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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, and to which the railway is to be extended, work on the extension having just been commenced. The mines are owned by Messrs. Dunsmuir & Sons, and at the present time they are working at five shafts, the output for the month of August being 17,000 tons. We went down the shaft of No. 5 pit, which was 240 feet deep, and found the seam was very thick, from 10 to 11 feet, but not very solid block coal, having apparently been crushed. The mines are all connected with wharves on the coast at Departure Bay by a three-feet gauge railway; the lines around the mines were all in fair order. The line is worked by small locomotives, six wheels coupled and no truck, of the Baldwin Locomotive Company's manufacture, the load handled by them being 15 cars, each containing 3-1/2 tons of coal, and averaging in dead weight 1-3/4 tons each. The grade down to the port is very steep, and the heaviest work for the engines is in taking the empties back again.
"The coal is mined by white miners, who employ each of them a Chinese labourer; they employ gunpowder for blasting purposes, chiefly Curtis & Harvey's make, and use naked lights of oil. The miners are found in all tools except their auger drills, which they all use, and which cost some $30 each. Each miner has an allowance of one ton of coal per month for his own use. There was a little drip at the foot of the shaft we went down, but otherwise the mine was quite dry. The mode of unloading the cars at the wharf was rather primitive, but at the same time simple and ingenious. When the car has been weighed it is run forward by five Chinamen to the end of the wharf, the front end of the car being hinged at the top, with a catch opened by a lever, a short piece of track sufficiently long for the car to stand upon is built projecting beyond the wharf and over the hold of the vessel, this piece of track is laid on a framework, which is hinged to the wharf in front so as to tip up from behind, to it is attached a long wooden pole as a lever, round the end of which is a rope, made fast to the wharf by a belaying pin; as soon as the car is on the tipping track, the lever on the front end of the car is knocked up so as to allow the coal to fall out, and the end of the long wooden pole is allowed to rise slowly by the rope being loosened, the coal then shoots out of the car. When empty the Chinamen weigh down on the pole and bring the track, with the car on it, back to its former position, making the rope fast to the belaying pin, and the car is run back to make way for another. We were told that in this way five Chinese have put 1,000 tons of coal on board a vessel in a working day.
"On the following morning we visited the mine at Nanaimo, of the Vancouver Coal Company, and Mr. S. Robins, the superintendent, showed us over his works, and accompanied us down the shaft into the mine. The shaft is 600 feet deep, and the heading and workings are under the sea to a distance of 400 or 500 yards. The coal is hard and of good quality, making a good gas coal (which the West Wellington coal does not do). There have been one or two faults met with lately in the seam, which is 7 feet thick; but Mr. Robins thinks they have been overcome. There is only one shaft working, and the output in the 24 hours of the day previous had been 434 tons. The coal comes to the surface in two 'boxes' at a time, each containing about 35 cwt. This Company has good railway tracks of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches gauge, with English locomotives, &c. The machinery and appliances at this mine were all better and more costly than at the West Wellington mines, and the cars were hopper bottomed, and discharged their contents directly into the hold of the vessels by simply opening the hopper bottom. The staff of men employed at the present time amounts to 350, and the miners are white men, with Chinese labourers. The work at this mine and West Wellington is all done by piecework.
"ESQUIMALT HARBOUR AND DOCK.
"The harbour at Esquimalt is quite land-locked, and can be very easily protected from an enemy approaching by sea, the heights around being easily fortified, as there are many in good positions for commanding the entrance, both at a distance from it, and also in the immediate vicinity; there is plenty of depth of water at low tide to enter the harbour. A fort on the Race Rocks, where there is a lighthouse, and which are some 2 miles or so from the coast, would, if supplied with heavy guns capable of long range, command the whole of the San Juan de Fuca Straits, the distance from Race Rock to the American shore not exceeding 8 miles.
"The harbour contains an area of about 400 or 500 acres, in which there is sufficient depth of water for large vessels to lie at all states of the tide.
"The line of railway from Nanaimo to Esquimalt touches the harbour, and has a wharf at which coal from Nanaimo and West Wellington mines may be delivered at any time.
"The graving dock, which has been some eleven years in progress, or rather which was commenced eleven years ago, but which practically has been constructed within the past two years, has a length of 430 feet on the ways, and could easily have been made, in the first instance, 600 feet in length for a comparatively small additional cost. The cost will have been, when completed, about $700,000, and it is now waiting only for the entrance caisson, which is being made at the Dominion Bridge Company's Works, near Montreal.
