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THE Intercolonial
Railway had been built as a necessary link between the old provinces
of Canada, to give them cohesion and to create common interests
where these had not existed before. But cohesion in the east was
only a basis for expansion in the west. On the acquisition and
development of the vast regions between Lake Superior and the Rocky
Mountains depended the future of the Dominion. Amid many
difficulties and not a little bungling, as we have seen, they were
acquired. The construction of railways and the introduction of
colonists were essential to their development, and to these objects
Macdonald and his colleagues, on their return to power in 1878,
addressed themselves with foresight, enthusiasm, and indomitable
courage. For the tasks before them, they needed all the support that
these qualities at their best could give. It is true that the
continent of America had already been bridged and the Rockies had
been crossed by a line of railway through the United States, but the
conditions under which it had been done had been far different from
those with which Canada had now to deal.
The population of the
Eastern and Western States numbered forty millions; the advance
guard of civilization had been pushed far west of the Mississippi; a
large and wealthy population had already settled and built great
cities on the Pacific coast, before the people of the United States
attempted to link together their east and west. The white
inhabitants of British Columbia, on the other hand, numbered only
ten thousand; the whole population of Eastern Canada only four
millions; two thousand miles of the country to be traversed were
practically without a settler when the statesmen of the Dominion
undertook the gigantic task of uniting their most distant borders by
a line of rails, recognized by them as a necessary part of the
frame-work of a great nation. Four hundred miles of rough granitic
country north of Lake Superior, uninhabited, and, save for a mining
population, well-nigh uninhabitable; then one thousand two hundred
miles of virgin prairie; after that five hundred miles of mountain
railway through the almost unexplored passes of the Rocky and
Selkirk Ranges; this was the problem that confronted the engineer,
the contractor, the financier, the politician. The skill of the
engineer, the resources of the builder, the audacity of the
financier were all to be strained to the utmost. But all these would
have been of no avail but for the unflinching courage of the strong
men at the helm of the State, in whom the people had put their
trust. Under the terms of the bargain made with British Columbia in
1870, the railway connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic was to be
begun within two years, and completed within ten. The work was to be
carried out by a private company assisted by large money and land
subsidies from the Dominion government. When Macdonald's
administration fell in 1872, it of course became impossible for the
company represented by Sir Hugh Allan to carry on the work, even if
it had been able, as it was not, to raise the necessary capital.
The Liberal party
had, while in opposition, vigorously criticized the original scheme,
as placing too heavy a burden upon the resources of the Dominion. On
coming into power it adopted a policy of government ownership, and
of gradual construction in scattered sections connecting the
extensive lake and river stretches which it was proposed to utilize
as part of the highway from east to west. The agreement with British
Columbia was abandoned as impossible of fulfilment. That province
naturally resented what it considered a breach of faith. A
representative of the government sent out to allay the discontent
failed in accomplishing his purpose, and all the tact and influence
of Lord Dufferin, then governor-general, who visited the province in
1876, was required to prevent the repudiation of the Confederation
agreement.
On Macdonald's
restoration to power in 1878 his first care was to carry out his
election pledges in regard to a national trade policy. But no sooner
was this inaugurated than he reverted to the transcontinental
railway scheme which he had always deemed essential to the
consolidation of the Dominion. Experience with the Intercolonial had
now converted him from his earlier preference for government
ownership and operation, and on June 29th, 1880, he announced at a
political picnic at Bath, Ontario, that negotiations were on foot
with a syndicate of private capitalists. In September the contract
was signed. In six years it was completed.
Never did a young
country embark upon a more audacious enterprise ; never did
capitalists throw their all into a more hazardous speculation; never
did a cool and wary politician more strikingly display a readiness
to risk his reputation and his fame on a momentous adventure. Among
the obstacles to the work, not the least serious was the pessimistic
view of the situation taken by the leaders of the Liberal party.
Even when in power in 1874 Alexander Mackenzie, the Liberal prime
minister, in a formal State paper of instructions to Mr. Edgar, the
agent of the government sent to British Columbia, had described the
task of completing the line in the ten years as a "physical
impossibility." "You can point out," he said, "that the surveys for
the Intercolonial were begun in 1864, and the work carried on
uninterruptedly ever since, and although the utmost expedition was
used, it will still require eighteen months to complete it. If it
required so much time in a settled country to build five hundred
miles of railway, with facilities everywhere for procuring all
supplies, one may conceive the time and labour required to construct
a line five times that length through a country all but totally
unsettled."
No one doubts the
honesty of conviction with which such an opinion was given; the
accuracy of judgment can only be measured by the fact that when
Macdonald was again in a position to control the work the whole line
was completed for through traffic, as has been said, in six years.
Alexander Mackenzie had in 1880 been replaced in the Liberal
leadership by Edward Blake, a man of equal honesty of purpose and
wider range of ability, but little imagination or enthusiasm. Both
in parliament and throughout the country the new leader employed his
power in delivering a series of eloquent but mournful attacks upon
the railway contract, in which he fancied he saw ruin for the State.
