^ •vi IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /- f/. &'^ ^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 Ui |2.8 |2.5 |50 l"^" ■■■ It: 2.0 1.8 U IIIIII.6 V] <^ >a v: y ^4 Coiporation ^^^ 23 WIST MAIN STRUT WIBSTIR,N.Y. 14580 (7)6) •7a-4S03 ^A CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly chiinge the usual method of filming, are checked below. L'Institut a microfilmd le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. 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London, March 1886. 3. Parliamentary Debates. Canadian Hansard. 1880-1-2-2- 4 — 0. 4. Canadian Pacific Railway : Annual Report for 1885. ROBERT CAVELIER, better known as the Sieur de la Salle, accepted in 1666 from the Sulpician Fathers of Montreal the grant, on easy terms, of a tract of land situate about nine miles from that settlement, and just above the last and fiercest of tb'j rapids of the St. Lawrence. Cavelier certainly did not accept this grant with the intention of merely cultivating his new property, nor even of aiding his feudal lords in defend- ing the village from Indian incursions. The post of danger occupied by La Salle was regarded by him as a base from which to push onward to the discovery of a new route to China and Cathay, an enterprise to wL^t^h, from the first day of his landing in Canada, he seems to have devoted himself. Like many others who, themselves firmly possessed of an idea, have failed to make their friends share in their enthusiasm. La Salle was regarded as a dreamer. When his first expedition to the West reached, after much suffering, the end of Lake Ontario, its leader found no one willing to pursue with him the supposed route to China by the valley of the Ohio River ; and those who turned back eastwards gave to his seigniory near the St. Lawrence rapids, in derision, we are told, of their leader's dreamy projects, the nickname of ' La Chine.' In a strange way, and after long intervals, the onward march of the world is resumed along tracks once trodden, but which for ages have been deserted. The old route by the Ottawa Valley, which the pioneers and missionaries of the seventeenth century used for reaching the upper Lakes of North America, was for nearly two centuries neglected and almost forgotten, in favour of the easier line by the St. Lawrence and the lower Lakes. But now once more that line resumes its importance ; and, while it was never given to La Salle himself to approach the Pacific Ocean or even to penetrate further west than the Missis- sippi, trains will in a very short time be thundering across his old homestead at Lachine, carrying passengers, mails, and merchandise, by that which, after all, has proved to be the most expeditious route between Europe and China. Of necessity in a country so extensive as Canada the develop- ment x/-*t^ 120 The Canadian Facijic Railwaij ment of lines of communication between its several parts has been one of the primary duties of the Government. Hence the enormous outlay upon canals and railways made both before and since the Confederation of the several Provinces. Hence, too, it results that the construction of Canada's latest and most important work, the Canadian Pacific Railway, is really the history for the time of Canada itself. A work, then, which is so particularly representative of England's greatest colony, which is so vast in length, and has been so dramatic in the rapidity of its execution, should have in these pages some record of its history and of its construction. And, further, as as it promises to be intimately associated with the great future of the British Empire, it may also claim consideration in respect of its Imperial and commercial value. It is unnecessary to decide to whom is due the credit of first giving practical shape to the idea of constructing a transconti- nental railway in British North America ; but as long ago as 1847 Major Carmichael Smyth, in a letter addressed to ' Sam Slick,' strongly advocated its execution as an Imperial work. * This national highway,' he wrote, ' from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is the great link required to unite in one chain the whole English race. It will be the means of enabling vessels steaming from our magnificent colonies — from New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, New South Wales, New Holland, from Borneo and the West Coast of China, from the Sandwich Isles, and a thousand other places — all carrying the rich products of the East, to land them at the commencement of the West, to be forwarded and distributed throughout our North American Provinces and delivered within thirty days at the ports of Great Britain.' Railways have rendered most efficient aid in making Canada the country that she is to-day. The Grand Trunk line first practically united Upper and Lower Canada. The unfortunate Ashburton Treaty, by extending the northern frontier of Maine to the highlands overlooking the St. Lawrence, having made the separation between the maritime and inland provinces of Canada almost complete, no close political or commercial union between them was possible, until railway communication from the Atlantic seaboard to Quebec through British territory had been provided. Hence the repeated efforts made to construct such a road, the necessity for which was more than ever demonstrated at the * Trent Affair' in 1861; and hence, when the proposal for a Confederation of all the Provinces was mooted in 1864, one of the essential conditions stipulated for by the Maritime Provinces was the immediate construc- tion T The Canadian Pacific Bailway. 