"The masonry of the dock is of a hard sandstone, the character of the workmanship being very good, and the dock very dry and free from leakage; it has been constructed, so as to save excavation, in a small creek, but this has caused an additional thickness for the walls, and a considerable quantity of filling behind them. It would appear that it could have been built for very much less money had a site been selected among the numerous rocky situations in the harbour, where the rock would only have required facing with masonry instead of the work having been done as it has.
"The naval-yard is a fair size; the workshop is small, however, and apparently little or no materials for the repair of vessels are kept on hand. It will be a necessity for this to be remedied if the graving dock is to be of any use for ships of the navy. We saw two torpedo boats, and some Whitehead torpedoes, the boats were built in Great Britain for Chili, and purchased from the Chilians two years ago.
"SAN FRANCISCO TO CHICAGO.
"Left San Francisco on 29th September, 1886, at 7.30, by steam ferry to Oakland, 4 miles across the harbour; left Oakland by train at 8.10 a.m.; 32 miles from Oakland we reached Port Costa, where the train was ferried across an estuary of the sea to Benicia; for 20 miles from there the line (the Central Pacific division of the Southern Pacific Railway Company) runs, across a flat, marshy country, then into a cultivated country with the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada rising around it, the country being very dry and parched, having had no rain since March: the farm-houses have the Eucalyptus, or Australian blue gum, planted around them; and about 75 miles from San Francisco we entered the vineyard country, which continues to and past Sacramento. Reached Sacramento, which is 90 miles from San Francisco, and only 30 feet above the level of the sea, at 12 o'clock; the schedule time from Oakland, including the ferry at Port Costa, being 25 miles an hour. At Sacramento we crossed the Sacramento and American Rivers, the former by a Howe truss bridge, one of the spans being a swing-bridge, and having a total length of 700 or 800 feet; the latter by a Howe truss bridge, and fully a mile of trestle work.
"From Sacramento the line begins to rise so as to cross the Sierra Nevada Range; the country is rolling, and with the 'live oak' trees scattered over it among the grass presents quite a park-like appearance. The grades as we ascend are very steep, 116 feet to the mile, this line being well ballasted. In the valleys the line was laid originally with steel rails of 50 lbs. weight, and 3,080 ties to the mile, in the mountains with 60 lbs. rails, but no renewals are made with less than a 60 lbs. rail. From Rocklin to Newcastle the vineyards and orchards are very numerous, and again at Colfax, at which latter place we got some very fine grapes grown at an elevation of 2,400 feet above the sea. In the afternoon we passed the mining country, where the whole features of the country have been changed by the use of the 'Monitor' for hydraulic mining, by means of which the sides of the mountains have been washed down to the valleys, filling them and the streams up, and doing much damage to the flats below: this system of directing a stream of water through a six-inch nozzle against the cliff to wash out the gold has now been discontinued, and is illegal, owing to the damage caused by it. The snow sheds commence at Blue Canon, 4,693 feet above the sea, and 170 miles from San Francisco. They are simply rough wooden sheds to protect the line from drifting and falling snow, there being no avalanches to contend with on this route.
"Some of the views on the Sierra Nevada are very fine, notably that at 'Cape Horn.' There is very little timber until Blue Canon is reached, but from there to Truckee and beyond the timber is good, and about equal to that on the Rocky Mountains of the Canadian Pacific Railway. There are several saw mills in this vicinity. After leaving Emigrant Gap we ran through a continuous snow shed for 39 miles, which was very unpleasant, both by reason of the smoke in the cars, and the noise, as well as the loss of the view. We reached Reno about 10 p.m., an hour and a half late. The schedule time over the mountain, up grade, is 17 miles an hour, and from Oakland to Reno, 246 miles, 20 miles an hour. Reno is 4,497 feet above the sea. The summit of the Sierras, which is 196 miles from San Francisco, is 7,017 feet above the sea. We remained all night at Reno. While there we saw in the morning a locomotive engine, with cylinders 22 x 30 and eight driving wheels coupled, said by the driver to weigh 165,000 lbs., start for the ascent of the mountain, up grades of 116 feet to the mile, with 22 cars and a van.
"The country round Reno is table land with high mountains around it. The only crop grown is 'alfalfa,' a species of clover. Three crops a year are taken off the land, and it fetches, as fodder, from $8.00 to $16.00 per ton, according to the season.
"At Wadsworth we saw a very nice reading-room and library for the employes of the railway. This is quite a model station, kept green and bright with lawns and flowers. It is a division terminus, and has a machine shop, round house, &c. The country from Reno to Salt Lake is dry, and almost a desert, sandy, and with sage bush in tufts; the journey through it was hot and terribly dusty. The view of Brigham and other villages, with farms at the foot of the hills on approaching Ogden, was a great relief after the monotony of the last day's run.
