The Day of Sir John Macdonald / A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion

by Sir Joseph Pope

[[14]] To the Viscount Monck, dated Ottawa, October 11, 1872.

[[15]] For the full text of this letter see Pope's Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, vol. ii, pp. 174-89. In it Macdonald points out:

1. That Canada was under bonds to construct a railway from (say) Montreal to the Pacific.

2. That the House of Commons in the session of 1871, during his absence in Washington, carried a resolution, at the instigation of the Opposition, obliging the Government to build the road through the agency of an incorporated company.

3. That two rival companies—one under Sir Hugh Allan in Montreal, and the other under Mr David Macpherson in Toronto—were formed with the object of securing the charter.

4. That the Government, with a view to removing the great sectional jealousies which had developed between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, in relation to this matter, endeavoured to secure the amalgamation of these two companies.

5. That while these negotiations were going forward, the general elections of 1872 came on, and, among others, Sir Hugh Allan, as he had done previously for many years, subscribed largely to the Conservative election fund.

6. That Sir Hugh Allan was told before he subscribed a farthing that his railway company would not get the privilege of building the railway. He was informed that the work would only be entrusted to an amalgamated company, under the terms of the Act passed in parliament; that such amalgamation would be effected on terms fair to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, as agreed upon between the representatives of the two rival companies, and that such amalgamation would take place only after the elections.

7. That under the powers vested in them by the Act, the Government issued a royal charter in which they gave the preponderance of interest to the province of Ontario, according to population. They gave a fair representation to every one of the other provinces, and of the thirteen shareholders and directors of which the company was composed, only one was the nominee or the special choice of Sir Hugh Allan. The others were elected without the slightest reference to him; some of them against his most strenuous opposition, and they included three of the incorporators of the Ontario company, two of whom had been directors in that company. In that charter there were no advantages given, nor could they be given, by the Government. Parliament had decided what the subsidy in money and land should be, and that was given and no more.