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.
