On the 7th of May, 1880, "An Act to incorporate Tbe Winnipeg and
Hudson's Bay Railway and Steamship Company was duly assented to.
The Act gave power for the construction and operation of a railway from
the city of Winnipeg in the Province of Manitoba, to Port Nelson, or
some other point on the Nelson River or Hudson Bay, at or near the
Nelson River, in the district of Kewatin, either in a continuous line, or
with power to the Company incorporated to utilise the navigable waters
of Lake Winnipeg and Nelson River along the said route for the said
purpose, etc., etc." The persons incorporated were Andrew Wilson Bell,
William Bannerman, Charles Smith, William T. McLeod, Peter Johnston
Brown, John C. Schultz, Hugh Ryan, John G. Haggart, Joseph Risbelle,
Hugh Sutherland, Alexander Barnett and Edward Elliott. This Com-
pany built forty miles of railroad out of Winnipeg and then collapsed-
for the Dominion Government refused to guarantee the bonds and the
Manitoba Government proved to be luke-warm. It may we think be
safely assumed that the same influences which have kept the Bay closed
for the ensuing forty-four years were quietly, but ruthlessly, exercised to
kill the undertaking. Mr. Hugh Sutherland appears to have been the
moving spirit in the Company. It is a significant fact that the promoters
of the first Hudson Bay Railroad Bill could not prevail on either of the
Manitoba members to introduce it. Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona)
was the member for Selkirk, Joseph Royal (afterwards Lieutenant-Gov-
ernor N. W. T.), was a member for Provencher; and the Hon. John
Christian Schultz (afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba) repre-
sented Lisgar. The bill was introduced by Mr. Bannerman, an Ontario
member who does not appear from the first to last to have said a word
in its support. If he did we have been unable to find any record of
it in Hansard.

Since then Manitoba, the Northwest Territories and later the Prov-
inces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, have made appeal upon appeal. In
1896 when Sir Charles Tupper's Conservative Government went to the
country, he offered the Hudson Bay Railroad to the West, as a bid for its
support, but he was defeated at the polls. When the war broke out the
steel was laid within ninety miles of the Bay. The story of the repeated
expeditions to the Bay to demonstrate, or otherwise, the feasibility of
the route and of the efforts made by the West to gain a new and shorter
way to Europe for its wheat and other produce, would fill volumes. The
struggle is still on; the same sinister influences are at work to prevent
its completion, but the prospects are good for the early extension of the
steel to the Bay. Then a new struggle will probably have to be gone
through to create a proper port, with docks and elevators; and we fear
it will be a good many years before the West finally and successfully over-
comes the quiet and ruthless opposition of certain powerful interests in
the East. We do not advocate it for a moment, but if it could be made
worth while for the Canadian Pacific Railway to handle the project and
include it within its system we do not doubt that all difficulties would dis-
appear as if by magic.