CANADA AND THE STATES

RECOLLECTIONS 1851 to 1886.

BY SIR E. W. WATKIN, BART., M.P.

"_If the Maritime Provinces [of Britain] would join us,
spontaneously, to-day--sterile as they may be in the soil under a sky
of steel--still with their hardy population, their harbours, fisheries,
and seamen, they would greatly strengthen and improve our position_,
and aid us in our struggle for equality upon the ocean. _If we would
succeed upon the deep, we must either maintain our fisheries or_
ABSORB THE PROVINCES."

E. H. DERBY, Esq, Report to the Revenue Commissioners of the United
States, 1866.


[Illustration: The Duke of Newcastle, K.G.]


_In the absence of any formal Dedication, I feel that to no one could
the following pages be more appropriately inscribed than to_

Lady Watkin.

_On her have fallen the anxieties of our home life during my many
long absences away on the American Continent--which Continent she once,
in 1862, visited with me. My business, in relation to Canada, has, from
time to time, been undertaken with her knowledge, and under her good
advice; and no one has been animated with a stronger hope for Canada,
as a great integral part of the Empire of the Queen, than herself._

_E. W. WATKIN._
_ROSE HILL, NORTHENDEN,_
_2nd May, 1887._


PREFACE.


The following pages have been written at the request of many old
friends, some of them co-workers in the cause of permanent British rule
over the larger part of the Great Northern Continent of America.

In 1851 I visited Canada and the United States as a mere tourist, in
search of health. In 1861 I went there on an anxious mission of
business; and for some years afterwards I frequently crossed the
Atlantic, not only during the great Civil War between the North and
South, but, also, subsequent to its close. In 1875 I had to undertake
another mission of responsibility to the United States. And, last year,
I traversed the Dominion of Canada from Belle Isle to the Pacific. I
returned home by San Francisco and the Union Pacific Railways to
Chicago; and by Montreal to New York. Thence to Liverpool, in that
unsurpassed steamer, the "Etruria," of the grand old Cunard line. I
ended my visits to America, as I began them, as a tourist. This passage
was my thirtieth crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Within the period from 1851 to 1886, history on the North American
Continent has been a wonderful romance. Never in the older stories of
the world's growth, have momentous changes been effected, and,
apparently, consolidated, in so short a time, or in such rapid
succession.

Regarding the United States, the slavery of four millions of the negro
race is abolished for ever, and the black men vote for Presidents. A
great struggle for empire--fought on gigantic measure--has been won for
liberty and union. Turning to Canada, the British half of the Continent
has been moulded into one great unity, and faggotted together, without
the shedding of one drop of brothers' blood--and in so tame and quiet a
way, that the great silent forces of Nature have to be cited, to find a
parallel.

In this period, the American Continent has been spanned by three main
routes of iron-road, uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: and one
of these main routes passes exclusively through British territory--the
Dominion of Canada. The problem of a "North-west Passage" has been
solved in a new and better way. It is no longer a question of threading
dark and dismal seas within the limits of Arctic ice and snow, doubtful
to find, and impossible, if found, to navigate. Now, the two oceans are
reached by land, and a fortnight suffices for the conveyance of our
people from London or Liverpool to or from the great Pacific, on the
way to the great East.

Anyone who reads what follows will learn that I am an Imperialist--that
I hate little-Englandism. That, so far as my puny forces would go, I
struggled for the union of the Canadian Provinces, in order that they
might be retained under the sway of the best form of government--a
limited monarchy, and under the best government of that form--the
beneficent rule of our Queen Victoria. I like to say our Queen: for no
sovereign ever identified herself in heart and feeling, in anxiety and
personal sacrifice, with a free and grateful people more thoroughly
than she has done, all along.

In this period of thirty-six years the British American Provinces have
been, more than once, on the slide. The abolition of the old Colonial
policy of trade was a great wrench. The cold, neglectful, contemptuous
treatment of Colonies in general, and of Canada in particular, by the
doctrinaire Whigs and Benthamite-Radicals, and by Tories of the
Adderley school, had, up to recent periods, become a painful strain.
Denuding Canada of the Imperial red-coat disgusted very many. And the
constant whispering, at the door of Canada, by United States
influences, combined with the expenditure of United States money on
Nova Scotian and other Canadian elections, must be looked to, and
stopped, to prevent a slide in the direction of Washington.

On the other hand, the statesmanlike action of Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, Colonial Minister in 1859, in erecting British Columbia into a
Crown Colony, was a break-water against the fell waves of annexation.
The decided language of Her Majesty's speech in proroguing Parliament
at the end of 1859 was a manifesto of decided encouragement to all
loyal people on the American Continent: and, followed as it was by the
visit--I might say the triumphal progress--of the Prince of Wales,
accompanied by the Colonial Minister, the great Duke of Newcastle,
through Canada, in 1860, the loyal idea began to germinate once more.
Loyal subjects began to think that no spot of earth over which the
British flag had once floated would ever, again, be given up--without a
fight for it. Canada for England, and England for Canada!

But, what will our Government at home do with the new "North-west
Passage" through Canada? The future of Canada depends upon the
decision. What will the decision be? How soon will it be given?

Is this great work, the Canadian Pacific Railway, to be left as a
monument, at once, of Canada's loyalty and foresight, and of Canada's
betrayal: or is it to be made the new land-route to our Eastern and
Australian Empire? If it is to be shunted, then the explorations of the
last three hundred years have been in vain. The dreams of some of the
greatest statesmen of past times are reduced to dreams, and nothing
more. The strength given by this glorious self-contained route, from
the old country to all the new countries, is wasted. On the other hand,
if those who now govern inherit the great traditions of the past; if
they believe in Empire; if they are statesmen--then, a line of Military
Posts, of strength and magnitude, beginning at Halifax on the Atlantic,
and ending at the Pacific, will give power to the Dominion, and,
wherever the red-coat appears, confidence in the old brave country will
be restored.

Then the soldier, his arms and our armaments, will have their
periodical passages backwards and forwards through the Dominion. Mails
for the East, for Australia, and beyond, will pass that way; and the
subject of every part of the Empire will, as he passes, feel that he is
treading the sacred soil of real liberty and progress.

Which is it to be?

Some years ago, Sir John A. Macdonald said, "I hope to live to see the
day--and if I do not, that my son may be spared, to see Canada the
right arm of England. To see Canada a powerful auxiliary of the Empire,
not, as now, a source of anxiety, and a source of danger."

Does Her Majesty's Government echo this aspiration?

Thinking people will recognize that the United States become, year by
year, less English and more Cosmopolitan; less conservative and more
socialist; less peaceful and more aggressive. Twice within ten years
the Presidential elections have pushed the Republic to the very brink
of civil war. But for the forbearance of Mr. Tilden and the Democrats,
on one occasion; and the caution of leading Republicans when President
Cleveland was chosen, disturbance must have happened.

We have yet to see whether Provincial Government may not, in the
Dominion, lead towards Separation, rather than towards Union. While one
Custom-house and one general Government is aiding Union, the Province
of Quebec accentuates all that is French; the Province of Ontario
accentuates all that is British: the problem, here, is how, gradually,
to weaken sectional, and how gradually to strengthen Union, ideas.
State rights led to a civil war in the United States: Provincial
Government fifty years hence may lead to conflicts in Canada.

In the United States there was no solution but war. Surely in Canada we
can apply the safety valve of augmenting British aid and influence. Why
not try the re-introduction of the red-coat of the Queen's soldier
--that soldier to be enlisted and officered, let us hope in the early
future, from every portion of the Queen's Dominions--as of the one
Imperial army;--an Imperial army paid for by the whole Empire.


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY--ONE REASON WHY I WENT TO THE PACIFIC

CHAPTER II.
TOWARDS THE PACIFIC--LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC

CHAPTER III.
TO THE PACIFIC--MONTREAL TO PORT MOODY

CHAPTER IV.
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAYS

CHAPTER V.
A BRITISH RAILWAY FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC

CHAPTER VI.
PORT MOODY--VICTORIA--SAN FRANCISCO TO CHICAGO.

CHAPTER VII.
NEGOCIATIONS AS TO THE INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY: AND NORTH-WEST
TRANSIT AND TELEGRAPH, 1861 TO 1864.

CHAPTER VIII.
NEGOCIATIONS FOR PURCHASE OF THE HUDSON'S BAY PROPERTY


CHAPTER IX.
THE RIGHT HONORABLE EDWARD ELLICE, M.P.

CHAPTER X.
THE SELECT COMMITTEE, ON HUDSON'S BAY AFFAIRS, OF 1857

CHAPTER XI.
RE-ORGANIZATION OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY

CHAPTER XII.
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AND THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF 1748-
9

CHAPTER XIII.
THE HUDSON'S BAY POSTS--TO-DAY.

CHAPTER XIV.
"UNCERTAIN SOUNDS"

CHAPTER XV.
"GOVERNOR DALLAS"

CHAPTER XVI.
THE HONORABLE THOMAS D'ARCY McGEE

CHAPTER XVII.
1851--FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA: A REASON FOR IT.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RECIPROCITY TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE DEFENCES OF CANADA.

CHAPTER XX.
INTENDED ROUTE FOR A PACIFIC RAILWAY IN 1863.

CHAPTER XXI.
LETTERS PROM SIR GEORGE E. CARTIER--QUESTION OF HONORS


CHAPTER XXII.
DISRAELI-BEACONSFIELD

CHAPTER XXIII.
VISITS TO QUEBEC AND PORTLAND: AND LETTERS HOME CANADA AND THE
NORTH ATLANTIC COUNTRY.


CHAPTER I.

_Preliminary--One Reason why I went to the
Pacific._


A quarter of a century ago, charged with the temporary oversight of the
then great Railway of Canada, I first made the acquaintance of Mr.
Tilley, Prime Minister of the Province of New Brunswick, whom I met in
a plain little room, more plainly furnished, at Frederickton, in New
Brunswick. My business was to ask his co-operation in carrying out the
physical union of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and through them Prince
Edward Island and Newfoundland, with Canada by means of what has since
been called the "Intercolonial" Railway. That Railway, projected half a
century ago, was part of the great scheme of 1851,--of which the Grand
Trunk system from Portland, on the Atlantic, to Richmond; and from
Riviere du Loup, by Quebec and Richmond, to Montreal, and then on to
Kingston, Toronto, Sarnia, and Detroit--had been completed and opened
when I, thus, visited Canada, as Commissioner, in the autumn of 1861. I
found Mr. Tilley fully alive to the initial importance of the
construction of this arterial Railway--initial, in the sense that,
without it, discussions in reference to the fiscal, or the political,
federation, or the absolute union, under one Parliament, of all the
Provinces was vain. I found, also, that Mr. Tilley had, ardently,
embraced the great idea--to be realized some day, distant though that
day might be--of a great British nation, planted, for ever, under the
Crown, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Certainly, in 1861, this great idea seemed like a mere dream of the
uncertain future. Blocked by wide stretches of half-explored country:
dependent upon approaches through United States' territory: each
Province enforcing its separate, and differing, tariffs, the one
against the other, and others, through its separate Custom House; it
was not matter of surprise to find a growing gravitation towards the
United States, based, alike, on augmenting trade and augmenting
prejudices.

Amongst party politicians at home, there was, at this time, of 1861,
little adhesion to the idea of a Colonial Empire; and the reader has
only to read the reference, made later on, to a published letter of Sir
Charles Adderley to Mr. Disraeli in 1862, to see how the pulse of some
of the Conservative party was then beating.

There was, however, one bright gleam of hope. That was to be found in
the, still remembered, effects of the visit of the Prince of Wales,
accompanied by the Duke of Newcastle, to Canada, and the United States,
in 1860.

Entertaining, with no small enthusiasm, and in common, these views of
an Anglo-American Empire, Mr. Tilley and I were of the same opinion as
to practical modes. We must go "step by step," and the Intercolonial
Railway was the first step in the march before us.