"At Ogden we were transferred from the Central Pacific to the Union Pacific train, and upon leaving there passed, after a few miles, through Weber Canon, and afterwards Echo Canon; the scenery was very picturesque, and, at this season of the year, was rendered more so by the beautiful autumn tints which were afforded by the foliage of the bushes which grow up the mountain sides for more than half their height. At Evanston we left the mountains and got on the high table land, over which we ran all day, having it cool and pleasant, a great contrast to the heat of the previous day. During the night of the 1st October we had it quite cold, our altitude being at no time less than 6,000 feet above the sea.
"On the morning of the 2nd October we reached Laramie, where we saw the works of the Union Pacific Railway Company for Burnettizing their ties. The ties are placed on trucks, run into a cylinder, steamed, treated with a solution of chloride of zinc, with glue mixed with it, and afterwards with a solution of tannic acid. When dried they retain only about 1 1/4 lb. of the material with which they have been treated. Mr. Octave Chanute, of Kansas City, Missouri, United States, erected the works for the Union Pacific Company, and has an interest in the patents under which the process is carried out, which is a modification of Sir William Burnett's process. At 8.55 we crossed the highest point on the Rocky Mountains, 8,235 feet above the sea, on table land, no peaks being more than a few hundred feet above us. The rock here is all red granite, and some of it disintegrated, which is used for ballast. There are many snow sheds on the high land here, but none very long. We ran rapidly down from 'Sherman,' the summit, to 6,000 feet level, and more gradually afterwards, running all day through the plains, over which, although very dry, numerous herds of cattle and horses were pasturing, and we reached Omaha at 7.50 a.m. on the 3rd October.
"At Omaha we crossed the Missouri River. The bridge here, of iron, founded on iron cylinder piers, is for a single track only, and is being taken down bit by bit, and a double track iron bridge on masonry piers substituted..
"From Council Bluffs, the station on the Iowa side of the Missouri River, we left by the Chicago and North Western Railway, which is a well constructed, well equipped, and first class American Railway. The line runs through a good agricultural country, the chief crop being Indian corn, and was doing a good business. We met many freight trains during the day, and saw several trains of cattle going east also. We reached Chicago on time at 6.50 a.m. on the morning of the 4th October."
CHAPTER VII.
Negociations as to the Intercolonial Railway; and North-West Transit and Telegraph, 1861 to 1864.
It was in September, 1861, that I visited Frederickton and Halifax on the question of the Intercolonial Railway, travelling by way of Riviere du Loup, Lake Temiscouata, Little Falls, Woodstock, round by St. Andrews, Canterbury, Frederickton, St. John, Shediac, and Truro to Halifax. Later in the autumn, representatives from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia visited Quebec and Montreal, and it was generally agreed that deputations from Canada and from the two Maritime Provinces should proceed to England. These deputations were, from Canada the Hon. Mr. Van Koughnet, from New Brunswick the Hon. Mr. Tilley, and from Nova Scotia the Hon. Joseph Howe. It was impossible to choose a more influential delegation: men earnest in the cause they came to advocate; politicians of tried metal; men of great influence in the colonies they represented.
I arrived in England from Canada in the beginning of November, 1861, and at once telegraphed to the Duke, and on my way to London, at his request, I visited him at Clumber, and made my report of progress, which appeared to be highly satisfactory. The only difficulty, as to the Intercolonial, appeared to rest in Mr. Gladstone's "peculiar views about subsidies, grants, and guarantees out of the funds, or on the security, of the State." But the Duke said, he must "labour to show the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this was no new proposal; that, in fact, the Provinces had been led to believe that if they would find the money, the State would guarantee the interest under proper precaution, as the State had guaranteed the capital for the Canadian canals, every shilling expended on which had been honourably repaid." In fact, "this work was not a mere local work, but satisfied military and other Imperial conditions." The end of this, and many other, interviews, at the Colonial Office and at the Duke's residences, was complete concurrence in the following programme:—(I) the Intercolonial guarantee must be carried by the Duke; (2) measures must be taken to start Pacific transit, in the first instance, and as a pioneer work, by roads and telegraphs; (3) Confederation must be pushed on; and (4) that the difficulties arising from the position of the Hudson's Bay Company must be gravely considered with a view to some solution.
Mr. Van Koughnet, accompanied by Mrs. Van Koughnet, was, unfortunately, wrecked off Anticosti, in the Allan steamer "North Briton." Happily every one, after a time of great peril, was landed in safety, while losing personal baggage and almost everything else. At a critical moment Sir Allen McNab, who was on board the ship, also on his way to England, when the vessel was expected to go down, said to Van Koughnet, "Come with me and bring your wife, and we will go down together, away from this crowd of frightened people"—alluding to the mass of steerage passengers jostling about in panic.
