England and Canada / A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical Notes

by Sandford Fleming

We may ask if representative government is ever to be inseparable from the defects which form the most striking feature in its application and administration, especially on this continent. Must a country constitutionally governed be inevitably ranged into two hostile camps? One side denouncing their opponents and defaming the leading public men of the other, not hesitating even to decry and misrepresent the very resources of the community and to throw obstacles in the way of its advancement. Never was partyism more abject or remorseless. Its exigencies are unblushingly proclaimed to admit the most unscrupulous tactics and the most reprehensible proceedings. Is there no escape from influences so degrading to public life and so hurtful to national honour?

It is evident that the evils which we endure are, day by day, extending a despotism totally at variance with the theory and principles of good government. Possibly Canada may be passing through a phase in the earlier stage of her political freedom. Can we cheer ourselves by the hope that institutions inherently good will clear themselves from the slough into which they unfortunately may be immersed? May not the evils of partyism at last become so intensified that their climax will produce a remedy. As by natural laws a liquid in the process of fermentation purifies itself by throwing off the scum and casting the dregs to the bottom, so may we be encouraged to believe that we are approaching the turning period in the political system we have fallen into, and that year by year Parliament will become less and less a convention of contending party men and be elevated to its true position in the machinery of representative government. Public life will then become more ennobling; it will, indeed, be an object of ambition for men of honour and character to fill places in the Councils of the Nation, when rectitude of purpose and patriotism and truth will be demanded in all and by all who aspire to positions of national trust and dignity.

From the earliest days of my connection with the Pacific Railway I felt convinced of its national necessity. If the North-West country was to become a part of the Dominion vigorous efforts for its settlement were necessary. Among the facilities to be given to the immigrant one of the most important was that of obtaining a means of ingress and a market for his produce. Taking the geographical central position of the country it was not enough to have completed a connection in one direction. If, in due time, a market was open to the Atlantic, it appeared equally essential that an outlet to the Pacific should be obtained. It was clearly foreseen that the only true principle on which the line could be constructed was to form a connection equally with the valley of the St. Lawrence and with the Pacific Ocean.

This view was not generally entertained. There were many who readily admitted that the Railway should be carried across from Red River to Lake Superior, to find an outlet to the East by the St. Lawrence. For without such a connection no Canadian character would have been given to the line, and freight and passengers equally would have been diverted to St. Paul and Chicago, to be engulfed in the United States system of railways. But while such as these recognized the commercial and political wants of a line from the interior to Lake Superior, there were many who saw no advantage in its Eastern extension along the north shore of Lake Superior, to connect with the lines in operation to the East. It was held that the Railway should terminate at Lake Superior. It was argued that from May to the month of November navigation is open for vessels to proceed by the lakes and the St. Lawrence; and that during the remaining five months of the year it was contended that connection could be obtained by passing over the Canadian frontier to St. Paul and by following the railways eastwards. It was remembered that Montreal had been many years without a winter port, and that no practical inconvenience by that arrangement had followed. On the contrary, that every convenience had resulted, and for the five winter months the limited travel of that period had been profitably directed through the United States Railways to Portland. Very many, therefore, argued that the line should stop at Port Arthur, and that the completion of the portion on the north shore of Lake Superior should be postponed for an indefinite period. I have always held a different opinion. My theory, from the first, has been that the construction of a Pacific Railway meant the construction of the whole Railway.

If Canada had held the sovereignty of the south shore of Lake Superior or controlled the railways in operation by the South Shore, there was much plausibility in the argument that the several links should be connected by the completion of the parts wanting, and that this route should be followed for a quarter of a century or until a large increase of population called for the construction of the line along the north shore of Lake Superior. But all lines south of the lake pass through the States of Michigan and Minnesota. Any diplomatic difficulty would at once be felt in this direction. We were, by such a policy, creating for ourselves a weak spot to be felt on the least strain in our relations with our neighbours. That it is not a fanciful supposition may be found in President Grant’s proposition to Congress in his annual message of 1880. In alluding to the course taken by the Canadian authorities in seeking to protect the inshore fisheries of the Dominion and to the Statute passed by Parliament in that intent, General Grant makes the following deliberate proposal to Congress: “I recommend you to confer upon the Executive the power to suspend by proclamation the operation of the laws authorizing the transit of goods, wares and merchandise in bond across the territory of the United States to Canada; and, further, should such an extreme measure become necessary, to suspend the operation of any laws whereby the vessels of the Dominion of Canada are permitted to enter the waters of the United States.”