In the following pages will be found some record of what followed.
Suffice it here to say, that the Railway is made, not on the route I
advocated: but it is in course of improvement, so that the shortest
iron road from the great harbour of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the
Pacific may be secured. The vast western country, bigger than Russia in
Europe, more or less possessed and ruled over, since the days of Prince
Rupert, the first governor, by the "Merchant Adventurers of England
trading to Hudson's Bay," has been annexed to Canada, and one country,
under one Parliament, is bounded by the two great oceans; and, as a
consequence, the "Canadian Pacific Railway" has been made and opened
for the commerce of the world.

Mr. Tilley, now Sir Leonard Tilley, is, at the moment, Lieutenant-
Governor of New Brunswick, having previously filled the highest offices
in the Government of the "Dominion of Canada;" and he has not forgotten
the vow he and I exchanged some while after our first acquaintance.
That vow was, that we neither of us would die, if we could help it,
"until we had looked upon the waters of the Pacific from the windows of
a British railway carriage." The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed,
completed by the indomitable perseverance of Sir George Stephen, Mr.
Van Horne, and their colleagues--sustained as they have been,
throughout, by the far-sighted policy and liberal subsidies, granted
ungrudgingly, by the Dominion Parliament, under the advice of Sir John
A. Macdonald, the Premier. I have, in the past year, fulfilled my vow,
by traversing the Canadian Continent from Quebec to Port Moody,
Vancouver City, and Victoria, Vancouver's Island, over the 3,100 miles
of Railway possessed by the Canadian Pacific Company, and have "looked
upon the waters of the Pacific from the windows of a British railway
carriage."

My impressions of this grand work will be found in future chapters.

"The Dominion of Canada" now includes the various Provinces of North
America, formerly known as Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Vancouver's Island, and
the extensive regions of The Hudson's Bay Company, including the new
Province of Manitoba, and the North West Territories; in fact, the
whole of British North America, except Newfoundland.

This territory stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and
(including Newfoundland) is estimated to contain a total area of some
four million square miles.

As matter of mere surface, and probably of cultivable area, also, more
than half the Northern Continent of America owes allegiance to the
Crown and to Queen Victoria. So may it remain. So it will remain if we
retain the Imperial instinct. These noble provinces are confederated
into a vast dominion, with one common Law, one Custom House, and one
"House of Commons"--by a simple Act of the Imperial Parliament, the
Confederation Act of 1867, passed while Lord Beaconsfield was Prime
Minister and the Duke of Buckingham Colonial Minister. This union was
effected quietly, unostentatiously, and in peace; and (circumstances
well favouring) by the exertions, influence, and faithfulness to
Imperial traditions, of Cartier, John A. Macdonald, John Ross, Howe,
Tilley, Galt, Tupper, Van Koughnet, and other provincial statesmen, who
forced the Home Government to action and fired their brother colonists
with their own enthusiasm.

At home, all honour is due to a great Colonial Minister--the Duke of
Newcastle.

Taking up, some years ago, a tuft of grass growing at the foot of one
of the grand marble columns of the Parthenon at the Acropolis at
Athens, I found a compass mark in the footing, or foundation--a mere
scratch in the stone--made, probably, by some architect's assistant,
before the Christian era. I make no claim to more than having made a
scratch of some sort on the foundation stone of some pillar, or other,
of Confederation. And I throw together these pages with no idea of
gaining credit for services, gratuitously rendered, over a period of
years and under many difficulties, to a cause which I have always had
at heart; but with the desire to record some facts of interest which,
hereafter, may, probably, be held worthy of being interleaved in some
future history of the union of the great American provinces of the
British Empire. I have another motive also: I should wish to contribute
some information bearing upon any future account of the life of the
late Duke of Newcastle. He is dead: and, so far, no one has attempted
to write his biography. That may be reserved for another generation. He
was the Colonial Minister under whose rule and guidance the foundations
of the great measure of Confederation were, undoubtedly, laid; and to
him, more than to any minister since Lord Durham, the credit of
preserving, as I hope for ever, the rule of her Majesty, and her
successors, over the Western Continent ought to attach. For, while the
idea of an union, of more or less extent, was suggested in Lord
Durham's time--probably by Charles Buller,--and was now and then
fondled by other Governors-General, in Canada, and by Colonial
Ministers at home--the real, practical measures which led to the
creation of one country extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific were
due to the far-sighted policy and persuasive influence of the Duke. The
Duke was a statesman singularly averse to claiming credit for his own
special public services, while ever ready to attribute credit and
bestow praise on those around him.

My first interview with the Duke was in January, 1847. He was then Lord
Lincoln, and the Conservative candidate for Manchester; in disgrace
with his father. His father was the old fashioned nobleman who desired
"to do what he liked with his own," and never would rebuild Nottingham
Castle, burnt in 1832 by the Radicals. The son had cast in his lot with
Sir Robert Peel and free trade. The father was still one of the narrow-
minded class to whom reform of any kind was the spectre of "ruin to the
country." They were quite honest in the conviction that the people were
"born to be governed, and not to govern." They probably saw in the free
importation of foreign food the abrogation of rent.

In 1847 Mr. Bright was the candidate for Manchester, whom we of the old
Anti-Corn Law League supported. The interview I refer to was actuated
by our desire to avoid an undeserved opposition; Lord Lincoln retired,
however, owing mainly to other reasons, including that of the
intolerance of a body of Churchmen regarding popular education.

A long period of wretched health compelled me for several years to
consume what strength I had left in the ordinary routine of daily
business. And it was not until 1852 that any further intercourse of any
kind took place between us. In that year I published a little book
about the United States and Canada, the record of my first visit to
North America, in 1851. And, if I recollect rightly, I travelled with
the Duke in the spring of 1852, probably between Rugby and Derby, and
found him in possession of a copy of this little book, on which he had,
faute de mieux, spent half-a-crown at the book stall at Euston. He
recognised me; and it was my fault, and not his, that I saw no more of
him till 1857, by which time, no doubt, he had forgotten me. Still our
conversation in 1852 about America, and especially as to slavery, and
the probability of a separation of North and South, will always dwell
in my memory. Lord Lincoln had studied De Tocqueville; but he had not,
yet, seen America. He had, therefore, at that time many erroneous
views, which could only be corrected by the actual and personal
opportunity of seeing and measuring, on the spot, the country, which
always really means the people. This opportunity was given to him by
the visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States, in
1860. He accompanied the Prince in his capacity of Colonial Minister.

These casual glimpses of Lord Lincoln were followed by an interview
between us in 1857. In the meantime, it is true, he had had my name
brought before him during his term of office pending the Crimean War
Some one had suggested to the Government to send me out to the Crimea
to take charge of the Stores Department, at a time when all was
confusion and mess, out there, and I was asked to call on the Minister
about it. It seemed to me, however, a duty impossible of execution by a
civilian, unless the condition of "full powers" were conceded,--and the
matter came to nothing.

In 1856 I was the Manager of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire
Railway. In that year a reckless engine, travelling between Shireoaks
and Worksop, threw out some sparks, which set fire to the underwood of
one of the Duke's plantations--for he was then Duke--and he wrote to
the Chairman of the Railway, the then Earl of Yarborough, in what
appeared to me a very haughty manner. I therefore felt bound to defend
my chief, and I took up the quarrel. In a note addressed from the
Library of the House of Commons, I asked for an interview, which was
somewhat stiffly granted. This was the note which led to our
interview:--


                                      "CLUMBER,
                                        "1 Decr. 1856.

"MY DEAR YARBOROUGH,

"Instead of placing the enclosed extraordinary production in the hands
of my Solicitor, I think it best, in the first instance, to send it to
you as Chairman of the M. S. & L. Railway, because I cannot believe
that either its tone or its substance can have been authorized by the
Directors.

"I am sorry to say this is not the first piece of impertinence which I
have had to complain of in reference to the damage done to my woods by
the engines of the Company, and neither Mr. Foljambe nor I have had any
encouragement to treat the matter in the amicable spirit which we were
anxious to evince.

"The demands now made by the aggressors upon the party aggrieved is
simply preposterous, and, of course, will be treated as it deserves. We
shall next have the Company, or rather, as I hope and believe, the
Company's Solicitors, demanding us to cut all our corn within 100 yards
of the line before it becomes ripe, and consequently inflammable.

"Your Solicitor knows perfectly well that the Company is by law liable
for damage done to woods; and, moreover, that such damage is
preventible by proper care on the part of its servants.

"I think the Directors ought to order their Solicitor to write to me
and others, to whom so impertinent a letter has been addressed, and beg
to withdraw it, with an apology for having sent it.

"I am sorry to trouble you with this matter, because I feel that you
ought not to be troubled with business in your present state of health;
but as you are still the Chairman, I could not with propriety write to
any other person.

                                      "I am, my dear Yarborough,
                                        "Yours very sincerely,
                                          "NEWCASTLE.

"THE EARL OF YARBOROUGH, &c., &c."


Accordingly, I went to the mansion in Portman Square. I waited some
time; but at last in stalked the Duke, looking very awful indeed--so
stern and severe--that I could not help smiling, and saying--"The burnt
coppice, your Grace." Upon this he laughed, held out his hand, placed
me beside him, and we had a very long discussion, not about the fire,
but about the colliery he, then, was sinking--against the advice of
many of his friends in Sheffield--at Shireoaks; and when he had done
with that, we talked, once more, about Canada, the United States, and
the Colonies generally.

After this date, I had to see the Duke on business, more and more
frequently. The year after the Duke's return from Canada, in 1861, he
happened to read an article I had written in a London paper, hereafter
given, about opening up the Northern Continent of America by a Railway
across to the Pacific, and he spoke of it as embodying the views which
he had before expressed, as his own.

In 1854 Mr. Glyn and Mr. Thomas Baring had urged me to undertake a
mission to Canada on the business of the Grand Trunk Railway, which
mission I had been compelled to decline; and when, in 1860-1, the
affairs of that undertaking became dreadfully entangled, the Committee
of Shareholders, who reported upon its affairs, invited me to accept
the post of "Superintending Commissioner," with full powers. They
desired me to take charge of such legislative and other measures as
might retrieve the Company's disasters, so far as that might be
possible. Before complying with this proposal, I consulted the Duke,
and it was mainly under the influence of his warm concurrence that I
accepted the mission offered to me. I accepted it in the hope of being
able, not merely to serve the objects of the Shareholders of the Grand
Trunk, but that at the same time I might be somewhat useful in aiding
those measures of physical union contemplated when the Grand Trunk
Railway was projected, and which must precede any confederation of
interests, such as that happily crowned in 1867 by the creation of the
"Dominion of Canada."

I find that my general views were, some time before, epitomized in the
following letter. It is true that Mr. Baring, then President of the
Grand Trunk, did not, at first, accept my views; but he and Mr. Glyn
(the late Lord Wolverton) co-operated afterwards in all ways in the
direction those views indicated.


                                      "NORTHENDEN,
                                        "13_th November_, 1860.

"Some years ago Mr. Glyn (I think with the assent of Mr. Baring)
proposed to me to go out to Canada to conduct a negotiation with the
Colonial Government in reference to the Grand Trunk Railway. I was
compelled then, from pressure of other business, to refuse what at that
time would have been, to me, a very agreeable mission. Since then, I
have grown older, and somewhat richer; and not being dependent upon the
labour of the day, I should be very chary of increasing the somewhat
heavy load of responsibility and anxiety which I still have to bear. It
is doubtful, therefore, whether I could bring my mind to undertake so
arduous, exceptional--perhaps even doubtful--an engagement as that of
the 'restoration to life' of the Grand Trunk Railway.

"This line, both as regards its length, the character of its works, and
its alliances with third parties, is both too extensive, and too
expensive, for the Canada of to-day; and left, as it is, dependent
mainly upon the development of population and industry on its own line,
and upon the increase of the traffic of the west, it cannot be
expected, for years to come, to emancipate itself thoroughly from the
load of obligations connected with it.