On the 11th November Mr. Howe and Mrs. Howe, and Mr. Tilley arrived: and I took the delegates to the Duke's house in London on the 14th. The Duke received these delegates with very great cordiality. He had made, already, an appointment with Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, and had spoken to Mr. Gladstone. So, armed with a letter from the Duke, we went on to Cambridge House. We were shown into a room overlooking the court-yard, and had not long to wait for the veteran minister. He came, as usual, with his grey—not white—hair brushed up at the sides, his surtout buttoned up to his satin neck-tie, or, more correctly, "breast- plate," which had a jewelled pin in the midst of its amplitude. He said, the Duke had told him our business, which was very important, not only for the interests we represented, but for the Empire, and especially so at a time when the "fires were alight" across the British border.
Mr. Howe very ably and concisely stated the case. No subsidy wanted, simply a guarantee on perfect security. Precedent for such guarantees, which had always been punctually and fully met. Previous promises of previous Governments—sanction of such statesmen as Lord Grey, Lord Derby, and Bulwer Lytton. Peculiar need of the work at this time; and so on.
Palmerston listened attentively, did not interrupt; did not while Howe, and afterwards Tilley, were speaking, stop either, by asking a single question; but when they had concluded, he repeated and summed up the case in far fewer words than had been used to state it: and in a manner which gave a new force to it all. He then spoke of the various treaties with the United States. He spoke of the giving up of the fine Aroostook district, now part of the State of Maine, and with some heat said, that "the Ashburton Treaty was the most foolish treaty ever made." He replied to the argument about the past commitment of other Governments, by describing it as "not possessing much attraction for an existing Government." Here Howe made him laugh much, by saying, "At least, my Lord, it might have an influence with your conscientious Chancellor of the Exchequer."
After a good many questions and answers affecting the state of the Provinces, the facilities and difficulties of moving troops in winter, the conveyance of the mails, future closer relations of commerce between the Provinces, and, especially, the state of things in the United States,—he asked us to "Go and see Gladstone." We "might say he had suggested it."
Then he shook hands, with a swinging jollity, with each of us, saw us to the door, and, finally, wished us "success." There might have been no "Trent" affair pending, to look at him.
Some delay took place before we could see Mr. Gladstone. But we finally accomplished the interview with him at his fine house in Carlton House Terrace, on the 23rd November. After waiting some while, following, as we did, about a dozen previous waiters on the Chancellor, we were shown into Mr. Gladstone's working room, or den. The room was very untidy. Placards, papers, letters, newspapers, magazines, and blue boots on the table, chairs, bookshelves, and the floor. It looked, altogether, as if the window had been left open, and the contents of a miscellaneous newspaper, book, and parliamentary paper shop had been blown into the apartment. Mr. Gladstone, himself, looked bored and worried. Though perfectly civil, he had the expression of a man on his guard against a canvasser or a dun. He might be thinking of the "Trent" affair. We stated our errand, and as I had, as arranged, to say something, I used the argument of probable saving in the Atlantic mail subsidies, by the creation of land routes, &c. He brushed that aside by the sharp remark, "Those subsidies are unsound, and they will not be renewed." He then spoke of the objectionable features of all these "helps to other people who might help themselves." He did not seem to mind the argument, that assuming this work to be of Imperial as well as of Provincial importance, unless aid,—costless to England, or, at the highest, a very remote risk, and not in any sense a subsidy,—were given, the work could not proceed at all. He struck me to be a man who thought spending money, or taking risks, however slight, a kind of crime. That, in fact, it was better to trust to Providence in important questions, and keep the national pocket tightly buttoned. We got little out of him, save an insight into the difficulty to be overcome. And yet he had been a party to the Crimean War. On the final discussion, in the House, on the vote for the Intercolonial guarantee, on the 28th March, 1867, Mr. Gladstone concluded his speech by declaring, "I believe the present guarantee does depend upon motives of policy belonging to a very high order, and intimately and inseparably associated with most just, most enlightened views of the true interests of the Empire." Thus we had sown the seed not in vain, and the counsel of the Duke was not forgotten.
Mr. Van Koughnet arrived on the 26th November. On the 27th I took him to see the Duke, and we had a long conference.
Finally, it was decided to send in a memorial to the Duke to lay before the Cabinet. Howe prepared it. It was most ably drawn, like all the State papers of that distinguished man, and it was sent in to the Colonial Office on the 2nd December, 1861. Thus, all had been done that could then be done by the delegation. We had to rely upon the Duke. Our difficulty was with Mr. Gladstone.
