 
 
 (Cheers and laughter.) Again, I find in a recent issue of a per- 
 iodical of very extensive circulation an article speaking of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway and its route, in the most laudatory 
 terms in every point of view, so laudatory that the uncharitable 
 might even be tempted to suppose that it was in some degree 
 inspired, a . , , 
 
 (8Jl 
 
 ^;:%.^ 
 
 .■«.->r 
 
»■•■• ■ 
 
 ■'♦■'■■ 
 
 was 
 
 as to 
 
 •-"'f 
 
 
 259 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 
 ervson 
 mbia. 
 I will 
 ," the 
 iment 
 under 
 of the 
 Rev. 
 mt of 
 ^uhich 
 •pies of 
 xpense 
 that it 
 m will 
 ells " a 
 truth- 
 to the 
 
 TAINS. 
 
 ng the 
 ountry, 
 
 in re- 
 crucify 
 
 er you 
 iColura- 
 ich the 
 
 rs and 
 
 iistifiable 
 luth have 
 
 a per- 
 
 of the 
 
 idatory 
 
 iritable 
 
 degree 
 
 Let me read some extracts from it : — 
 
 Into the Province of British Columbia are packed together in half a dozen 
 stupendous ranks, separated by narrow valleys, all the mountain ranges in 
 Western America. We cross in succession the Rockies, the Selkirks, the 
 Gold, Okanagon, and coast ranges by a route 650 miles in length, though the 
 breadth measured in a straight line hardly exceeds 400 miles, and during the 
 whfAe time are in the midst of snow-crowned monarchs 
 
 Here, then, are 650 miles of mountains heaped against, and over one 
 another in Titanic masses, ever present to the traveller, and ever changing 
 its aspect, a "great sea of mountains" that can be likened to no other on 
 earth. Rising more than two miles above the sea, these mountains are cleft 
 to the base by the passes that are followed by the railway, and their whole 
 dizzy height is seen at once. Far up on their shoulders, in full view from 
 the train, rest many glaciers, by the side of which those of the Alps wonld 
 
 be insignificant . For thirty-two hours the 
 
 traveller rolls along this great and varied mountain panorama without losing 
 the wonderful scene for a minute. 
 
 Lastly, in the report of the Directors of the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway for 188G, I find the statement that the " Company had 
 built 2,400 miles of railway, embracing in the Lake Superior and 
 Mountain sections " — they call the part through British Columbia 
 the "Mountain section — they had built "many hundreds of 
 miles of the most difiicult railway work to be found on either 
 side of the Atlantic." N.ow, if it were the fact that I had been 
 betrayed out of my own head into the use of too strong a phrase, 
 of a phrase which, being exaggerated, was thought unjust and 
 harmful to British Columbia, would you not expect from such 
 patriots as the Tories, who are constantly deprecating the utter- 
 ance even of truth if it be disagreeable to them, on the score o 
 its being injurious to the country, would you not, I say, expec 
 from these patriots silence as to my slip, instead of that constan 
 parade of it year in and year out, that persistent keeping of v' 
 before the public, that forcing of it into the widest circulation'' 
 that blazoning it abroad over the luorld, that rolling of it as a» 
 sweet morsel under their tongues, which you have witnessed these 
 many years ? If harm could come of it, that harm was one to be 
 intensified a thousandfold by their action. But they did not care ! 
 They wanted only to get a slap at me, regardless of the harm, 
 which, on their own showing, they were doing to the country ! 
 But I made no slip. Least of all did I make a slip of which they 
 could complain. They have at last, by their attacks in Victoria, 
 induced me to speak again. I made no slip. I used the words 
 of their own ofiicer, found in the book they sent me for my in- 
 formation. And 
 
 (8) 
 
 
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 260 
 
 11..^: 
 
 .}:.,^-^- HIS WORDS WERE TRUE. ';Stm^&t>f^^^--^i:'y\^'-' 
 
 If r have not shown you that according to the common usages of 
 
 "'' • l>;. speech, and on the faith of Dr. Grant's book, I was justified in 
 
 I describing the mainland of British Columbia, from a railway 
 
 point of view, by the well-known phrase, " a sea of mountains," 
 
 1 shall despair of convincing you of aught else to-night. And if 
 
 I have felt constrained at length to bring forward my justification, 
 
 and thus, for the second time to use that well-worn phrase, I trust 
 
 you will admit that eleven years of abuse, culminating in a series 
 
 of attacks at Victoria, by the Ministers of the Crown, justify my 
 
 speaking now, and throw the dreadful consequences — if dreadful 
 
 consequences there be — on the heads of my accusers, who are, as 
 
 - ' I have shown, themselves the persons really responsible for the 
 
 whole business. (Loud and prolonged applause.) 
 
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