"Again, the Colonial Government having really, in spite of all the
jobbery and political capital alleged to have been perpetrated and made
in connexion with this concern, made great sacrifices in its behalf, is
not likely, having got the Railway planted on its own soil, to be ready
to give much more assistance to this same undertaking.

"That the discipline and traffic of the line could be easily put upon a
sound basis, that that traffic could be vigorously developed, that the
expenses, except always those of repair and renewal, could be kept
down, and that friendly, and perhaps improving and more beneficial,
arrangements could be made with the local government--is matter, to me,
of little doubt. Any man thoroughly versed in railways and quite up to
business, and especially accustomed to the management of men and the
conduct of serious negotiation, could easily accomplish this. But after
all, unless I am very much deceived, all this will be insufficient, for
many years to come, to satisfy the Shareholders; and I should not
advise Mr. Glyn or Mr. Baring to tie their reputations to any man,
however able or experienced, if it involved a sort of moral guarantee
that the result of his appointment should be any very sudden
improvement, of a character likely much to raise the _value of the
property in the market_, which unfortunately is what the
Shareholders very naturally look at, as the test of everything.

"To work the Grand Trunk as a gradually improving property would, I
repeat, be easy; but to work it so as to produce _a great success_
in a few years can only, in my opinion, be done in one way. That way,
to many, would be chimerical; to some, incomprehensible; and possibly I
may be looked upon myself as somewhat visionary for even suggesting it.
That way, however, to my mind, lies through the extension of railway
communication to the Pacific.

"Try for one moment to realize China opened to British commerce: Japan
also opened: the new gold fields in our own territory on the extreme
west, and California, also within reach: India, our Australian
Colonies--all our eastern Empire, in fact, material and moral, and
dependent (as at present it too much is) upon an overland
communication, through a foreign state.

"Try to realize, again, assuming physical obstacles overcome, a main
through Railway, of which the first thousand miles belong to the Grand
Trunk Company, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific,
made just within--as regards the north-western and unexplored district
--the corn-growing latitude. The result to this Empire would be beyond
calculation; it would be something, in fact, to distinguish the age
itself; and the doing of it would make the fortune of the Grand Trunk.

"Assuming also, again I say, that physical obstacles can be overcome,
is not the time opportune for making a start? The Prince is just coming
home full of glowing notions of the vast territories he has seen: the
Duke of Newcastle has been with him--and he is Colonial Minister: there
is jealousy and uncertainty on all questions relating to the east,
coincident with an enormous development of our eastern relations,
making people all anxious, if they could, to get another way across to
the Pacific:--the new gold fields on the Frazer River are attracting
swarms of emigrants; and the public mind generally is ripe, as it seems
to me, for any grand and feasible scheme which could be laid before it.

"To undertake the Grand Trunk with the notion of gradually working out
some idea of this kind for it and for Canada, throws an entirely new
light upon the whole matter, and as a means to this end doubtless the
Canadian Government would co-operate with the Government of this
country, and would make large sacrifices for the Grand Trunk in
consequence. The enterprise could only be achieved by the co-operation
of the two Governments, and by associating with the Railway's
enterprise some large land scheme and scheme of emigration."



The visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the Maritime Provinces,
in 1860, had evoked the old feeling of loyalty to the mother country,
damaged as it had been by Republican vicinity, the entire change of
commercial relations brought about by free trade, and sectional
conflicts. And the Duke, at once startled by the underlying hostility
to Great Britain and to British institutions in the United States
--which even the hospitalities of the day barely cloaked--and gratified
beyond measure by the outbursts of genuine feeling on the part of the
colonists, was most anxious, especially while entrusted with the
portfolio of the Colonies, to strengthen and bind together all that was
loyal north of the United States boundary.

Walking with Mr. Seward in the streets of Albany, after the day's
shouts and ceremonies were over, Mr. Seward said to the Duke, "We
really do not want to go to war with you; and we know you dare not go
to war with us." To which the Duke replied, "Do not remain under such
an error. There is no people under Heaven from whom we should endure so
much as from yours; to whom we should make such concessions. You may,
while we cannot, forget that we are largely of the same blood. But once
touch us in our honour and you will very soon find the bricks of New
York and Boston falling about your heads." In relating this to me the
Duke added, "I startled Seward a good deal; but he put on a look of
incredulity nevertheless. And I do not think they believe we should
ever fight them; but we certainly should if the provocation were
strong." It will be remarked that this conversation between Seward and
the Duke was in 1860. That no one, then, expected a revolution from an
anti-slave-state election of President. Still less did the people, of
either England or the United States, dream of a divergence, consequent
on such an election, to end in a struggle, first for political power,
and then following, in providential order, for human freedom. A
struggle culminating in the entire subjection of the South, in 1865,
after four years' war--a struggle costing a million of lives, untold
human misery, and a loss in money, or money's worth, of over a thousand
millions sterling.

In our many conversations, I had always ventured to enforce upon the
Duke that the passion for territory, for space, would be found at the
bottom of all discussion with the United States. Give them territory,
not their own, and for a time you would appease them, while, still, the
very feast would sharpen their hunger. I reminded the Duke that General
Cass had said, "I have an awful swallow ('swaller' was his
pronunciation) for territory;" and all Americans have that "awful
swallow." The dream of possessing a country extending from the Pole to
the Isthmus of Panama, if not to Cape Horn, has been the ambition of
the Great Republic--and it is a dangerous ambition for the rest of the
world. We have seen its effects in all our treaties. We have always
been asked _for land_. We gave up Michigan after the war of 1812.
We gave up that noble piece, the "Aroostook" country, now part of the
State of Maine, under the Ashburton Treaty in 1841. We have, again,
been shuffled out of our boundary at St. Juan on the Pacific, under an
arbitration which really contained its own award. The Reciprocity
Treaty was put an end to, in 1866, by the United States, not because
the Great West--who may govern the Union if they please--did not want
it, but because the Great West was cajoled by the cunning East into
believing that a restriction of intercourse between the United States
and the British Provinces would, at last, force the subjects of the
Queen to seek admission into the Republic. So it was, and is and will
be; and the only way to prevent aggression and war was, is, and will
be, to "put our foot down." Not to cherish the "peace-in-our-time"
policy, or to indulge in the half-hearted language, to which I shall
have hereafter to allude--but to combine and strengthen the sections of
our Colonial Empire in the West--to give to their people a greater
Empire still, a nobler history, and a prouder lot: a lot to
_last_, because based upon institutions which have stood, and will
stand, the test of time and trouble. Unfortunately we have had a
"little England" party in our country. A Liberal Government,
immediately following the Act of Confederation, took every red-coat out
of the Dominion of Canada, shipped off, or sold, the very shot and
shell to any one, friend or foe, who chose to buy: and the few guns and
mortars Canada demanded were charged to her "in account" with the ruth
of the miser. If the Duke of Newcastle had been a member of that
Cabinet such a miserable policy never could have been put in force; but
he was _dead_. I venture to think that the whole people of
England, who knew of the transaction, were ashamed of it. Certainly, I
saw, a few years ago, that one member of the very Cabinet which did
this thing, repudiated the "little England" policy, as opposed to the
best traditions of the Liberal party.

The "little England" party of the past have tried, so far in vain, to
alienate these our fellow subjects. But, fortunately for the Empire,
while some in the mother country have been indifferent as to whether
the Provinces went or stayed, many in the Colonies have been earnest in
their desire to escape annexation to the States. The feeling of these
patriotic men was well described in December, 1862, by Lord
Shaftesbury, at a dinner given to Messrs. Howe, Tilley, Howland and
Sicotte, delegates from the Provinces of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia. He said Canada addressed us in the affecting language of Ruth
--"Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to refrain from following after
thee"--and he asked, "Whether the world had ever seen such a spectacle
as great and growing nations, for such they were, with full and
unqualified power to act as they pleased, insisting on devoting their
honor, strength, and substance to the support of the common mother; and
not only to be called, but to be, sons." And Lord Shaftesbury asked,
"Whether any imperial ruler had ever preferred," as he said Canada had,
"love to dominion, and reverence to power."

Lord Shaftesbury's sentiments are, I believe, an echo of those of the
"great England" party; but, I repeat, "little England" sold the shot
and shell, nevertheless.

Whatever this man or that may claim to have done towards building up
Confederation, I, who was in good measure behind the scenes throughout,
repeat that to the late Duke of Newcastle the main credit of the
measure of 1867 was due. While failing health and the Duke's premature
decease left to Mr. Cardwell and Mr. W. E. Forster--and afterwards to
Lord Carnarvon and the Duke of Buckingham--the completion of the work
before the English Parliament, it was he who stood in the gap, and
formed and moulded, with a patience and persistence admirable to
behold, Cabinet opinion both in England and in the Provinces. At the
same time George Etienne Cartier, John A. Macdonald, and John Ross, in
Canada; Samuel L. Tilley, in New Brunswick, and, notably, Joseph Howe,
in Nova Scotia, stood together for Union like a wall of brass. And
these should ever be the most prominent amongst the honoured names of
the authors of an Union of the Provinces under the British Crown.

The works, I repeat, to be effected were--first, the physical union of
the Maritime Provinces with Canada by means of Intercolonial Railways;
and, second, to get out of the way of any unification, the heavy weight
and obstruction of the Hudson's Bay Company. The; latter was most
difficult, for abundant reasons.

This difficult work rested mainly on my shoulders.

It may be well here to place in contrast the condition of the Provinces
in 1861 and of the Confederation in 1886. In 1861 each of the five
Provinces had its separate Governor, Parliament, Executive, and system
of taxation. To all intents and purposes, and notwithstanding the
functions of the Governor-General and the unity flowing from the
control of the British Crown--these Provinces, isolated for want of the
means of rapid transit, were countries as separate in every relation of
business, or of the associations of life, as Belgium and Holland, or
Switzerland and Italy. The associations of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia were far more intimate with the United States than with Canada;
and the whole Maritime Provinces regulated their tariffs, as Canada did
in return, from no consideration of developing a trade with each other,
or with the Canadas, between whose territory and the ocean these
Provinces barred the way. Thus, isolated and divided, it could be no
matter of wonder if their separate political discussions narrowed
themselves into local, sectional, and selfish controversies; and if,
while each possessing in their Legislature men in abundance who
deserved the title of sagacious and able statesmen, brilliant orators,
far-sighted men of business, their debates often reminded the stranger
who listened to them of the squabbles of local town councils. Again,
the Great Republic across their borders, with its obvious future,
offered with open arms, and especially to the young and ambitious, a
noble field, not shut in by winter or divided by separate governments.
Thus the gravitation towards aggregation--which seems to be a condition
of the progress of modern states--a condition to be intensified as
space is diminished by modern discoveries in rapid transit--was, in the
case of the Provinces, rather towards the United States than towards
each other or the British Empire. Thus there were, in 1860, many causes
at work to discourage the idea of Confederation. And it is by no means
improbable that the occurrence of the great Civil War destroyed this
tendency.

I remember an incident which occurred at a little dinner party which I
gave in Montreal, in September, 1861, to the delegates who assembled
there, after my visits, in response to the appeal just made to the
Governments of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, on the subject
of the Intercolonial Railway. It illustrates the personal isolation
alluded to above. The Honorable Joseph Howe, then Premier of Nova
Scotia, said, "We have been more like foreigners than fellow-subjects;
you do not know us, and we do not know you. There are men in this room,
who hold the destinies of this half of the Continent in their hands;
and yet we never meet, unless by some chance or other, like the visit
of the Prince of Wales, we are obliged to meet. I say," he added, "we
have done more good by a free talk over this table, to-night, than all
the Governors, general and local, could do in a year, if they did
nothing' but write despatches. Oh! if you fellows would only now and
then dine and drink with us fellows, we would make a great partnership
directly." And the great partnership has been made, save only that
Newfoundland still remains separate.