The leading Liberal organ declared that the new line would never
"pay for its axle-grease." Nor were political opponents the only
critics. British financiers, looking coolly at the vast stretches of
country to be covered, inclined towards the opinion of one of their
number who said, "Somebody will have to hold these Canadians back,
or they will plunge themselves into hopeless bankruptcy before they
come of age."
The history of the
building of the Canadian Pacific Railway reads like a chapter of
romance. The original Canadian directors of the syndicate were Mr.
George Stephen (now Lord Mount Stephen), Mr. Duncan Maclntyre and
Mr. R. B. Angus. Behind them was Mr. Donald A. Smith (now Lord
Strathcona), member of parliament for Selkirk, whose speech in 1873
had so largely contributed to Macdonald's defeat, but who, by 1878,
had come to feel that on his return to power depended the future of
the West and of Canada.
By the original
contract the company was to receive twenty-five million dollars in
cash, twenty-five million acres of land in alternate blocks along
the route, and all lands required for stations and workshops. The
government handed over to it six hundred and forty one miles of
railway, partly in process of construction, partly completed, and
estimated by the minister of public works as having cost
twenty-eight million dollars. The company was allowed to import its
materials free of duty, and its lands were to be free of taxation
for twenty years. For a like period no competing road was to be
built south of its main line, a provision intended as a protection
against American competition, but which proved so irksome to the
province of Manitoba that in 1888 the company, for certain
considerations, abandoned it. These privileges were great, but not,
it is now universally admitted by impartial men, too great for the
vast task that was being undertaken.
At the last moment
the Opposition succeeded in getting up a rival syndicate headed by
Sir William P. Howland, which offered to do the work on conditions
more favourable to the government. Macdonald denounced their attempt
as a "disingenuous and discreditable trick," and flatly refused to
take any notice of an offer made, after the signature of the
contract, by a company whose members had made no effort to tender
while the offer was open.
The Canadian Pacific
Company forthwith addressed itself to the work with extraordinary
vigour. Over considerable sections of the line all previous records
of speedy railway construction were eclipsed. The greatest public
spirit was shown by individual directors; Donald Smith faced beggary
and threw his all into the work of construction.
Even so, the
resources of the company proved insufficient, and the government on
several occasions were compelled to come to its aid with loans and
subventions. Many of the more cautious Conservatives proved restive.
Even among the ministers there was discontent, and all Macdonald's
tact and Tupper's fiery energy were required to hold their majority
together. Stories are told of debates, long and doubtful, in the
council chamber, while without white-faced directors, with possible
ruin before them, paced the halls waiting for the decision. But
Macdonald triumphed, and on November 7th, 1885, at Craigellachie, a
lonely village of British Columbia, the last spike of the main line
was driven by Sir Donald Smith, and on July 24th, 1886, Macdonald
himself reached the Pacific by rail from Ottawa. The company had
completed its contract with four years to spare.
The operation of
thefl road during the next ten years was almost as great a feat as
its construction. The problem before the company was to create a
traffic where none had existed before, through nearly two thousand
miles of virgin prairie and what Mr. Blake had called a sea of
mountains, where there was scarcely any population to serve. Mr.
(now Sir William) Van Horne was made president of the company in
1888, and brought to his arduous task an unrivalled skill in railway
development. Mining, lumbering and other industries were freely
subsidized or otherwise encouraged along the route; branch lines
were built; land settlement assisted; one fleet of steamships was
placed upon the Pacific and another on the Great Lakes; rate wars
were successfully waged with American rivals, and by degrees,
through many anxious days, one of the greatest and most prosperous
railway systems of the world was firmly established. What the
success of the enterprise meant to Canada in establishing the credit
of the country and developing its resources is well known. Two
parallel transcontinental lines now (1907) in course of rapid
construction; a fourth projected; an immense inflow of immigration;
an annual output of grain amounting to a hundred millions of
bushels; expanding fleets of steamships upon the Atlantic, the
Pacific and the Great Lakes;—all these are triumphant witnesses to
the wisdom and foresight which lay behind the splendid audacity of
Macdonald, Tupper, Lord Strathcona and the group of men who carried
through this national undertaking.
Before the completion
of the railway its military value was put to the test. On March
28th, 1885, word arrived at Ottawa that two days before a force of
mounted police and volunteers had been attacked at Duck Lake by the
half-breeds and compelled to retreat with heavy loss. A new
rebellion had broken out, and it must be acknowledged that the
circumstances which led up to it are not creditable to the
Conservative government. It will be necessary briefly to rehearse
the facts of the case.
Under the Manitoba
Act two hundred and forty acres of land had been awarded in fee
simple to every half-breed resident born before July 1st, 1870.
Nothing was done, however, to extinguish by grant or purchase the
title of their brethren further west in the Territories, and the
complaints of the little band who had settled along the South
Saskatchewan in the neighbourhood of the forts grew louder and
louder. The story was repeated of lethargy and inefficiency on the
one side; of ignorance and suspicion on the other.
