But fairness compels us to say something, and something handsome,
about the C. P. R. It had its own troubles, and to keep its head above
water during those long, lean, hard years, it was almost compelled to take
every dollar out of the Northwest Territories that they could stand. From
the railroad point of view it was always splendidly managed. Energy,
enterprise and efficiency were always its watchwords; and in less able
hands than those of Van Home, the company would have drifted into
bankruptcy. The West has forgotten and forgiven the days of monopoly;
and we look back with admiration on the great corporation which pulled
itself through somehow in the face of tremendous difficulties, and, some-
how, pulled the country through with it. The time was, in the early days,
when the C. P. R. Was as hard up as any homesteader who had nothing
but a pile of frozen grain, or no grain at all, to pay his debts with. Today
it is the greatest corporation of its kind in the civilized world.

We know that it can be said that the country pulled the C. P. R.
through, but from the angle we are now taking we prefer to let the state-
ment stand. The jugular vein of the country was the C. P. R. If that
vein had been cut the country would have bled to death. No doubt the
C. P. R., on the other hand, bled the country to feed itself. It has been
recently stated that in 1886 the company couldn't pay its wages. Under
less capable, determined, resourceful and scientific management, in a
country slowly progressing in spite of hard seasons and hard prices, there
would have been a wholesale exodus. As it was the exodus was consider-
able. And so we say in looking back that if the C. P. R. chastised us with
whips, it might have chastised us with scorpions. We were all working
for the C. P. R. but although we did not realise it, in doing so we were
working for ourselves by keeping the railroad open; and in view of the
magnificent results which have their root in those strenuous days, we
may say, "well done C. P. R., and well done, everybody," if Strathcona
et al made a few millions after risking all they had, it is a small price
compared with the assessable value of the prairie provinces as they
stand today.