In Canada the divisions between the Upper and Lower Provinces were, in
1861, serious, and often acrimonious; for they were religious as well
as political. The rapid growth of Upper Canada, overtopping that of the
French-speaking and Catholic Lower Province, led to demands to upset
the great settlement of 1839, and to substitute for an equal
representation, such a redistribution of seats as would have followed
the numerical progression of the country. "Representation by
population"--shortly called "Rep. by Pop."--was the great cry of the
ardent Liberal or "Grit" party, at whose head was George Brown, of the
"Toronto Globe"--powerful, obstinate, Scotch, and Protestant, and with
Yankee leanings. In fact, the same principles were in difference as
those which evolved themselves in blood in the contest between the
North and South between 1861 and 1865. The minority desired to preserve
the power and independence which an equal share in parliamentary
government had given them. The majority, mainly English and Scotch, and
largely Protestant and Presbyterian, chafed under what they deemed to
be the yoke of a non-progressive people; a people content to live in
modest comfort, to follow old customs, and obey old laws; to defer to
clerical authority, and to preserve their separate national identity
under the secure protection of a strong Empire. Indeed, it is
difficult, in 1886, to realise the heat, or to estimate the danger, of
the discussion of this question; and more than one "Grit" politician,
whom I could name, would be startled if we reminded him of his opinion
in 1861,--that the question would be "settled by a civil war" if it
"could not be settled peaceably," but that "settled it must be--and
soon."

The cure for this dangerous disease was to provide, for all, a bigger
country--a country large enough to breed large ideas. There is a career
open in the boundless resources of a varied land for every reasonable
ambition, and the young men of Canada, which possesses an excellent
educational machinery, may now look forward to as noble, if not more
noble, an inheritance than their Republican neighbours--an inheritance
where there is room for 100,000,000 of people to live in freedom,
comfort, and happiness. While progress will have its periodical checks,
and periodical inflations, there is no reason to doubt that before the
next century ends the "Dominion," if still part of the Empire, will--in
numbers--outstrip the present population of the British Islands.

Now, in 1886, all this past antagonism of "Rep. by Pop." is forgotten.
Past and gone. A vast country, rapidly augmenting in population and
wealth, free from any serious sectional controversy, free, especially,
from any idea of separation, bound together under one governing
authority, with one tariff and one system of general taxation, has
exhibited a capacity for united action, and for self-government and
mutual defence, admirable to behold.


CHAPTER II.

_Towards the Pacific--Liverpool to Quebec._


Leaving Liverpool at noon of the 2nd September, 1886, warping out of
the dock into the river--a long process--we arrived, in the fine screw
steamer "Sardinian," of the Allan line, off Moville, at five on the
following morning; and we got out of the inlet at five in the
afternoon, after receiving mails and passengers. It may be asked, why a
delay of twelve hours at Moville? The answer is--the Bar at Liverpool.
The genius and pre-vision of the dock and harbour people at Liverpool
keep the entrance to that port in a disgraceful condition, year after
year--year after year. And the trade of Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Cheshire, and Derbyshire, is compelled to depend upon a sand-bar, over
which, at low tide, there is eight feet of water only. Such a big ship
as "The Sardinian" can cross the bar in two short periods, or twice in
the twenty-four hours, over a range, probably, of three or four hours.
On my return home I wrote the following letter about this bar to "The
Times":--


"THE BAR AT LIVERPOOL.

"SIR,--You inserted some time ago in 'The Times' a letter from
Professor Ramsay detailing the troubles arising to travellers from the
other side of the Atlantic, owing to shallow water outside the entrance
to Liverpool, and you enforced the necessity of some improvement, in a
very able article. Professor Ramsay was at that time returning from the
meeting of the British Association, held in the Dominion of Canada.

"Still, while time goes on, and the question becomes more and more
urgent, the bar, with its eight feet of water at low tide, remains as
it was, save that some navigators contend that it grows worse.

"Yesterday 340 passengers, of whom I was one, by the noble Cunard ship
'The Etruria,' experienced the difficulty in all its varieties of
trouble.

"After rushing through very heavy seas and against violent winds for
three or four days, we cast anchor a good way outside the bar at 5
o'clock yesterday (Sunday) morning. The weather was too rough for the
fine tug-boat, 'The Skirmisher,' to come so far out. So, after swinging
about till 10 o'clock, we moved slowly on, crossed the bar about half-
past 11, and were off the northernmost dock later on. Here the usual
process of hauling the ship round by the aid of the tug took place, and
then the further process of putting the baggage on board the tug, in
advance of taking the passengers. I was fortunate in being taken off
the ship in a special tug-boat by some friends, got to the landing-
stage, where the baggage is examined by the Customs, and, a carriage
waiting for me, was at the Central Station at Liverpool at one o'clock.
But, with all these comfortable arrangements, I had lost at least seven
hours, and had missed all morning trains. The other passengers, I fear,
did not get through for two or three hours later, and those for London
would be lucky if they just caught the 4 o'clock train.

"It would not, I am told, be prudent to take a ship of the size and
draught of 'The Etruria' over the bar till two hours before high water
on a flowing, and one hour after on an ebbing, tide. Thus, for such a
ship--and the tendency is to build larger and larger vessels--the
margin, even in moderate weather, is probably three hours out of the
twenty-four, or, in other words, exclusion from the port for twenty-one
hours out of the twenty-four, more or less.

"Lancashire will soon have to say whether its manufactures and commerce
are to be tied to the bar at Liverpool; and, in the new competition of
ports, a port open at any time of tide must ultimately draw the trade
and traffic.

"Before the Committee of the House of Commons, on Harbour
Accommodation, on which Committee I had the honour to sit, it was
proved that every country in Europe, having a sea-board, was making and
improving deep-water harbours,--except England.

"Take the case of Antwerp, which is already attracting traffic to and
from the great British possessions themselves by reason of its great
facilities.

"Liverpool is a place where the dogma of absolute perfection is
accepted as a religion. But some of us may be pardoned if, in both
local and national interests, we must be dissenters.

"That the bar may be made better instead of growing worse is obvious.
But the great cure is by cutting through the peninsula of Birkenhead
and obtaining a second entrance to the Mersey, always accessible, and
obviously alternative. This was the advice of Telford seventy years
ago, and 'The Times' has called public attention to a practical way of
working out the Telford idea, planned by Mr. Baggallay, C.E., and laid
before the Liverpool authorities--in vain.

"I may add that if our ship had called at Holyhead, the London
passengers might have left Holyhead on Saturday evening instead of
Liverpool on Sunday afternoon, a difference of a day.

                              "I beg to remain very faithfully yours,
                                "EDWARD W. WATKIN.
"Northenden, _Oct_. 18, 1886."


Some Liverpool cotton broker wrote to me to say that I had forgotten
that there were two tides in the twenty-four hours. Nothing of the
kind. There was one word miswritten, and, therefore, misprinted, which
I have corrected: but the broad fact remains, and why my compatriots in
the broad Lancashire district do not see the danger, I cannot
comprehend, unless it be that some of them are up in the "Ship Canal"
balloon, and others, the best of them, are indifferent.

Steaming along, after leaving Moville, we passed Tory Island, the scene
of many wrecks, and of disasters around. It has a lighthouse, but no
telegraphic communication with the shore at all.

I wrote a letter about that to the Editor of the "Standard." Here it
is:--

"TORY ISLAND.

"SIR,--Newspapers are not to be had here, but as this good ship is only
a week out from Liverpool, and five days from out of sight of land to
sight of land, I may fairly assume that Parliament is still discussing
Irish questions.

"Thus I ask your indulgence to make reference to a question which is
decidedly Irish, but is also Imperial, in the sense that it affects the
lives of large numbers of persons, especially of the emigrant class,
and is interesting to all the navigation and commerce of necessity
passing the north-west extremity of Ireland.

"If your readers will refer to the map they will see, outside the
north-west corner of the mainland of Ireland, Tory Island. It was on
Tory Island that 'The Wasp' and her gallant captain were lost, without
hope of rescue, for want of cable communication; and Tory Island itself
has excited the interest of the philanthropist on many occasions. On
Tory Island there is a lighthouse, with a fixed light, which can be
seen sixteen miles. Not long ago, as I learn, a deputation from the
Board of Irish Lighthouses went all the way to England to beg the Board
of Trade, at Whitehall, to sanction the expenditure of eight hundred
pounds, with a view to double the power of the light on Tory Island.
Perhaps the Board of Trade, after some interval of time, may see their
way to do what any man of business would decide upon in five minutes as
obvious and essential. But that is not the point I wish to lay before
you. My point is, that while the lighthouse on Tory Island is good for
warning ships, and may, as above, be made more effective, no use is
made of it in the way of transmitting ship intelligence.

"I ask, therefore, to be allowed to advocate the connection of Tory
Island, by telegraph cable, with the mainland of Ireland and its
telegraph system. The cost of doing this one way would, as I estimate,
be two thousand five hundred pounds; the cost of doing it another way
would be about six thousand pounds.

"The first way would be by a cable from the lighthouse on Tory Island,
leaving either Portdoon Bay, on the east end of Tory Island, or leaving
Camusmore Bay on the south of it, and landing either on the sandy beach
at Drumnafinny Point, or at Tramore Bay, where there is a similarly
favourable beach. The distance in the former case is six and a half, in
the latter seven and a half miles, the distance being slightly affected
by the starting point selected. Adopting this route at a cost of two
thousand five hundred pounds, which would include about twenty miles of
cheap land telegraphs, available for postal and other local purposes,
would be the shortest and cheapest mode.

"The second way would be to lay a cable from Tory Island to Malin Head,
where the Allan Steamship Company have a signal station. The distance
is twenty-nine miles; the cost, as I estimate, about six thousand
pounds. I should, however, prefer the former and cheaper plan, as I
think it would serve a larger number of purposes and interests.

"From Portdoon Bay, on Tory Island, to Tramore Bay the sea-bottom is
composed of sand and shells, very good for cable-laying; and there is a
depth of water of from seventeen to nineteen fathoms.

"Tory Island is the turning point--I might say pivot point--for all
steam and sailing vessels coming from the South and across the Western
Ocean, and using the North of Ireland route for Liverpool, Londonderry,
Belfast, Glasgow, and a host of other ports and places. It can be
approached with safety at a distance of half-a-mile, near the
lighthouse, as the water is deep close to, there being twenty fathoms
at a distance of one-third of a mile from the Island.

"The steamers of all the Canadian lines pass this point--the Allan, the
Beaver, the Anchor, the Dominion--while all the steam lines beginning
and ending at Glasgow, Greenock, and other Scotch ports do the same.
Again, all sailing vessels, carrying a great commerce for Liverpool and
ports up to Greenock and Glasgow, and round the north of Scotland to
Newcastle and the East Coast ports, would be largely served by this
proposal. Repeating that this is a question of saving life and of
aiding navigation at an infinitesimal cost, I will now proceed to show
the various benefits involved.

"First of all it would save five hours, as compared with present plans,
in signalling information of the passing to and fro of steamships. As
respect all Canadian and many other steamers it would also expedite the
mails, by enabling the steam tenders at Loch Foyle to come out and meet
the ships outside at Innishowen Head; and this gain of time would often
save a tide across the bar at Liverpool, and sometimes a day to the
passengers going on by trains. As respects the Scotch steamers going
north of Tory Island, it would enable the owners to learn the
whereabouts of their vessels fourteen hours sooner than at present. In
the case of sailing ships the advantages are far greater. Captain
Smith, of this ship, a commander of deserved eminence, informs me that
he has known sailing ships to be tacking about at the entrance of the
Channel, between the Mull of Cantyre and the north coast of Ireland,
for eighteen days in adverse and dangerous winds, unable to communicate
with their owners, who, if informed by telegraph, could at once send
tugs to their relief. Again, when eastern winds prevail, in the spring
of the year, tugs being sent, owners would get their ships into port
many days, or even weeks, sooner than at present.

"But it needs no arguing that to all windbound and to disabled ships
the means of thus calling for assistance would be invaluable.

"For the above reason I hope the slight cost involved will not be
grudged, especially by our patriots, who have taken the Irish and
Scotch emigrants under their special protection. I respectfully invite
them and every one else to aid in protecting life and property in this
obvious way.