121 T tion of the Intercolonial Railway. For military and political reasons that railway was kept as far as possible from the American frontier, the mileage between Halifax and Quebec beir -^ thereby increased to a very considerable extent ; and for this, among other reasons, the line can hardly be con- sidered to have been commercially a success. It has been in some quarters assumed that, because the Canadian Pacific Railway is the result of political necessity, therefore its com- mercial fate cannot be other than that of the Intercolonial Railway. But, as we proceed with our narrative, it will be seen that the conditions of the two lines are not similar, and that their prospects therefore will most probably be different. On July 1st, 18G7, the Act of Union, assented to by the Imperial Parliament in March, came into force, :^nd the Pro- vinces of Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, became the Dominion of Canada, 'n 1870, Rupert's Land and all the territories theretofore controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company; in 1871, British Columbia; and in 1872, Prince Edward Island, were severally admitted into the Confederation, which since the latter date has comprised all British North America with the exception of Newfoundland. In a country of such peculiar geographical features, a political union, however cleverly designed and ably directed, would avail but little, were not a physical union by means of a trans- continental railway speedily provided. Riel's rebellion in 1870 demonstrated alike the necessity and the difficulty of reaching the Red River Settlement. No one doubted the vigour and * push ' of Colonel Wolseley, but it took the expeditionary force which he commanded ninety-five days to reach Fort Garry from Toronto. It would have been impossible for the Govern- ment at Ottawa to control a sparse population in the North- West, so far removed from the Executive and the more settled provinces ; while the attempt to do so could not but result in enormous expenditure, with no corresponding advantage. To increase the population was difficult, so long as the sole access to the country lay through the United States. It was not, however, the North-West Territories only that had to be considered. As the Atlantic Provinces had stipulated for the construction of the Intercolonial Railway, so the Pacific Province, on entering the Confederation, insisted upon the construction of a railway that should give her access through British territory to her sister provinces in the East. Com- pliance with this demand was felt to be a commercial as well as a political necessity, and Sir John Macdonald, with a bold- ness that exasperated his opponents and almost staggered his friends, 1 122 Tlie Canadian Pacific Railwaij. friends, promised that the line should be completed within ten years. In 1871 the Dominion Parliament passed a Resoluticii to the effect, that the Pacific Railway should be undertaken * by private enterprise, and not by the Government, and that the public aid to be given to secure the undertaking should consist of such liberal grants of land, and such subsidy in money or other aid, not unduly pressing upon the industry and resources of the Dominion, as the Parliament of Canada shall hereafter determine.' That aid was in 1872 fixed at $30,000,000 in cash, and a land grant amounting to 54,700,000 acres. But Sir Hugh Allan, and the Company which he formed, could not induce capitalists to embark in the undertaking on these terms. In 1874, the Liberal-Conservative Cabinet of Sir John Macdonald gave way to a Liberal, or ' Grit,' Government under Mr. Alexander Mackenzie's leadership ; and, however they might criticize the recklessness, as they termed it, of a policy that had undertaken to accomplish impossibilities, the new Administra- tion frankly admitted that all Canada was in favour of, and was committed to, the construction of a transcontinental line with all speed ; with the reservation, however, equally insisted upon by both parties, that its construction should not materially increase the fiscal burdens of the people. In 1875, as the original compact was then obviously impossible of fulfilment, a new agreement with British Columbia was, by Lord Carnarvon's help, arrived at, by which a large sum was to be annually expended on rail- ways in that province, and the line was to be completed as far eastward as Lake Superior by 1890. Thus, within fifteen years some 1900 miles of railway were to be constructed ; a task of the probable fulfilment of which Mr. Mackenzie could only bring himself to speak in the following cautious terms : * We shall always endeavour to proceed with this work as fast as the circumstances of the country — circumstances yet to be developed — will enable us to do, so as to obtain as soon as possible complete railway communication with the Pacific Province. How soon that time may come I cannot predict.' Mr. Mackenzie's aspirations, it will be observed, were limited to the construction of a line from Lake Superior westward ; the link eastwards to form a connection with the railways of older Canada being an undertaking far too onerous, it was then thought, to be embarked in. The new Cabinet altered the form of subsidy, and offered $10,000 and 20,000 acres per mile, and in addition a Govern- ment guarantee of 4 per cent, for twenty-five years on such further amount of capital as might be named by those who tendered ' The Canadian Pacific Railway. 123 tendered for the work. But these terms, also, were unsuccessful in attracting capitalists, and in 1875 the decision of the previous Parliament in favour of private enterprise was re- versed, and it was settled that the work should be undertaken by the Government itself. Sufficient work was done in the next few years to show, not only how fatal to the success of the great Transcontinental Railway its construction by Government would be, but also how imperfectly each of the political parties understood what was required to make such a line a commercial success. Mr. Mackenzie, for instance, must be credited with the in- genious proposal to give an amphibious character to the line, by * utilizing the magnificent water stretches ' which lakes and river afforded ; a proposal which, if carried out, would have absolutely marred the usefulness of the railway as a through route. When the Mackenzie Cabinet fell in 1879, and Sir John Macdonald returned to power, the Railway Department was placed in the hands of Sir Charles Tupper, an indication at once of the important part that railway extension would play in the policy of the new Cabinet, and of the vigour with which that policy would be maintained. The work both of surveys and of construction was