In the time of waiting, Howe, Tilley, and I, attended meetings at Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Oldham, Ashton, and other places, endeavouring, with no small success, to make the Intercolonial Railway a public question.
But the delays; the "pillar to post"; the want of knowledge of permanent officials, whose geography, even, I found very defective, made our efforts irksome, and now and then, apparently, hopeless.
But an event had startled England, like a thunderclap in a summer sky. On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the United States ship "San Jacinta," took the Southern States envoys—Messrs. Slidel and Mason—and two others, forcibly from the deck of a British mail ship, "The Trent." The country was all on fire. Palmerston showed fight, and the Guards and other troops, and arms and stores to the value of more than a million sterling, were sent out to Canada. The delegates were sent for to the War Office, and, as desired, I accompanied them. At the time all seemed to hang in the balance. The powers had joined England in protest, and our ambassador was instructed by despatch, per ship —for the submarine wires were not at work—to leave Washington in seven days if satisfaction were not given.
At the War Office we met Mr. Cornewall Lewis, Minister for War, a man erudite and accomplished, who had lived on public employments nearly all his life, but who hardly knew the difference between the two ends of a ramrod. He asked, in long sentences, the questions which Palmerston had put shortly and in the pith; all sorts of queries as to winter transport in the Provinces, the disposition for fight of the people, and so on. Then it was demanded, What we had to suggest? Van Koughnet, who writhed under the tone adopted, bluntly said, "Why, to fight it out, of course; we in Canada will have to bear the first brunt. But we cannot fight with jack-knives; and there are no arms in the country. You have failed to keep any store at all." This led to a deliberate note being taken by the Under Secretary, the present Marquis of Ripon. Other details followed, and then, finally, we were asked if we had anything more to propose? To which I answered "Yes; send out a man who may be truly regarded as a general." This was received with silence and open mouths. The fact was, the soldier in command in Canada was General Fenwick Williams, a most gallant man, who, in a siege, would eat his boots before he would give in: but was not the man who could so manoeuvre small bodies of men as to keep in check, in forests and on plains, large masses of the enemy. When we left, Captain Gallon came running after us, and said, "I am so glad you said that, we all feel as you do here"—(the War Office).
Although the Government of the United States retreated from an undefendable position, wisely and with dignity, by surrendering their prisoners, who, delivered over to a British man-of-war, landed in England on the 29th January, 1862,—still it was decided to keep the troops in the Provinces, to reinforce them, to add to the armaments, and to adequately arm strategic points alongside the American frontier. And, as President of the Grand Trunk, I was asked to go out to Canada to aid and direct transport across the country.
In the meantime—whether the cause was the "Trent" affair, or pre- occupation on the part of the Duke, or neglect of permanent officials, or their bad habit at that time of regarding Colonists as inferior persons—our delegates and their wives felt hurt at the social neglect which they experienced. And I agreed in the truth of their complaints so much, that I formally addressed the Duke on the 31st December. He acknowledged the neglect, apologised for it, and thereafter, until the day of their departure, the delegates, and Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Van Koughnet, were received in high circles, and were especially invited to Clumber.
To sum up, I left England for Canada, in "The Asia," on the 1st February, 1862, landing at New York, where my son and Messrs. Brydges and Hickson met me—and after a deal of hard work on the part of every officer and man on the Grand Trunk, and no small anxiety, labour, responsibility, and exposure to storms and climate, inflicted upon myself, Mr. Brydges, Mr. Hickson, and the whole staff, Quartermaster- General Mackenzie sent us a handsome acknowledgment of our semi- military services. But the authorities at home did not condescend to recognize our existence or our labours.
The late Sir Philip Rose gave me the greatest assistance with Mr.
Disraeli, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, and all the great party whose
confidence he possessed. The following letter, addressed to him by Sir
E. Bulwer Lytton, will be read with great interest:—
"BUXTON, DERBYSHIRE,
"April 27, 1862.
"MY DEAR SIR,
"I am much flattered by your wish, and that of our Colonial friends; but I fear that I must decline the important and honourable task to which you invite me: partly from a valid personal reason; partly on political grounds. With regard to the first, I am here for a course of the Baths, in hopes to get rid of a troublesome lumbago, which has harassed me all the winter, and appears to have been epidemical from the number of victims it has cramped and racked this wet season. And I fear I shall not be able to get away till the middle of May, unless it be for some special vote. But apart from this consideration, I doubt whether it would be prudent for any member of Lord Derby's late Government, with the support of those leaders who might very soon form another administration, to urge upon Parliament any new pecuniary burthen, nay, any new loan, in the face of a deficit. Would not this really play into Gladstone's hands, and furnish him with a plausible retaliation in case of attack on the side in which he is most vulnerable, viz., the dealing with a deficit as if it were a surplus? And again, would it be quite prudent in the coming Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer and his future colleagues to commit themselves to a measure they might find it inconvenient to carry out when in power?