                                 "I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
                                   "E. W. WATKIN.
"S.S. Sardinian, off Belle Isle,
  "_September_ 9, 1886."



Our voyage on to Quebec had the usual changes of weather: hot sun, cold
winds, snow, hail, icebergs, and gales of wind, and, when nearing Belle
Isle, dense fog, inducing our able, but prudent, captain to stop his
engines till daylight, when was sighted a wall of ice across our track
at no great distance. Captain Smith prefers to take the north side of
Belle Isle. There is a lighthouse on the Island, not, I thought, in a
very good situation for passing on the north side. But I found that
there was no cable communication between Belle Isle and Anticosti.
Thus, in case of disaster, the only warning to Quebec would be the non-
arrival of the ship, and the delay might make help too late. I ventured
to call the attention of a leading member of the Canadian Government to
this want of means of sending intelligence of passing ships and ships
in distress. In winter this strait is closed by ice, and the
lighthouses are closed too. Inside the fine inlet of "Amour Bay," a
natural dock, safe and extensive, we saw the masts of a French man-of-
war. The French always protect their fishermen; we at home usually let
them take care of themselves. This French ship had been in these
English waters some time; and on a recent passage there was gun-firing,
and the movement of men, to celebrate, as the captain learned, the
taking of the Bastille. On the opposite coast is a little cove, in
which a British ship got ashore, and was stripped by the local pirates
of everything. Captain Smith took off the crew and reported the piracy;
but nothing seems to have been done. A British war-ship is never seen
in these distant and desolate northern regions. It may well be that the
sparse population think all the coasts still belong to France, in
addition to the Isles of St. Pierre and Miquelon. This is how our navy
is managed. Can it be true that the Marquis of Lorne recommended that
an ironclad should be sent to Montreal for a season, as an emblem of
British power and sway--and was refused?

After some trouble with fog and wind, preceded by a most remarkable
Aurora Borealis, and some delay at night at Rimouska, we reached
Quebec, and got alongside at Point Levi, on the afternoon of Saturday,
the 11th September; and I had great pleasure in meeting my old friend
Mr. Hickson, who came down to meet Mrs. Hickson and his son and
daughter, fellow-passengers of mine. I also at once recognized Dr.
Rowand, the able medical officer of the Port of Quebec, who I had not
set eyes on for twenty-four years. I stayed the night at Russell's
Hotel; and next day renewed my acquaintance with the city, finding the
"Platform" wonderfully enlarged and improved, the work of Lord
Dufferin, a new and magnificent Courthouse being built, and, above all,
an immense structure of blue-grey stone, intended for the future
Parliament House of the Province of Quebec. The facility of borrowing
money in England on mere provincial, or town, security, appears to be a
Godsend to architects and builders, and to aid and exalt local ambition
for fine, permanent structures. Well, the buildings remain. To find the
grand old fortifications of Quebec in charge of a handful of Canadian
troops, seemed strange. Such fortresses belong to the Empire; and the
Queen's redcoats should hold them all round the world. I was told--I
hope it is not true--that the extensive works above Point Levi,
opposite Quebec, constructed by British military labour, are
practically abandoned to decay and weeds.


CHAPTER III.

_To the Pacific--Montreal to Port Moody_.


On the evening of the 12th September I left Quebec by the train for
Montreal, and travelled over the "North Shore" line of 200 miles. One
of the secretaries of the Vice-President of the Canadian Pacific, Mr.
Van Horn, called upon me to say that accommodation was reserved for me
in the train; and that Mr. Van Horn was sending down his own car, which
would meet me half way. It was no use protesting against the non-
necessity of such luxurious treatment. I was further asked, if I had
"got transportion?" which puzzled me. But I found, being interpreted,
the question was modern American for "Have you got your through
ticket?" I replied, that I had paid my fare right through from
Liverpool to Vancouver's Island--as every mere traveller for his own
pleasure ought to do; and I was remonstrated with for so unkind a
proceeding, as the fact of my having been President of the Grand Trunk
was of itself a passport all over Canada.

At Three Rivers, about half way, while reading by very good light--good
lamp, excellent oil, very good trimming--there was some shunting of the
train, and the usual "bang" of the attachment of a carriage. A moment
afterwards Mr. Van Horn's car steward entered, and asked if I was Sir
Edward Watkin; and he guessed I must come into Mr. Van Horn's car, sent
specially down for me. Where was my baggage? I need not say that I was
soon removed from the little, beautifully-fitted, drawing-room into
this magnificent car. In passing through, I heard some growls, in
French, about stopping the train, and sending a car for one "Anglais."
So, on being settled in the new premises, I sent my compliments,
stating that I only required one seat, and that I was certain that the
car was intended for the general convenience, and would they do me the
favour to finish their journey in it? I received very polite replies,
stating that every one was very comfortable where he was. One
Englishman, however, came in to make my acquaintance, but left me soon.
I now became acquainted with Mr. Van Horn's car steward--James French,
or, as his admirers call him, "Jim"--and I certainly wish to express my
gratitude to him for his intelligence, thoughtfulness, admirable
cookery, and general good nature. He took me, a few days later, right
across to the Pacific in this same car, which certainly was a complete
house on wheels--bedroom, "parlour, kitchen and all." His first
practical suggestion was, would I take a little of Mr. Van Horn's "old
Bourbon" whisky? It was "very fine, first rate." On my assenting, he
asked would I take it "straight," as Mr. Van Horn did, or would I have
a little seltzer water? I elected the latter, at the same time
observing, that when I neared the Rocky Mountains perhaps I should have
improved my ways so much that I could take it "straight" also.

At Montreal, my old friend and aforetime collaborateur, Mr. Joseph
Hickson, met me and took me home with him; and in his house, under the
kind and generous care of Mrs. Hickson, I spent three delightful days,
and renewed acquaintance with many old friends of times long passed. It
was on the 28th December, 1861, that Mr. Hickson first went to Canada
in the Cunard steamer "Canada" from Liverpool. He was accompanied by
Mr. Watkin, our only son, a youth of 15, anxious to see the bigger
England. Mr. Watkin afterwards entered the service (Grand Trunk), in
the locomotive department, at Montreal, and deservedly gained the
respect of his superior officer, who had to delegate to Mr. Watkin,
then under 18, the charge of a thousand men. There were, also, Howson,
Wright, Wainwright, and Barker; subsequently, Wallis. Mr. John Taylor,
who acted as my private secretary in my previous visit, I had left
behind, much to his distress at the time, much for his good afterwards.
Mr. Barker is now the able manager of the Buenos Ayres Great Southern
Railway, a most prosperous undertaking; and poor dear, big, valiant,
hard-working Wallis is, alas! no more: struck down two years ago by
fever. These old friends, still left in Canada, are leading honorable,
useful, and successful lives, respected by the community. To see them
again made it seem as if the world had stood still for a quarter of a
century. Then, again, there was my old friend and once colleague, the
Honble. James Ferrier, a young-minded and vigorous man of 86: who, on
my return to Montreal, walked down to the grand new offices of the
Grand Trunk, near Point St. Charles--offices very much unlike the old
wooden things I left behind, and which were burnt down--to see me and
walked back again. Next day I had the advantage of visiting the
extensive workshops and vast stock yards of the Canadian Pacific, at
Hochelaga, to the eastward of Montreal, and of renewing my acquaintance
with the able solicitor of the Company, Mr. Abbot, and with the
secretary, an old Manchester man, Mr. Drinkwater. Then on the following
day Mr. Peterson, the engineer of this section of the Canadian Pacific
Company, drove me out to Lachine, and took me by his boat, manned by
the chief and a crew of Indians, to see the finished piers and also the
coffer-dams and works of the new bridge over the St. Lawrence, by means
of which his Company are to reach the Eastern Railways of the United
States, without having to use the great Victoria Bridge at Montreal.
This bridge, of 1,000 yards, or 3,000 feet, in length, is a remarkable
structure. It was commenced in May and intended to be finished in
November. But the foundations of the central pier, in deep and doubtful
water, were not begun, though about to begin, and this, as it appeared
to me, might delay the work somewhat. The work is a fine specimen of
engineering, by which I mean the adoption of the simplest and cheapest
mode of doing what is wanted. All the traffic purposes required are
here secured in a few months, and for about 200,000_l_. only.

The "Victoria" bridge at Montreal is a very different structure. A long
sheet-iron box, 9,184 feet in length, with 26 piers 60 feet above the
water level, and costing from first to last 2,000,000_l_.
sterling. The burning of coal had begun to affect it; but Mr.
Haunaford, the chief engineer of the Grand Trunk, has made some
openings in the roof, which do not in any way reduce the strength of
the bridge, and at the same time get rid of, at once into the air, the
sulphurous vapours arising from coal combustion.

Mr. Peterson told me that their soundings in winter showed that ice
thickened and accumulated at the bottom of the river. This would seem,
at first sight, impossible. But experiment, Mr. Peterson said, had
proved the fact, which was accounted for by scientific people in
various and, in some cases, conflicting ways. May it not be that the
accumulation is ice from above, loaded with earth or stones, which,
sinking to the bottom by gravity, coagulates from the low temperature
it produces itself? Mr. Peterson is not merely an engineer, and an
excellent one, but an observant man of business. His views upon the
all-important question of colonising the unoccupied lands of the
Dominion seemed to be wise and far-sighted. He would add to the
homestead grants of land, an advance to the settler--a start, in fact
--of stock and material, to be repaid when final title to the property,
were given.

Taking leave of my old friends, I left Montreal at 8 p.m. on the night
of September 15th, in the ordinary "Pacific Express," on which was
attached Mr. Van Horn's car, in charge of James French. I went by
ordinary train because I was anxious to have an experience of the
actual train-working. Mr. Edward Wragge, C.E., of Toronto, an able
engineer of great experience, located now at Toronto, has sent me so
concise an account of the journey of this train, and of the general
engineering features of the line, that, anticipating his kind
permission, I venture to copy it:--

"Leaving Montreal in Mr. Van Horn's car, the 'Saskatchewan,' by the 8
p.m. train on the 15th September, we passed Ottawa at 11.35 p.m.

"During the night we ran over that portion of the Canadian Pacific
Railway which was formerly called the Canada Central Railway, and
reached Callander (344 miles from Montreal), the official eastern
terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, at 8.30 a.m. 13 miles from
this, at Thorncliff is the junction with the Northern and Pacific
Junction Railway, which forms the connection with Toronto and Western
Ontario, being distant from Toronto 227 miles. At North Bay, which is a
divisional terminus, the line touches Lake Nipissing, where there is a
flourishing settlement, the land being of a fair quality. The line is
laid with steel rails, about 56 lbs. to the lineal yard, and with ties
about 2,640 to the mile. For the first 60 or 70 miles from Callander
the line is ballasted entirely by sand, and, with the exception of a
few settlements, is entirely without fencing. Most of the bridges are
of timber; but there are one or two of the larger ones of iron or
steel, with masonry abutments.

"At Sudbury is the junction with the Algama Branch, not yet opened for
traffic. This is 443 miles from Montreal. After leaving Sudbury the
character of the country changes, and is alternately swampy and wild
rocky land. Numerous large trestles are necessary, which will
eventually be filled in with culverts and earthwork. The schedule
running time of the trains along this portion of the line is 24 miles
per hour, including stoppages.

"At 8 p.m. Chapleau, another divisional terminus, was reached, and the
schedule running time during the night from that point to Heron Bay,
reached at 5.15 a.m. the following morning, is 20 miles an hour. At
Heron Bay (802 miles from Montreal) the north shore of Lake Superior is
first touched, and the line runs along it to Port Arthur, a distance of
993 miles from Montreal. The scenery here is very wild and picturesque.
At one time the line runs along the face of the rock, with the lake
from 50 to 100 feet below, the road-bed being benched out on the cliff,
and at another time is away back among barren hills and rocks, crossing
several large streams (with either bridges of iron and masonry or
timber trestle work), which streams flow into the lake at the north end
of deep indentations or arms of the lake. The line through this
district is winding, having many sharp curves and steep grades. There
are several short tunnels, all of them through rock, and not lined. The
schedule time for trains on this portion of the line is 16 miles per
hour. We were detained some little time near Jack Fish, owing to a
slight land slide coming down in one of the cuttings.