The metis, in
accordance with their ancestral custom borrowed from Lower Canada,
had occupied long strips of land, each with a narrow frontage on the
river. The Dominion surveyors, who came among them, parcelled out
the land in neat squares, and paid scant attention to the complaints
of the settlers. Ottawa was far away, and the premier, who would
naturally have been sympathetic, was busy with what seemed larger
questions nearer home. Once he roused himself, and in 1879 an Act
was passed awarding grants to the half-breeds, but, for reasons
difficult to explain, nothing was done. Nor were the wrongs of the
metis confined to the unsettled state of their tenure. Many of the
white settlers were undesirable; many of the local government
officials were party hacks "totally unqualified for their
positions," according to Bishop Tache. If Ottawa was far away
"hungry partisans who mark the new and defenceless territory as
their perquisite" [Goldwin Smith.] were on the spot. "Riel put his
fighting men in his first line," wrote Lord Minto, "but in his
second line we may perhaps find the disappointed contractor, the
disappointed white land shark, the disappointed white farmer."
[Nineteenth Century, 1886.]
The metis had
constituted a most valuable connecting link between the white
invaders and the old lords of the soil. Blackfoot and Cree now grew
restless as they saw the discontent of their friends and leaders.
Nor is a darker shadow absent. The debauchery of low whites, and
their unfair dealing, added fuel to Indian passion. A rising of the
prairie tribes, who had not yet experienced the generous treatment
since accorded to them by the Dominion, was imminent.
The mutterings of the
coming storm grew louder. Petitions poured into the Department of
the Interior, to be pigeon-holed and neglected. Bishop Tache pleaded
the cause of the scattered people whom he loved so well. Charles
Mair, the author, who was living at Prince Albert in close proximity
to the half-breeds, came on several occasions to Ottawa to impress
on the authorities the seriousness of the situation. Macdonald heard
him courteously, recognized the justice of the case which he stated,
and made a passing attempt to stimulate his colleague at the
Interior into action. But counsels were divided. Two ministers, who
visited the country, heard from their flatterers that all was going
well, and reported that nothing serious need be feared.
Such was the
situation when in 1884 the half-breeds of the St. Laurent settlement
sent a deputation on a weary foot journey of seven hundred miles to
their old leader, Louis Riel, who had for some years been living
quietly in Montana. In his fiery and fanatical brain ambition seems
to have mingled with his old idea of a western theocracy, French and
Catholic, free from the defiling taint of the Englishman and the
heretic. But though he returned with the deputation to the
Saskatchewan, nothing more than constitutional agitation was
anticipated, till, after one or two scattered outbreaks of
lawlessness, the affair at Duck Lake set the whole country ablaze.
In face of the
thought of an Indian rising, party divisions were hushed and troops.
were sent forward under Major-General Middleton, the general officer
commanding the Canadian militia. The citizen soldiery of Canada
fought well in a series of small engagements; on May 12th the rebel
camp was stormed at Batoche and three days later Riel surrendered.
lie was tried for high treason, condemned, and, after several
reprieves granted in order to test his sanity, he was hanged on
November 16th in the yard of the Mounted Police Barracks at Regina.
Fanatic he doubtless was, but he was no coward, and he met his fate
with something of the high constancy of a martyr.
Such a circumstance
could not fail to arouse the latent jealousies between Ontario and
Quebec, French and English, Protestant and Catholic. To Ontario,
Riel was either a twice convicted traitor, or an American
filibuster. The powerful Orange order recalled the murder of Scott
at Fort Garry, and cried aloud for the punishment of his murderer.
To no small section
of Quebec, on the other hand, Riel appeared as the most heroic of
all the metis, the upholder of their race, religion and language;
consequently when Macdonald refused to interfere with the course of
law, an ominous revolt broke out among the Quebec Conservatives. The
position of both political parties now became extremely difficult.
The Opposition at first endeavoured to make capital out of the
undoubted defects in administration which had in part brought on the
rebellion, and on July 6th Mr. Blake spoke for several hours in
support of a motion of want of confidence. He had material for
argument, but the progress of events soon threw mere debate into the
background. The Liberal leader in Quebec was Mr. Honore Mercier, the
most brilliant, fascinating and unscrupulous politician that the
provincial politics of Canada has produced. With consummate skill he
formed an alliance between the clericals and the "Nationalistes";
the Liberals, so long under the ban of the Church, found themselves
suddenly its allies. In the flood of feeling that had been aroused
Mercier saw his political opportunity and turned all his influence
as Liberal leader under these new conditions towards the protection
of Riel.
Amid this swelling
and raging tide, Macdonald stood firm. When a life-long friend,
unconnected with either party, urged on him the need of mercy, in
order to conciliate Quebec, the old man turned on him with toss of
head and stamp of foot, all the lion in him roused. "He shall hang,"
he said fiercely, "though every dog in Quebec bark in his favour."
He would have no more of this firebrand who had twice set the
Dominion in a blaze, twice attempted to undo in one mad hour the
work of a generation. Had political expediency been consulted it
would doubtless have dictated the same decision, for Ontario was at
as white a heat as Quebec. The Toronto Mail, the official
Conservative organ, declared that rather than submit to the yoke of
the French-Canadians "Ontario would smash Confederation into its
original fragments, preferring that the dream of a united Canada
should be shattered forever, than that unity should be purchased at
the price of equity." |