accordingly pushed on ; the * magnificent water stretches ' were abandoned ; rails were laid from Emerson to Winnipeg, so that, at least through the United States, railway access to Manitoba was secured ; and at the same time every effort was made to complete the line between Lake Superior and the Red River, so as to obtain, at all events in summer, a purely Canadian route to the North- West. About this time the attitude of the Liberal party towards the Pacific Railway project appears to have undergone a change. Mr. Mackenzie, we have seen, had, when in power, admitted and heartily striven to carry out the obligations in regard to the construction of this line, which his predecessor had contracted. The Conservative Opposition, though in the nature of things critical as to details, seem in the main to have loyally supported the Government in pressing on the work. But soon after the parties changed sides in the House of Commons, and especially when Mr. Mackenzie's influence with his party, owing to his failing health, began to wane, a new departure in Opposition policy was made. The Liberals said that to carry out the country's obligations to British Columbia was impossible ; that to attempt to do so would impose upon the Dominion financial burdens of an absolutely ruinous oppressiveness ; that the idea of a railway from ocean to 124 T^>.c Canadian Pacific Railicarj. to ocean, entirely avoiding foreign soil, must be relegated to a dim and very distant future ; and, with a strangely unpatriotic perverseness, they laid stress upon the merits and advantages of the Westwn States of the Union as a reason why their own grand possessions in the Canadian North-West would long remain neglected. The result, however, to the country of this strange perversity was good ; for the Cabinet, thwarted by the obstacles put in their way, were driven to revert to the original plan of having the work executed by an independent company. A few Canadians, whose reputation stood equally high for shrewdness, courage, and probity, had recently converted a bankrupt railway in the Western States, thereafter known as the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway, into a prosperous concern ; profitable to themselves and extremely useful to the public. To these gentlemen, most of them their political opponents, the Government turned, and induced them, after due consideration, to take upon themselves the execution of a work that had already upset one Government, had materially contributed to defeat another, and which, it was commonly said, would yet be the death of many another Ad- ministration before it was completed. In January 1881 Sir Charles Tupper, as Minister of Rail- ways and Canals, introduced into the House of Commons Resolutions to give effect to the Provisional Agreement already arrived at between the Government and the Syndicate, as it was called. "^ wing, as he was able to do, that the terms (which will be ;n in detail later on) were far more favourable to the country than any which had been previously proposed, and even than those on which the late Government had attempted to get the work executed, he appealed to the Opposition to unite with his own supporters in bringing this great national work to a triumphant and satisfactory conclusion. But the appeal was in vain. The Canadian Opposition missed, on this occasion, an opportunity of adopting a course, that would have been at once creditable to themselves and advantageous to their country. It must be confessed — as the wearisome pages of the Canadian Hansard fully testify — that the captious criticism on the subject of the Canadian Pacific Railway has not redounded to the reputation of the Opposition as patriots or statesmen ; while it cannot be questioned, that the tactics so persistently adopted by them have at times done much abroad to shake the credit and position of the Colony. Canadians have during the past few years been often heard bitterly to say, that the worst enemies of their country and the greatest obstacles to its progress were to be found among their own countrymen. But, without pursuing ■1 \ ( Tlic Canadian Pacific Railway. 125 \ t> pursuing this topic any further, it is enouj^h to say, that tho Resolutions above referred to were adopted by large majorities in both Commons and Senate, and that on February 17, 1681, the Canadian Pacific Railway Act received the Royal Assent, and the Company its charter. Let us now go back six years, and look at the problem then before the organizers of the new Company. Canada's object was to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans by a railway to be made entirely on Canadian soil. This meant the construction of at least 2500 miles of new line. Of this length, the 650 miles between the upper Ottawa River and Port Arthur lay through a district of which all that was known was its extreme unsuitability for railway construction. The fertility of the great prairie plains, stretching for 900 miles westward from the Red River, was theoretically believed in by the {ew^ but was not yet practically demonstrated to the many ; while in the West there were three mountain ranges to be crossed, and the dangerous canons of the British Columbian rivers to be threaded. Through these the three-quarters of a million sterling already spent on surveys had hardly resulted in discover- ing one feasible line for the passage of the railway to the Pacific. Any estimate of the cost of construction was necessarily little more than conjectural, while the market value to be set upon the Land Grant, upon which it was expected that so much of the capital needed for the work would be raised, was also problem- atical. Then, as to time — the Government wanted the line com- pleted in ten years; but Mr. Mackenzie had, as we have seen, expressed grave doubts whether the western section, from Lake Superior to the Pacific, could be completed even in fifteen years. Then the Government stipulated, that the line should be worked, as well as made, by any syndicate that undertook its construction. But how was the cost of working it to be met ? Had not a high authority lately estimated that cost annually at eight million