"The Nepigon River is crossed at a high level with a steel trussed
bridge, masonry piers and abutments, and there is an old Hudson's Bay
settlement on the river a short distance above the bridge. Between
Nepigon and Port Arthur the line runs through a country much more
accessible for railways, and the schedule time here is at the rate of
24 miles an hour. We reached Port Arthur at 4 p.m. on the 17th. This is
a flourishing town, situated at the head of Thunder Bay, a large bay on
the north shore of Lake Superior, and has a population of four or five
thousand at the present time. From the north shore of Lake Nipissing to
this point, however, a distance of over 600 miles, the country may be
said to be almost without inhabitants, except those connected with the
working of the railway, squatters, and Hudson's Bay trappers and
traders. The weather was chilly during the evening of this day, and a
heavy sleet storm arose before arriving at Port Arthur. At night a fire
had to be lighted in the car, as there was a sharp frost. During the
night the train was detained for some little time east of Rat Portage,
in consequence of a trestle having given way while being pulled in, and
the train arrived at Rat Portage at 7.30 a.m., four hours, behind time.

"From Port Arthur the line westward is run upon the 24 o'clock system,
commencing from midnight; 1 p.m. being 13 o'clock, 2 p.m. being 14
o'clock, and so on. The train arrived at Winnipeg at 12.45 on the 18th
(1,423 miles from Montreal), and time was allowed to drive round the
town, the train leaving again for the west at 13.30 o'clock. From
Winnipeg westward the line runs through a prairie country, which
extends without intermission to Calgary, a distance of 838 miles, and
2,261 from Montreal. At Winnipeg the Company have good machine shops,
round houses, &c., and a large yard, and has acquired 132 acres of land
for these purposes of working and repair and renewal.

"The country for three or four hundred miles from Winnipeg west is more
or less settled; in some parts farms are quite numerous, and the land
good and well cultivated. At Portage la Prairie the Manitoba and North-
Western Line leaves the Canadian Pacific. It is being rapidly pushed
forward, and 120 miles of it have already been completed through the
'Fertile belt.' It should have been mentioned that the line between
Port Arthur and Winnipeg, a length of 430 miles, was constructed by the
Government of Canada and given to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company
free as a portion of their system. This part of the line is laid with
57 lbs. steel rails, and is well ballasted. The line is also ballasted
east of Port Arthur, though in some places the ballast is of poor
quality, and in others there is not sufficient of it. West of Winnipeg,
however, there is no ballast across the prairie, except where the
excavations through which the line goes afford ballast, it being simply
surfaced up from side ditches with whatever the material may happen to
be; but it is in good condition for a line of such a character, and the
schedule time is 24 miles an hour, including stoppages.

"The train ran through Qu'Appelle, Regina, and Moose Jaw during the
night of the 18th, and reached Dunmore (650 miles from Winnipeg) at
15.30 o'clock on the 19th. At this point there is a branch, 3-feet
gauge line, 110 miles in length, to the Lethbridge mines, belonging to
Sir Alexander Galt & Company. His son, Mr. Galt, met us at Dunmore, and
invited us to go and inspect the mines, but as it would have made a
delay of at least one day, the idea had regretfully to be abandoned.
The train reached Bassano (750 miles from Winnipeg) at 19 o'clock, our
time, having made up 3 hours and 20 minutes since leaving Winnipeg,
which was the time late leaving there. The train was then exactly 97
hours since leaving Montreal, having travelled 2,180 miles, an average
speed, including all stoppages and delays, of 22-1/2 miles an hour.

"During the night of the 19th and the early morning of the 20th, the
train ran through Calgary, at the foothills of the Atlantic slope of
the Rocky Mountains; and at 5.30 on the 20th arrived at the summit of
the Rocky Mountains. As it was just daylight we were enabled to see the
scenery at that point and Kicking Horse Pass. From the summit of the
Rocky Mountains, for some nine miles, the line is considered to be
merely a temporary one, though permanently and strongly constructed,
there being a grade for two or three miles of it of 4-1/2 feet per
hundred, say 1 in 22-1/2. There are several catch sidings on this
grade, running upwards on the slopes of the mountains, for trains or
cars to be turned into, in the event of a break loose or run away, and
a man is always in attendance at the switches leading to these sidings.
All this day the train ran through mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the
Selkirk Range, and Eagle Pass. With the exception of the steep grade
mentioned, the ruling ones are 116 feet to the mile, and there are
numerous sharp curves, usually to save short tunnels. The line,
however, is in some parts well ballasted, and work is still going on in
this direction. The rails are of steel, 70 lbs. to the yard, and the
locomotives, of the "Consolidation" pattern, with eight driving wheels,
are able, Mr. Marpole, the able divisional superintendent, stated, to
take a train of 12 loaded cars over the ruling grades, two of them
being required for the same load on the steep grade already mentioned
at Kicking Horse Pass. Mr. Marpole stopped the train at the Stony Creek
Bridge, a large timber structure 296 feet high, and said to be the
highest wooden bridge in America. The scenery through the Selkirks is
magnificent, the mountain peaks being six and seven thousand feet above
the level of the railway, many of them even at this season of the year
covered with snow, and there being several large glaciers.

"During last year, before the line was opened for traffic, observations
were taken with the view of ascertaining what trouble might be
anticipated from avalanches, the avalanch paths through the Selkirks
being very numerous. Several large avalanches occurred, the largest
covering the track for a length of 1,300 feet, with a depth in one
place of 50 feet of snow, and containing, as was estimated, a quarter
of a million cubic yards of snow and earth. The result of these
observations caused the Company to construct during this season four-
and-a-half miles of snow sheds, at a cost of $900,000, or $200,000 a
mile.

"The sheds are constructed as follows:--On the high side of the
mountain slope a timber crib filled with stones is constructed. Along
the entire length of the shed, and on the opposite side of the track, a
timber trestle is erected, strong timber beams are laid from the top of
the cribwork to the top of the trestle, 4 feet apart and at an angle
representing the slope of the mountain, as nearly as possible. These
are covered over with 4-inch planking, and the beams are strutted on
either side from the trestle and from the crib. The covering is placed
at such a height as to give 21 feet headway from the under side of the
beam to the centre of the track. The longest of these sheds is 3,700
feet, and is near the Glacier Hotel.

"Over the Selkirk Range the schedule time for trains from Donald to
Revelstoke, that is, from the first to the second crossing of the
Columbia River, a distance of 79 miles, is only eleven miles an hour;
but this time table was made before there was much ballast on this
portion of the line, and better time can now be made. On the 21st
September the Fraser River was crossed early in the morning over a
steel cantilever bridge, and the line runs down the gorge of the Fraser
River to Port Moody, reached at noon. The train had thus been
travelling from 8 p.m. on the 15th September to 12 noon on the 21st,
apparently a total of 136 hours; but, allowing for the gain of three
hours in time, an actual total of 139 hours. During this time the train
travelled 2,892 miles, or an average speed made throughout the journey,
including all stoppages, of 20-1/2 miles per hour, and this is the
regular schedule time for passenger trains at the present time.

"Port Moody is the present terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway,
but the line has been partially graded for 12 miles further to
Vancouver. Owing, however, to the hostile attitude of some landowners,
the Company have not been able to complete this work, as the contention
has been made that, although the Company have power to build branches,
an extension of the main line is not a branch, and the Company will
have to obtain legislation before this can be done. Vancouver at the
present time is said to have a population of about 3,000. It is
situated at Burrard Inlet, a mile or so inside what are called the
First Narrows, but the neck of land on which it is situate is only
about a mile across; and in the future, when the town grows, English
Bay, which is outside the Narrows, can easily be made the harbour in
preference to the present one, as it is fairly well sheltered, and
affords good anchorage.

"The trip down Burrard Inlet, the Straits of Georgia, and through the
San Juan Archipelago to Victoria, a distance of about 90 miles from
Port Moody, occupied 9-1/2 hours, and Victoria was reached at 10.30 on
the night of the 21st September."

To this memorandum I may add a few words. First, in praise of the
excellent rolling stock; secondly, of the good discipline and smartness
of the service; and, thirdly, of the wonderful energy, boldness, and
success of the whole engineering features of this grand work of modern
times. I should be ungrateful if I did not thank the chief officers of
the Canadian Pacific, whose acquaintance I had great pleasure in
making, for their exceeding kindness, for the full information they
afforded to me, and for showing me many cheap, short, and ready plans
of construction, which might well be adopted in Europe. These gentlemen
have looked at difficulties merely in respect to the most summary way
of surmounting them; and, certainly, the great and bold works around
the head of Lake Superior, the many river and ravine crossings of
unusual span and height, and, especially, the works of the 600 miles of
mountain country between Calgary and the last summit of British
Columbia, so successfully traversed, would make the reputation of a
dozen Great George Streets.


CHAPTER IV.

_Canadian Pacific Railways_.


The pioneer suggestion of a railway across British territory to the
Pacific has been claimed by many. To my mind, all valuable credit
attaches to those who have completed the work. The christening of "La
Chine"--the town seven miles from Montreal, where the canals which go
round the rapids end, and the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa rivers join
their differently coloured streams--contained the prophecy of a future
great high road to the then mysterious East, to China, to Japan, to
Australia; and it is to the Sieur de la Salle, who, 200 years ago,
bought lands above the rapids from the Sulpician Fathers of Montreal,
and began his many attempts to reach the lands of the "setting sun,"
that we owe the name; while the resolution of Sir Charles Tupper,
carried in the Dominion Parliament, finally embodied in an Act which
received the Royal assent on the 17th February, 1881, and was opposed
throughout by the "Grit" party, was really the practical start. It
would be inadequate to write of the Great Canadian Pacific Railway
without some reference to the history of railways in Canada itself.

In the interesting book, "Rambles on Railways," published in 1868, it
is remarked that great as has been the progress of Canada, in no
respect has the growth of the country shown itself in a more marked
manner than in the development of its railway system. It was in 1848,
or almost immediately after the completion of the magnificent canal
system of Canada proper, and by which vessels of 800 tons could pass
from the ocean to Lake Ontario, and _vice versa_ (ships now pass
from Chicago to Liverpool of over 1,500 tons burthen), that the
Canadians discovered it was necessary, notwithstanding their unrivalled
inland navigation, to combine with it an equally good railway
communication; and accordingly, in 1849, an Act was passed by the
Canadian Government pledging a six per cent. guarantee on one-half the
cost of all railways made under its provisions. In 1852, however, the
Government, fearing the effect of an indiscriminate guarantee, repealed
the law of 1849, and passed an Act guaranteeing one-half of the cost of
one main Trunk line of railway throughout the Province, and it was
under this Act that the Grand Trunk Railway was projected.

These terms were subsequently modified, by granting a fixed sum of
3,000_l_. per mile of railway forming part of the main Trunk line.
It is true that prior to these dates railways existed in Canada. There
was, for example, the horse railway from La Prairie, nine miles above
Montreal, to St. John's on the Richelieu River, opened in July, 1836,
and first worked with locomotives in 1837; there was also a horse
railway between Queenstown and Chippewa, passing Niagara, opened in
1839, and over which I travelled in 1851; but with these exceptions,
and the Lachine Railway, a line running from Montreal for seven miles
to the westward, the railway system of Canada cannot be said to have
commenced until after the passing of the Railway Act in 1849, and even
then, it was not for about a year that any progress was made. Soon
after that date, however, the works of several lines were pushed
forward, and in 1854 the section between Montreal and Quebec was
opened, the first train having carried Lord Elgin, who was then _en
route_ to England to confer with the home authorities respecting the
future Reciprocity Treaty with the United States Government. So, whilst
in 1852, Canada could only boast of about 30 miles of railway, she has
now over 10,000 miles. The population of the Dominion is estimated
roughly at 5,000,000, so that this mileage gives something over two
miles of railway for every thousand inhabitants, a greater railway
mileage system per head of population than, perhaps, is possessed by
any other country in the world.