Such language as this is a threat of no slight moment, and its record is a warning both so powerful and unmistakeable as not to allow it to pass without providing against the contingency of its future execution. With a summer route by water via Port Arthur and a winter railway line through the United States to Winnipeg, encouragement would be offered to the United States Government on the slightest provocation, to repeat the language of General Grant, and for Congress to carry it into effect. Without a connection on the north shore of Lake Superior we would have possessed but a shadow of a line, which an hour’s declaration of unfriendliness would have nullified. Even in summer Canada would be practically cut in two, for the canal overcoming the Rapids of Sault St. Mary, at the outlet of Lake Superior, is in the State of Michigan. With the connection completed from Ottawa we are perfectly independent of any diplomatic strain on our relations. Possibly the cost of our freedom from this risk may be some millions of dollars, but it is precisely the situation when cost cannot be counted.

Some attempt has been made to cumber the problem by assertions of the bleak and barren character of the intervening distance from Callander to Port Arthur. One important industry is certainly ministered to by this line: that of the lumber trade. At a period when some of the old fields of enterprise have ceased to furnish the timber supply of former days, all the territory where the waterfall runs away from the Ottawa will be directly served by this line, and an opportunity for working it opened up. It is also confidently affirmed that the mineral wealth of the territory is great and that in no long period many important industries will arise in connection with its development.

The British Columbia terminus of the Pacific Railway involved many considerations and it could not at once be determined. At any early stage of our proceedings it was expedient to adopt a pass through the mountains which would admit of a connection with any one of the many harbours advocated. The Yellow Head Pass was the only one to meet this condition; it was attended also with the accompanying advantage that the line from Red River to this locality passed through the heart of the best land in the North-West. It has been designated the fertile belt; a fact, I believe, indisputable. On both sides of the proposed line the land was marked by great productive qualities; the soil was considered, in every respect, suitable for agricultural purposes. Moreover, the line so projected ran within easy reach of the extreme Peace River District, by some reported to be the most fertile of the North-West. It was these reasons, its low elevation and its freedom from objectionable features of climate, which led to the almost universal recognition of the excellency of the Yellow Head Pass. I have not seen it necessary to modify the views which, under the aspect in which it was selected, I then expressed concerning it. I still regard it as peculiarly favourable, and under that aspect superior to every other passage through the mountains to the south or to the north.

When the Railway Company entered into their contract with the Government and assumed the work of construction, the conditions under which the consideration of the location presented themselves were no longer the same. Port Moody, Burrard Inlet, had been definitely chosen as the terminus, and construction had commenced between Kamloops and Port Moody, that distance being the extent of line which the Government undertook to complete. To the East the line between Lakes Superior and Winnipeg was also being pushed forward with vigour by the Government. The problem which the Company had to solve was the location between Winnipeg and Kamloops. They have considered it on the principle of obtaining the shortest trans-continental route, and in these few words they explain the theory of their selection. They claim that this reason, in itself, is all powerful to determine the location by the more southern route which they follow, and one in itself sufficient to meet any objection urged against it.

In the earlier pages of this volume I described the soil of the country west of Winnipeg through which the Railway has been constructed, and I expressed my opinion as to its capability for agricultural development. It is generally conceded that for four hundred miles, to Moose Jaw, it is of great fertility. I could not learn one unfavourable view of any portion of this extent with the most trifling exception. The whole distance may be said to be entirely free from that sterile, forbidding surface soil which passes under the name of waste land.