This strange circumscription of outlook seemed to be inherent in the management of the railway from London, which proceeded as though the railway business could support a Downing Street of its own, which gave to “colonial” enterprises, by a species of absent treatment, the superior direction of men who never saw what they fancied they were managing; and who imagined that the appearance in their chosen field of young, ambitious and capable rivals was an impertinent incompetence.
The C.P.R. in 1882 had reached Winnipeg, though the road round the north shore of Lake Superior did not connect with Port Arthur till 1885. Steel was laid beyond Regina. The general manager, Van Horne, had a unique genius for railway pioneering, and a driving power to which his employers had the sagacity to give a free hand. Somewhat similarly to what happened when the construction of the Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific were in full swing, there was a great demand for all kinds of men who knew something of the railway business.
Van Horne immediately drew heavily on the Grand Trunk—in fact he drained it of a great deal of material that was in line for promotion. In those days an increase of five dollars a month was a powerful temptation to an aspiring subordinate in a freight or passenger department. The offer of an additional ten was an irresistible bait. The Grand Trunk general manager was Mr. Hickson; his assistant was William Wainwright. The general auditor was T. B. Hawson. The era of vice-presidents in charge of departments had not yet arrived. The Grand Trunk was not only directed from London, but its chief officers were sent direct from English railways. The three just named were from the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway.
As its name indicated, this was a purely provincial line. It has since developed into the Great Central, with its own fine terminal in London—Marylebone Station. Fifty years ago an officer on, say, the London and North Western, or the Great Northern, would have felt it beneath his dignity to accept a post on a “colonial” railway.
In England, at that time, the solemn importance that was attached by railway operators to their work could be gauged by the interminable extracts from Acts of Parliament about tolls, printed in big type, which adorned the walls of country stations, but which even those who had missed one train and were waiting for another never had the courage to read. Manifestations like this were possibly due to the necessity for fighting for recognition as an entirely respectable section of the business world which distinguished the earlier years of steam locomotion. Landowners regarded it as beneath their duty to their ancestry and posterity to ride in a vehicle which anybody might use for a financial consideration. When they deigned to use the railway they had their own coaches strapped to flat cars, and believed they were riding in state.
One alludes to the non-Canadian management of the old Grand Trunk, not as a criticism, but as a fact, which has had agreeable results for oneself. If, when the C.P.R. had carried its policy of abstracting men from the senior road, replacers had been sought from the bright Canadian youths who were then flocking to the United States, this tale might never have been told. But the old country management looked to the old countries for clerks, as they did for directors.
The Great Western, serving a considerable portion of Ontario beyond Hamilton, was taken over by the Grand Trunk in August, 1882. The acquisition extended the demand for clerical assistance, for the accounts of the two elements in the amalgamation were kept separately for longer than now seems to have been necessary. The audit department therefore required considerable augmentation.
Perhaps because my father was a treasurer, accounts had never been uncongenial to me. I could enjoy straightening out the mess that some unlucky book-keeper had made. I gravitated to the auditors’ brigade, and, on November 2, 1882, after a voyage on the Phoenician, which convinced me that marine transportation was not my long suit, I reported at the Grand Trunk head office, at Point St. Charles, Montreal, and began forty years of railroading such as can never be repeated in Canada. Then there was much land to be possessed. Now, there are certain deficits to be dissipated.