The old Grand Trunk proprietors feel that their early pioneer services
to Canada, and their heavy sacrifices, have rather been ignored in
competition, than recognized, by the Canadian Pacific not being an
extension of the Grand Trunk system. Had I remained in office as
President of the Grand Trunk, undoubtedly I should have laboured hard
to bring about such a consummation, which undoubtedly would have
economised capital and hastened the completion of the great Inter-
oceanic work. But the London agents of Canada, who were, and are,
responsible for launching the Grand Trunk and for its many issues of
capital to British shareholders, have undoubtedly aided the competition
and rivalry complained of; for in July, 1885, they floated--when other
great financial houses were unable--3,000,000_l_. sterling, not
for the Pacific line itself, but to complete other extensions of the
Pacific Company's system of a directly competitive character with the
Grand Trunk, and which could never have been finished but for this
British money, so raised. While I do not enter into the controversy, it
still seems to me that blame lies nearer home than in Canada, if blame
be deserved at all. Great financiers seem sometimes ready to devour
their own industrial children.

The Canadian Pacific Railway from Quebec to Port Moody is a mixture of
the new and the old. The first section, from Quebec to Montreal, is an
old friend, the North Shore Railway, once possessed by the Grand Trunk
Company, and sold back to the Canadian Government for purposes of
extending the Pacific route to tide-water at Quebec, and making one,
throughout, management. From Montreal to Ottawa, and beyond, is another
section of older-made line. The piece from Port Arthur to Winnipeg is
an older railway, made by the Canadian Government. Again, on the
Pacific there is the British Columbia Government Railway. All the rest,
round the head of Lake Superior up to Port Arthur, from Winnipeg across
the Great Prairies to Calgary, and on to, and across, the Rocky
Mountains, the crossings of the Selkirk and other Columbian Ranges, is
new Railway--with works daring and wonderful.

Pioneer railways are not like works at home. The lines are single, with
crossing places every five, ten, or twenty miles; ballast is not always
used, the lines on prairies being laid for long stretches on the earth
formation; rivers, chasms, canons and cataracts are crossed by timber
trestle bridges. The rails, of steel, are flat bottomed, fastened by
spikes, 60 lbs. to the yard, except through the mountains, where they
are 70 lbs.

Begun as pioneer works, they undergo, as traffic progresses, many
improvements. Ballast is laid down. Iron or steel bridges are
substituted for timber. The gorges spanned by trestles are, one by one,
filled up, by the use of the steam digger to fill, and the ballast
plough to push out, the stuff from the flat bottomed wagons on each
side and through the interstices of, the trestles. Sometimes the timber
is left in; sometimes it is drawn out and used elsewhere. This trestle
bridge plan of expediting the completion, and cheapening the
construction, of new railways, wants more study, at home. Whenever
there are gorges and valleys to pass in a timbered country, the
facility they give of getting "through" is enormous. The Canadian
Pacific would not be open now, but for this facility.

All these lines across the Continent have very similar features. They
each have prairies to pass, with long straight lines and horizons which
seem ever vanishing and never reached; mountain ranges of vast
altitudes to cross, alkaline lands, hitherto uncultivable, hot sulphur
springs, prairie-dogs, gophyrs, and other animals not usually seen. The
buffalo has retired from the neighbourhood of these iron-roads and of
the "fire-wagons," as the Indians call the locomotives. Here and there
on all the prairies on all the lines, heaps of whitened bones, of
buffalo, elk, and stag, are piled up at stations, to be taken away for
agricultural purposes. The railways resemble each other in their
ambitious extensions. The Canadian Pacific Railway, from Quebec to Port
Moody, is above 3,000 miles in length, but the total mileage of the
Company is already 4,600 miles, and no one knows where it is to stop,
while Messrs. Baring and Glyn will, and can, raise money from English
people; the Union Pacific possesses 4,500 miles in the United States;
the Southern Pacific nearly 5,000; and the newest of the three, the
Northern Pacific, has about 3,000 miles, and is "marching on" to a
junction with Grand Trunk extensions at the southern end of Lake
Superior, in order to complete a second Atlantic and Pacific route,
through favoured Canada. Each of these great lines has found the
necessity of supplementing the through, with as much local traffic, as
it can command. Some of this is new, such as the coal traffic from Sir
Alexander Galt's mines, situated on a branch line of 110 miles, running
out of the Canadian Pacific at Dunmore, and the mineral traffic in the
territory of Wyoming on the Union Pacific. But, again, some of it is
the result of competition. Let us hope that the development of both
Canada and the United States may quickly give trade enough for all. It
seems to me, however, that the Ocean to Ocean traffic, alone, cannot,
at present at least, find a good return for so many railways.

Canada has been unusually generous to the promoters of the Canadian
Pacific Railway. A free gift of five millions sterling: a free gift of
713 miles of, completed, railway: a free gift of twenty-five millions
of acres of land: all materials admitted free of duty: the lands given
to be free of taxation for twenty years: the Company's, property to be
free of taxation: the Company to have absolute control in fixing its
rates and charges until it should pay 10 per cent. dividend on its
Ordinary Stock: and for twenty years no competitive Railway to be
sanctioned;--summarize the liberality of the Dominion of Canada, in her
efforts to bind together her Ocean coasts. The work is essentially an
Imperial work. What is the duty of the Empire?


CHAPTER V.

_A British Railway from the Atlantic to the
Pacific_.


("ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS," 1861.)

My letter of the 15th November, 1860, to a friend of Mr. Thomas Baring,
then President of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, gives concisely my
general notions of opening up the British portion of the Great
Continent of America. A while later a leading article written by me
appeared in the "Illustrated London News" of the 16th February, 1861.
The article was headed, "A British Railway from the Atlantic to the
Pacific." I will here quote a portion of it:--

"'I hope,' said her Majesty, on proroguing Parliament in 1858, 'that
the new Colony on the Pacific (British Columbia) may be but one step in
the career of steady progress by which my dominions in North America
may be ultimately peopled in an unbroken chain, from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, by a loyal and industrious population.' The aspiration, so
strikingly expressed, found a fervent echo in the national heart, and
it continues to engage the earnest attention of England; for it speaks
of a great outspread of solid prosperity and of rational liberty, of
the diffusion of our civilization, and of the extension of our moral
empire.

"Since the Royal Speech, Governments have done something, and events
have done more, to ripen public opinion into action. The Governments at
home and in Canada have organized and explored. The more perfect
discoveries of our new gold fields on the Pacific, the Indian Mutiny,
the completion of great works in Canada, the treaties with Japan and
with China, the visit of the Prince of Wales to the American Continent,
and, at the moment, the sad dissensions in the United States, combine
to interest us in the question, and to make us ask, 'How is this hope
to be realized; not a century hence, but in our time?'

"Our augmenting interests in the East, demand, for reasons both of
Empire and of trade, access to Asia less dangerous than by Cape Horn,
less circuitous even than by Panama, less dependent than by Suez and
the Red Sea. Our emigration, imperilled by the dissensions of the
United States, must fall back upon colonization. And, commercially, the
countries of the East must supply the raw materials and provide the
markets, which probable contests between the free man and the slave may
diminish, or may close, elsewhere. Again, a great nation like ours
cannot stand still. It must either march on triumphantly in the van, or
fall hopelessly into the rear. The measure of its accomplishment must,
century by century, rise higher and higher in the competition of
nations. Its great works in this generation can alone perpetuate its
greatness in the next.

"Let us look at the map: there we see, coloured as 'British America,' a
tract washed by the great Atlantic on the East, and by the Pacific
Ocean on the West, and containing 4,000,000 square miles, or one-ninth
of the whole terrestrial surface of the globe. Part of this vast
domain, upon the East, is Upper and Lower Canada; part, upon the West,
is the new Colony of British Columbia, with Vancouver's Island (the
Madeira of the Pacific); while the largest portion is held, as one
great preserve, by the fur-trading Hudson's Bay Company, who, in right
of a charter given by Charles II., in 1670, kill vermin for skins, and
monopolise the trade with the Native Indians over a surface many times
as big again as Great Britain and Ireland. Still, all this land is
ours, for it owes allegiance to the sceptre of Victoria. Between the
magnificent harbour of Halifax, on the Atlantic, open throughout the
year for ships of the largest class, to the Straits of Fuca, opposite
Vancouver's Island, with its noble Esquimault inlet, intervene some
3,200 miles of road line. For 1,400 or 1,500 miles of this distance,
the Nova Scotian, the Habitan, and the Upper Canadian have spread, more
or less in lines and patches over the ground, until the population of
60,000 of 1759 amounts to 2,500,000 in 1860. The remainder is peopled
only by the Indian and the hunter, save that at the southern end of
Lake Winnipeg there still exists the hardy and struggling Red River
Settlement, now called 'Fort Garry:' and dotted all over the Continent,
as lights of progress, are trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company.

"The combination of recent discoveries places it at least beyond all
doubt that the best, though, perhaps, not the only, thoroughly
efficient route for a great highway for peoples and for commerce,
between the Atlantic and the Pacific, is to be found through this
British territory. Beyond that, it is alleged that while few, if any,
practicable passes for a wagon-road, still less for a railway, can be
found through the Rocky Mountains across the United States' territory,
north-west of the Missouri, there have been discovered already no less
than three eligible openings in the British ranges of these mountains,
once considered as inaccessible to man. While Captain Palliser prefers
the 'Kananaskakis,' Captain Blakiston and Governor Douglas, the
'Kootanie,' and Dr. Hector the 'Vermilion' Pass, all agree that each is
perfectly practicable, if not easy, and that even better openings may
probably yet be found as exploration progresses. Again, while British
Columbia, on the Pacific, possesses a fine climate, an open country,
and every natural advantage of soil and mineral, it has been also
discovered that the doubtful region from the Rocky Mountains eastward
up to the Lake of the Woods, contains, with here and there some
exceptions, a 'continuous belt' of the finest land.

"Professor Hind says:--

"'It is a physical reality of the highest importance to the interests
of British North America that this continuous belt can be settled and
cultivated from a few miles west of the Lake of the Woods, to the
passes of the Rocky Mountains; and any line of communication, whether
by wagon, road, or railroad, passing through it, will eventually enjoy
the great advantage of being fed by an agricultural population from one
extremity to the other.'

"Although the lakes and the St. Lawrence give an unbroken navigation of
2,000 miles, right to the sea, for ships of 300 tons burden, yet if
there is to be a continuous line, along which, and all the year round,
the travel and the traffic of the Western and Eastern worlds can pass
without interruption, railway communication with Halifax must be
perfected, and a new line of iron road, passing through Ottawa, the Red
River Settlement, and this 'continuous belt,' must be constructed. This
new line is a work of above 2,300 miles, and would cost probably
20,000,000_l_., if not 25,000,000_l_., sterling.

"The sum, though so large, is still little more than we voluntarily
paid to extinguish slavery in our West Indian dominions; it does not
much exceed the amount which a Royal Commission, some little time ago,
proposed to expend in erecting fortifications and sea-works to defend
our shores. It is but six per cent, of the amount we have laid out on
completing our own railway system in this little country at home. It is
equal to but two and a-half per cent. of our National Debt, and the
annual interest upon it is much less than the British Pension List.

"We say, then, 'Establish an unbroken line of road and railway from the
Atlantic to the Pacific through British territory.'

"Such a great highway would give shorter distances by both sea and
land, with an immense saving of time.

"As regards the great bugbear of the general traveller--sea distance--
it would, to and from Liverpool, save, as compared with the Panama
route, a tossing, wearying navigation of 6,000 miles to Japan, of 5,000
miles to Canton, and of 3,000 miles to Sydney. For Japan, for China,
for the whole Asiatic Archipelago, and for Australia, such a route must
become the great highway to and from Europe; and whatever nation
possesses that highway, must wield of necessity the commercial sceptre
of the world.