"These are doubts that occur to me; and would be well weighed by Mr. Disraeli—who might, perhaps, agree with me, that, on the whole, it would be better that this very important question should be brought before the House by some one not in the late Cabinet—some great merchant, perhaps—some one, in short, who could not be supposed to compromise or commit the future administrative policy of the party.
"I remain, however, of the same opinion, that aid to intercolonial communication can be defended on Imperial grounds—and would in itself, if not opposed on purely fiscal reasons, be a wise as well as generous policy.
"I regret much that my absence from town prevents, my seeing Mr. Watkin and profiting by the information, he could give me. I fear he will have left London before I return to it. But I should be very glad if he would write to me and acquaint me with the exact state of the case at present—and the exact wishes and requests of the Colonists.
"Is it a renewal of the former proposition or what? 'The whole question of intercolonial communication' is a vast one. But I suppose practically it would limit itself before Parliament to the Railway before submitted to us—according to the pamphlet you sent me.
"Believe me,
"Yours very truly and obliged,
"E. B. LYTTON."
The following letter was addressed to me:—
"BUXTON, "May 3,1862.
"DEAR SIR,
"Allow me to thank you cordially for a letter, which cannot but be extremely gratifying to my feelings. Certainly my first object when I had the honour to preside at the Colonial Office was to attach all parts of that vast Empire which our Colonies comprise to the Mother Country, by all the ties of mutual interests and reciprocal affection.
"The importance of the Railway line between Halifax and Quebec must be transparent to every clear-sighted politician. And had I remained in office, I should have urged upon my colleagues—I do not doubt successfully—the justice and expediency, both for Imperial interests, commercial and military, and for the vindication of the Imperial good faith which seems to me indisputably pledged to it, some efficient aid, or guarantees the completion of the line. I should willingly have undertaken the responsibility of recommending that aid to Parliament; and I do not think the House of Commons would have refused it when proposed with the authority of Government. In that case the Railway by this time would have been nearly, if not wholly, completed.
"Traffic begets traffic; railways lead on to railways; and a line once formed to Quebec, it would not be long before the resources of British Columbia would, if properly directed and developed, suffice to commence the Railway that must ultimately connect the Atlantic and Pacific. That once accomplished, the destinies of British North America seem to me assured.
"I shall rejoice to hear that the present Government make a proposal which the Provinces accept. Some time, I conclude, must elapse before their decision can be known; and in that case the question can scarcely come before Parliament this Session. A mode of aid accepted by the Colonies would have my most favourable consideration; and, I cannot doubt, my hearty support, whatever might be the administration that proposed it.
"Yours truly obliged,
E. B. LYTTON."
The Canadian Parliament met, early in March, 1862, at Quebec; in bitter winter and snow storms. We took down all the members who chose to go, by a special through train, in charge of Mr. Brydges,—desiring to show them that, poor and unfortunate as the Grand Trunk might be, we could carry "M.P.Ps." safely and quickly, as we had carried soldiers, and guns, and stores, to the satisfaction of the military authorities. The train made a famous journey. In a few days I followed in company with the Honourable John Ross, and was several days on the road—in constant fight with snowdrifts—in getting to Point Levi. Then came the canoe crossing of the St. Lawrence, an enterprise startling, no doubt, as a first experience, though safe, if tedious. We were put in a canoe, really a disembowelled tree, and this was dragged, like a sledge, by a horse down to the margin of the river, where it was launched amongst floating ice, going up, down, and across the stream and its eddies. Our canoe men coming to a big piece of ice, perhaps 20 feet square, jumped out, dragged our canoe over the obstruction, and then launched it again. When getting jammed between the floating ice, they got on the sides of our boat, and working it up and down, like pumping the old fire engine, they liberated us. Sometimes we went up stream, sometimes down—all points of the compass—but, after an hour's struggle, we gained the wharf at Quebec, safe and sound. But a while after I certainly was exercised. It was important that Mr. Brydges should go back to Montreal, and my son went with him. I watched their crossing the river from the "Platform," in a clear, grey, winter afternoon. They were two hours in crossing the river, a mile or two in width, in a straight line. At one time, I almost despaired, for they had drifted down almost into the Bay; but, by the pluck and hard work of their men, they kept, in this tacking backwards and forwards, and up and down, gradually making their way, till they landed, a long way below the right point, however, and we exchanged handkerchief signals—and all was well.
