 194 CANADA Pacific railroad was first thought of. People could even then get into Manitoba through Minnesota by rail, but when on the edge of it there was nothing more. The railroad promoters, however, who were identified with the Conservative party in the Dominion Government, thought it would be a glorious thing for the Empire to be able to carry troops across the continent to the East, in case of need, as the United States railroads would not be available for such a purpose. It was understood by now, too, what hundreds of miles of splendid land lay awaiting the plough. But people were greatly divided as to whether the average man or woman could stand a series of such terribly cold winters, and whether the risk to crops was not too great for any real and extensive settlement in the country. British Columbia had pricked up her ears at the prospect of a railroad, and joined the federation on the strength of a promise that it should be constructed. For a poor country, as Canada then was, it seemed to many a mad undertaking. It meant seven hundred miles through a rocky wilderness with costly engin- eering from Montreal to Winnipeg, and eight hundred miles across a prairie barely touched by settlement, terminated by a climb over the unexplored Alpine ranges of the Rockies. Whence could the profit |  THE PRAIRIE PROVINCES 195 ever come for such a line? It became for years the chief subject of political con- tention at Ottawa, the Conservative Govern- ment, under Sir John Macdonald, the prime mover of Federation, being active supporters of it, while the Liberal party were oppon-. ents of, at least, any immediate action. The Grand Trunk, which had then run for years through the best parts of Canada, had so far proved a dead loss. So had the Inter-colonial railroad, recently constructed to the Maritime provinces. Here were two thousand miles to be compassed through a country as yet producing almost nothing, and just half of it naturally barren. But the idea of its coura- geous advocates was to carry the people by the railroad who would settle on it and make it a success. The late Sir John Macdonald, with Lords Strathcona and Mountstephen, were the life and soul of what looked to some a hopeless enterprise. Their faith was as great as their energy. The first lived to see it successfully doing its work, the last two have lived to see it paying handsome dividends; and so far from being sufficient to serve the prosperity it has created, another great line is being built parallel to it. There were few capitalists in Canada in those days. The railroad was built ixtainly with British and European capital, but the financial difficulties and ups |
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