"In the United States, the project of a Railway to the Pacific to cross
the Rocky Mountains has ebbed and flowed in public opinion, and has
been made the battle-cry of parties for years past, but nothing has yet
been done. Such a project, in order to answer its purpose, requires
something more than a practicable surface, or convenient mountain
passes. Fine harbours on both Oceans, facilities for colonization on
the route, and the authority of one single Power over the whole of the
wild regions traversed, are all essential to success. As regards the
United States, these conditions are wanting. While there are harbours
enough on the Atlantic, though none equal to Halifax, there is no
available harbour at all fit for the great Pacific trade, from Acapulco
to our harbour of Esquimault, on Vancouver's Island, except San
Francisco--and that is in the wrong place, and is, in many states of
the wind, unsafe and inconvenient. The country north-west of the
Missouri is found to be sterile, and at least one-third of the whole
United States territory, and situated in this region, is now known as
the 'Great American Desert.' Again, the conflicting interests of
separate and sovereign States present an almost insuperable bar to
agreement as to route, or as to future 'operations' or control. It is
true that Mr. Seward, possibly as the exponent of the policy of the new
President, promises to support _two_ Pacific Railways--one for the
South, another for the North. But these promises are little better than
political baits, and were they carried out into Acts of Congress,
financial disturbance would delay, if not prevent, their final
realization; and, even if realized, they would not serve the great
wants of the East and the West, still less would they satisfy England
and Europe. We, therefore, cannot look for the early execution of this
gigantic work at the hands of the United States.

"Such a work, however, is too costly and too difficult for the grasp of
unaided private enterprise. To accomplish it out of hand, the whole
help of both the Local and Imperial Parliaments must be given. That
help once offered, by guarantee or by grant, private enterprise would
flock to the undertaking, and people would go to colonise on the broad
tracts laid open to their industry."



My subsequent and semi-official inquiries induced me to modify many of
the conclusions of the article quoted above. On the essential question
of the pass in the Rocky Mountains, in British territory, most adapted
by Nature for the passage of a road or a railway, all the evidence
which I collected tended to show that the passage by the "Tete-jaune
Cache," or "Yellow-head," Pass, was the best. The Canadian Pacific
Company have adopted the "Kicking Horse" Pass, much to the southward of
the "Yellow-head" Pass. Again, it became clear to me that the whole
Rocky Mountain range was rather a series of high mountain peaks,
standing on the summit of gradual slopes, rising almost imperceptibly
from the plains and prairies on the eastern side, and dropping
suddenly, in most cases, towards the sea-level on the western or
Pacific side, than a great wall barring the country for hundreds of
miles, as some had dreamed. Every inquiry from trappers, traders,
Indian voyageurs, missionary priests of the Jesuits, and from all sorts
and conditions of men and women, made difficulty after difficulty
disappear. The great work began to appear to me comparatively easy of
execution between Fort Garry, or the lower town of Selkirk and British
Columbia; the cost less; and, owing to facilities of transport,
especially in winter, the time of execution much shorter than had been
previously assumed. In addition, an examination into the physical
conditions of the various routes proposed through the United States,
convinced me that here again the difficulties were less, and facilities
for construction greater, than I and others had first imagined. In
fact, I came rightly to the conclusion that the more southerly the
United States route, and the more northerly the British route--while
always, in the latter case, keeping within cultivable range--the
better. Still, at this time there was much to find out. As respects
real knowledge of the country to be traversed, the factors of the
Hudson's Bay Company knew every fact worth divulging, but they were
afraid to speak; while the Catholic missionaries, accustomed to travel
on foot in their sacred cause over the most distant regions, possessed
a mine of personal knowledge, never, so far as I could learn, closed to
the Government of Canada or to any authorized inquirer.

Prior to my sailing to New York, _en route_ for Canada, to fulfil
my mission for the Grand Trunk, in 1861, I had a long interview with
the Duke of Newcastle, as Colonial Minister. He had seen, and we had
often previously discussed, the questions raised in the article above
quoted, and which he had carefully read. The interview took place on
the 17th July, 1861. Every point connected with the British Provinces
in America, as affected by the then declared warlike separation of the
northern and southern portions of the United States, was carefully
discussed. The Duke had the case at his fingers ends. His visit to
America with the Prince of Wales, already alluded to more than once,
had rendered him familiar with the Northern Continent, and its many
interests, in a way which a personal study on the spot can alone bring
about; and he declared his conviction that the impression made upon the
mind of the Prince was so deep and grateful, that in anything great and
out of the ordinary rut of our rule at home, he would always find an
earnest advocate and helper in the Prince, to whom he said he "felt
endeared with the affection of a father to a son." I called the Duke's
special attention to the position and attitude of the Hudson's Bay
authorities. How they were always crying down their territory as unfit
for settlement; repelling all attempts from the other side to open up
the land by roads, and use steamers on such grand rivers as, for
instance, the Assiniboin and the Saskatchewan. He said Sir Frederick
Rogers, the chief permanent official at the Colonial Office, whose
wife's settlement was in Hudson's Bay shares, and who, in consequence,
was expected to be well informed, had expressed to him grave doubts of
the vast territory in question being ever settled, unless in small
spots here and there. The Duke fully recognized, however, the
difficulty I had put my finger upon. I never spent an hour with a man
who more impressed me with his full knowledge of a great imperial
question, and his earnest determination to carry it out successfully
and speedily. The Intercolonial Railway, to connect Halifax on the
Atlantic with the Grand Trunk Railway at Riviere du Loup, 106 miles
below Quebec, he described as "the preliminary necessity." The
completion of an iron-road, onwards to the Pacific, was, "to his mind,
a grand conception." The union of all the provinces and territories
into "one great British America," was the necessary, the logical,
result of completing the Intercolonial Railway and laying broad
foundations for the completion, as a condition of such union, of a
railway to the Pacific. He authorized me to say; in Canada, that the
Colonial Office would pay part of the cost of surveys; that these works
must be carried out in the greatest interests of the nation, and that
he would give his cordial help. This he did throughout.

In bidding me good-bye, and with the greatest kindness of manner, he
added: "Well, my dear Watkin, go out and inquire. Master these
questions, and, as soon as you return, come to me, and impart to me the
information you have gained for me." Just as I was leaving, he added,
"By the way, I have heard that the State of Maine wants to be annexed
to our territory." I made no reply, but I doubted the correctness of
the Duke's information. Still, with civil war just commencing, who
could tell? "Sir," said old Gordon Bennett to me one day, while walking
in his garden, beyond New York, "here everything is new, and nothing is
settled." Failing health, brought on by grievous troubles, compelled
the Duke to retire from office in the course of 1864, and on the 18th
of October of that year he died; on the 18th October, 1865, he was
followed by his friend, staunch and true, Lord Palmerston, who left his
work and the world, with equal suddenness, on that day.

But from that 17th July, 1861, I regarded myself as the Duke's
unofficial, unpaid, never-tiring agent in these great enterprises, and,
undoubtedly, in these three years, ending by his retirement and death,
the seeds were sown.


CHAPTER VI.

_Port Moody--Victoria--San Francisco to Chicago_.


At "Port Moody," and even at the new "Vancouver City," I felt some
disappointment that the original idea of crossing amongst the islands
to the north-east of Vancouver's Island, traversing that island, and
making the Grand Pacific terminus at the fine harbour of Esquimalt, had
not been realized. Halifax to Esquimalt was our old, well-worn plan.
The "Tete Jaune" was our favoured pass. This plan, I believe, met the
views both of Sir James Douglas and the Honorable Mr. Trutch. But I
consoled myself with the reflection, that if we had not gained the
best, we had secured the next best, grand scheme--a scheme which, as
time goes on, will be extended and improved, as the original Pacific
Railways of the United States have been.

The sea service between "Port Moody" and "Victoria," Vancouver's
Island, is well performed; and Victoria itself is an English town, with
better paved streets, better electric lighting, and better in many
other ways that might be named, than many bigger American and English
towns I know of. I spent four delightful days in and about it,
including an experimental trip, through the kindness of Mr. Dunsmuir
--the proprietor of the Wellington Collieries, a few miles north of
Nanaimo--over the new railway from Victoria to Nanaimo, constructed,
with Government aid, by himself and Mr. Crocker, of San Francisco. I
had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Sir Mathew Begbie, the
Chief Justice of British Columbia, to whose undaunted courage
Vancouver's Island and British Columbia owed law and order in the
dangerous and difficult times of the gold discoveries.

Upon the question of relative distances, engineering, and generally
what I saw between Port Moody and Chicago, I again take advantage of
Mr. Edward Wragge's excellent notes.

"_Table of Distances between Liverpool and China and
Japan_, via _the Canadian Pacific Railway, through Canadian
territory, and_ via _New York and San Francisco, through United
States territory_:--

"ROUTE THROUGH CANADIAN TERRITORY.

"_Summer Route_                                           MILES.

Liverpool to Quebec, _via_ Belle Isle                     2,661
Quebec to Montreal                                        172
Montreal to Port Moody                                  2,892
Port Moody to Vancouver                                    12
Vancouver to Victoria                                      78
Vancouver to Yokohama                                   4,334
Vancouver to Hongkong                                   5,936

"_Winter Route_                                           MILES.

Liverpool to Halifax                                    2,530
Halifax to Quebec                                         678
Other points as in summer.

Summer route, Liverpool to Yokohama                    10,071
Winter route,     "           "                        10,618


"ROUTE THROUGH UNITED STATES TERRITORY.

Liverpool to New York                                   3,046
New York to Chicago, _via_ N.Y.C.
and M.C. Railways                                         961
Chicago to San Francisco                                2,357
San Francisco to Yokohama                               4,526
San Francisco to Hongkong                               6,128
Liverpool to Yokohama                                  10,890

"For distance to Hongkong, add 1,602 miles to the distance to Yokohama.

"_Note_,--Distances by rail are statute miles. Distances by sea,
geographical miles.


"ESQUIMALT AND NANAIMO RAILWAY AND COAL MINES AT WEST
WELLINGTON AND NANAIMO.

"The Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway runs from West Victoria, near
Esquimalt, to Nanaimo, which latter place is a small mining town in the
Island of Vancouver, lying on the east coast, on the shore of the
Straits of Georgia, nearly opposite Burrard Inlet, from which it is
distant about 28 miles.

"The line is well constructed with a good and substantial road-bed;
steel rails, weighing 54 lbs. per yard (except a few miles near
Nanaimo, where they are 50 lbs. per yard); well ballasted, and well
tied; the bridges and trestles are all of timber, of which material
there is about 1,000,000 cubic feet employed altogether. The steepest
grade is 80 feet per mile rising towards Nanaimo, and 79 feet per mile
rising towards Esquimalt; these grades are rendered necessary to enable
the line to overcome the summit lying between the two places, and which
is 900 feet above the level of the sea. Running, as the line does,
through a rugged country, there are a good many sharp curves rendered
necessary. The distance from Esquimalt to Victoria is 75 miles. The
line was not quite completed when we went over it; and the buildings,
turn-tables, &c. were not yet erected, although some of them were under
construction.

"The traffic on the line will be light, the country being sparsely
settled. It will consist to some extent of coal; but there is water
competition for the carriage of this article of merchandize; and the
station at Victoria is too far from the town at present for much of it
to come by rail for consumption in the town. There is a wharf in the
harbour of Esquimalt, at which coal can be delivered to men-of-war
lying there. Mr. Dunsmuir, of Victoria, is the chief proprietor of the
railway, and he has associated with him Mr. Cracker, President of the
Southern Pacific Railway, and others.

"The Government of Canada gave a bonus of $750,000 (say
150,000_l_.) in aid of the construction of the railway, and a belt
of land, with the minerals under it, of 10 miles in width on each side
of the line.

"During the afternoon of the 23rd of September we visited the West
Wellington Coal Mines, 4 or 5 miles beyond Nanaimo, a