In the interval between this and my last visit, Lord Monck had been appointed Governor-General in place of Sir Edmund Head, retiring. In talking with the Duke about this appointment, he said, "I offered the position to five men previously, and they refused it." I replied, "Did your Grace offer it to Lord Lawrence, now at home?" The Duke put down his pen, turned from one side of his chair to the other, looked down and looked up, and at last said, "Upon my honour, I never thought of that. What a good appointment it would have been!" Be that as it may, Lord Monck made an excellent Governor in very difficult times. Canada, and the great cause of Confederation, owe him a deep debt of gratitude.
I found unexpected difficulties about Grand Trunk affairs. The Government were afraid of their own shadows. Instead of bringing in the Grand Trunk Relief Bill as a Government measure, as we had expected, they, in spite of remonstrance from Mr. Gait, confided it to a private member, and such was the, unexplained, opposition that I verily believe had the Cartier-Macdonald Government remained in power the Bill, though entirely in the nature of a private Bill, affecting the public in every sense of indirect advantage, would have been thrown out. The newspapers throughout the two Provinces, with half-a dozen honorable exceptions, were vile and vicious, as trans-Atlantic newspapers especially can be. I was full of unexpected anxiety. The Government tactics were Fabian; and on the 5th April they decided to adjourn the House to the 23rd. So I went home in the "China" from New York on the 9th April with my son; saw the Duke of Newcastle, discussed the situation; saw the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1862 on the 1st May, and a few days afterwards sailed, with Lady Watkin, in the old Cunarder, the "Niagara;" arriving at Boston after a long and difficult passage, and then travelling on to Quebec. But, on the 20th May, an event occurred—caused, it seemed to me, as a looker on, through want of tact—which ended in the resignation of the Government. The circumstances were these. Under pressure from home, administered through the new. Governor-General, the Ministry had brought forward measures of defence. They proposed to raise and equip, at the cost of Canada, 50,000 men. They proceeded, if my memory serves me, by the introduction of a Bill, and that Bill was rejected by a very small majority (61 to 54), composed of Sandfield Macdonald and a few others, described as "Ishmaelites." Upon that vote Mr. Cartier at once resigned, as I thought in too much haste. I met him as he walked away from the Parliament House in the afternoon, and expressed regret. He said, with set teeth, clenched fist, and sparkling eyes, "Ah! Well, I have saved the honour of my country against those 'Grits' and 'Rouges;' traitres, traitres." Mr. J. A. Macdonald, afterwards, took the matter very quietly, merely remarking that the slightest tact might have prevented the occurrence. So I thought.
The question was, Who was to succeed? In the ordinary course Mr. Foley, the assumed leader of the Opposition, would have been sent for. It was the opinion of the Honorable John Ross that he ought to have been. But the Governor, considering, I suppose, that the scanty majority was led by Sandfield Macdonald, sent for him. All sides believed that it would be a ministry of a month. But this astute descendant of Highlanders managed to stay in for nearly two years: two years of no good: two years of plausible postponement of all that the Duke had been so loyally working for in the interest of Canada. Personally, I had no reason to complain as regarded Grand Trunk legislation. Sandfield Macdonald promised to carry our Bill, and he honourably fulfilled his promise. The Bill passed; Lady Watkin and I sailed from Boston for England on the 7th June.
But the refusal of the Canadian Parliament to vote money for defence had created a very bad impression in England. England had made large sacrifices in filling Canada with troops and stores, at a critical time—and it was naturally said, in many quarters, "Are these people cowards? Are they longing for another rule?" Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, when Mr. Rose and I called upon him at his lodgings, in St. James's Place, during my short stay in London, said, "I do not see what we can do. Had Canada helped us at all, we could have succeeded. Now every one will say, What is the use of helping such people?" And Mr. Disraeli said, in the House, answering a statement that the vote of the Canadian Parliament did not represent the feeling of the people: "I decline to assume that the vote of a popular assembly is not the vote of those they represent." All this was awkward. But I resolved I would never give in. So I went to Canada again in the autumn of 1862.
