“I’ve bought the Allans’ ranch in the Foothills,” said Lane. “They were in such a hurry to sell that they don’t know to a few thousand how many head are on the property, but I do. The outfit’s worth half a million more than they asked me for it. I only just found out why they were so darned anxious to sell. They’ve gone into the Merchants’ Bank and the Ogilvie Milling Company, and want ready money. I don’t carry half a million in my jeans, but I know where to get it. I had to tell somebody the d—— news, and you’re the first friend I saw in the hotel.”
One all-in-the-day episode from Shaw, and we must leave him to his golf. In the spring of 1883 he was sent to Port Arthur to receive the first steamer load of passengers that was to enter Winnipeg direct from an Ontario port. The boat was the City of Owen Sound, from Owen Sound, which the C.P.R. had made its Lake Huron terminus, failing to arrange for Collingwood. There was practically no landing accommodation—the hour for porters on Thunder Bay had not yet struck. Three hundred and fifty passengers disembarked and their baggage was handled by the C.P.R. officers, of whom Shaw was one. Among them was a young engineer who, from having been a chainman on the Credit Valley line was on the way to a job on the Superior section of the C.P.R. His name was MacLeod. He was to become chief engineer and general manager of the Canadian Northern Railway, and build more miles of railway in the prairie country than any other man.
CHAPTER XI.
Indicating several considerations which made Toronto the centre of a Transcontinental system.
A rather cynical friend used to say his title to respectability was that he was permitted to live in Toronto. For twenty-one years I have been enabled to read that title clear. In truth, Toronto is a goodly city, which doesn’t think of itself more highly than it ought to think, although it has a contrariwise repute. Occasionally one is inclined to observe that it might have thought a little more generously of some who have served it better than has always been recognized—Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, for examples.
When the movement of Canadian National officials to Montreal began, early in 1923, there were about twenty-five hundred employees of the system in Toronto. At say, an average of two dependents, that means a population of seven thousand five hundred; and with their support of butchers, and bakers, grocers and tailors, candlestick makers, and show-ticket takers, say fifteen hundred more. Half of Toronto’s manufacturing output goes to the West. In the prairie country, at least, it can fairly be said that one-fourth of the development of this century has been directly due to the building of the Canadian Northern. There was no particular reason why a series of railways west of Port Arthur should have their head office in Toronto—I mean from the point of view of efficient administration—except that Mr. Mackenzie lived here, and, as President of the Toronto Railway Company, had spent much of his business activity with the city as his personal headquarters.
Mr. Mann lived in Montreal. His partnership, with the late James Ross, the present Sir Herbert Holt, and Mr. Mackenzie, entailed the carrying of an office in Montreal. The head office of Mackenzie and Mann was opened in Toronto in 1899—three years after the railway to Dauphin, (and to two oceans) was begun. When the Mackenzie-Mann partnership was incorporated, later, it became possible for the two principals to become officers of the railway companies, because they were no longer construction contractors personally—one of those legal situations upon which, according to temperament, it may be declared that the law is an ass, or a Solomon.
At that time the Toronto Railway Company’s building at the corner of King and Church streets was not all required for street railway purposes; and the railway contractors rented three back rooms on the top floor, the architectural firm of Pearson and Darling having the front offices.