Your letter of the 28th ultimo, enclosing the
heads of a proposal for establishing telegraphic and postal
communication between Lake Superior and New Westminster, through the
agency of the Atlantic and Pacific Transit and Telegraph Company. These
proposals call for some observations from his Grace.
"New Westminster is named as the Pacific terminus of the road and
telegraph. His Grace takes for granted that if the Imperial Government
and that of British Columbia should find on further inquiry that some
other point on the coast would supply a more convenient terminus, the
Company would be ready to adopt it.
"Article 1. - His Grace sees no objection to the grant of land
contemplated in this Article, but the 'rights' stipulated for are so
indeterminate that without further explanation they could scarcely be
promised in the shape in which they are asked. He anticipates, however,
no practical difficulty on this head.
"Nos. 1 and 2. - The Duke of Newcastle, on the part of
British Columbia and Vancouver Island, sees no objection to the maximum
rate of guarantee proposed by the Company, provided that the liability
of the Colonies is clearly limited to 12,500l. per annum. Nor
does he think it unfair that the Government guarantee should cover
periods of temporary interruption from causes of an exceptional
character, and over which the Company has no control.
"But he thinks it indispensable that the Colonies should be
sufficiently secured against having to pay, for any lengthened period,
an annual sum of 12,500l. without receiving the corresponding
benefit, that is to say, the benefit of direct telegraphic
communication between the seat of government in Canada and the coast of
the Pacific.
"It must, therefore, be understood that the commencement of the
undertaking must depend on the willingness of the Canadian Government
and Legislature to complete telegraphic communication from the seat of
government to the point on Lake Superior at which the Company will take
it up. Nor could his Grace strongly urge on the Colonies of Vancouver
Island and British Columbia the large annual guarantee which this
project contemplates, unless there were good reason to expect that the
kindred enterprise of connecting Halifax and Montreal by railway would
be promptly and vigorously proceeded with. It will also be requisite to
secure by formal agreements that the guarantee shall cease, and the
grants of land for railway purposes revert to the grantors, in case of
the permanent abandonment of the undertaking, of which abandonment some
unambiguous test should be prescribed, such as the suspension of
through communication for a stated period.
"The Duke of Newcastle does not object to five years as the maximum
period for the completion of the undertaking - and he thinks it fair to
exclude from that period, or from the period of suspension above
mentioned, any time during which any part of the line should be in
occupation of a foreign enemy.