Mr. Joseph Howe came from Halifax to Canada to meet me. He did all he could to induce Sandfield Macdonald to settle the long out-standing postal claim on Canada of the Grand Trunk; but in vain. He never would settle it, just and honest as it was. Mr. Howe tried to induce the Government to take up the Intercolonial question where we had left it in the previous autumn: and in this he so far succeeded that it was agreed a delegation from Canada should meet delegations from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick before the end of this year—1862—in London. Messrs. Howland and Sicotte were the Canadian delegates; Mr. Howe for Nova Scotia, and Mr. Tilley for New Brunswick. We set to work to carry both the Intercolonial guarantee, and the Pacific transit scheme, the moment these gentlemen arrived in England.
Meeting Messrs. Rowland and Sicotte at their hotel, in Jermyn Street, on the 2nd December, 1862, and discussing matters all round, they certainly led me, unsuspectingly, to believe they had the same desire to carry the Intercolonial as that entertained by Messrs. Howe and Tilley; and further, that if a road and telegraph project could be carried on the broad lines laid down in so many discussions, their arrangements on both questions would be cordially welcomed and approved by their colleagues. I very soon found out, however, that they were "riding to orders," and those orders, no doubt, being interpreted, were: "Refuse nothing, discuss everything, but do nothing."
On the 8th December we met the Canadian delegates at the bank of Messrs. Glyn, in Lombard Street, and we drew up a proposal, which these gentlemen corrected. We adopted their corrections and sent in the paper, as an agreed paper, to the Duke.
Two days afterwards, for better assurance, we received the following memorandum:—
"With a view of better enabling the gentlemen whom they met yesterday at 67, Lombard Street, to take immediate measures to form a Company for the object of carrying out the construction of a telegraph line, and of a road to establish frequent and easy communication between Canada and the Pacific, and to facilitate the carrying of mails, passengers, and traffic, the undersigned have the honour to state, that they are of opinion that the Canadian Government will agree to give a guarantee of interest at the rate of four per cent, upon one-third of the sum expended, provided the whole sum does not exceed five hundred thousand pounds, and provided also that the same guarantee of interest will be secured upon the other two-thirds of the expenditure by Imperial or Columbian contributions.
"If a Company composed of men of the standing and wealth of those they had the pleasure to meet is formed for the above purposes, under such conditions as will secure the interests of all parties interested, and the accomplishment of the objects they have in view, such an organization will be highly favourable to the settlements of an immense territory, and, if properly administered, may prove to be also of great advantage to the trade of England.
"London, 10 Decr. 1862.
"L. V. SICOTTE,
"W. P. HOWLAND.
"To MM.
Glyn,
Benson,
Chapman,
Newmarsh,
Watkin,
&c. &c. &c."
A few days afterwards these Canadian delegates started an objection. The Imperial Government merely gave land and did not take one-third of the proposed guarantee, and the following further memorandum was sent to me:—
"Although little disposed to believe that Her Majesty's Government will not accede to the proposal of co-operation they have made in relation to the opening of communication from Canada to the Pacific, the undersigned have the honour to state, in answer to the letter of Mr. Watkin of the 17th instant, that in their opinion the Government of Canada will grant to a Company organised as proposed in the papers already exchanged, a guarantee of interest, even on one-half of the capital stated in these documents, should the Imperial Government refuse to contribute any portion of this guaranteed sum of interest.
"In answer to another demand made in the same letter, the undersigned must state that the guarantee of the Canadian Government of this payment of interest ought to secure the moneys required at the rate of four per cent, and that they will not advise and press with their colleagues a higher rate of interest as the basis of the arrangement.
"London, 20 December, 1862.
"L. V. SICOTTE,
"W. P. ROWLAND.
"ED. WATKIN, Esq., London."
So much, and so far, for the Pacific affair. But in the Intercolonial discussion there was an undercurrent. The only points left for discussion with the Duke and Mr. Gladstone were the question of survey, which was easily settled, and the question of a sinking fund for the loan to be made on the credit of Great Britain. At first Mr. Gladstone insisted on such a short term of repayment, and therefore so heavy a put-by, that his terms took away the pecuniary value of the guarantee itself: that is to say, that what the Colonies would have annually to pay, would have amounted to more than the annual sum for which they could have borrowed the money themselves. I suggested a longer term, and also, that the interest on the annual put-by, to accumulate, should be altered so as to alleviate the burden. In answer to a letter written with the assistance of Messrs. Howe and Tilley, I received the following from the Duke:—
"CLUMBER, "8 Decr. 1862.
"MY DEAR SIR,
"I am sorry to say your letter confirms the impression I have entertained from my first interview with the Canadian delegates—an impression strengthened by each subsequent meeting—that Mr. Sicotte is a traitor to the cause he has come over to advocate. I am unable to make out whether he is playing false on his own account or by order of his colleagues; but I cannot say I have any reason to associate Mr. Howland with the want of faith in any dealings with me.