brought into effect during the session of 1879. So completely
was his promise fulfilled that the Liberal leader, Mackenzie, declared
that Sir John had 'gone the whole hog.' George Brown made a similar
admission.[17] Sir John Macdonald, it may be said, always carried out
his promises. I never knew him to fail. He was guarded in making
them, but if he gave an unconditional promise he was sure to {118}
implement it, no matter at what inconvenience to himself. I have seen
this illustrated again and again. The late Sir Richard Cartwright--no
very friendly witness--observed in recent times, in his own
characteristic fashion: 'I will say this for that old scoundrel John A.
Macdonald, that if he once gave you his word, you could rely upon it.'

Sir John had not been long in power when death removed the most
implacable of his foes. On May 9, 1880, died George Brown, struck down
in his office by the bullet of an assassin. This shocking occurrence,
which was due to the act of a discharged printer, had no relation to
public affairs.

The fiscal policy having been settled, Sir John Macdonald again turned
his attention to the problem of a railway to the Pacific. The Liberal
Government, on the ground that the agreement with British Columbia to
build the road within ten years was impossible of fulfilment, had not
considered Canada bound by it, but had decided to build the railway,
not by means of a private company, but as a government work, and to
construct it gradually in sections as the progress of settlement and
the state of the public treasury might warrant. Sir John Macdonald
rejected this piecemeal {119} policy, and resolved to carry out the
original scheme of a great national highway across the continent, to be
built as rapidly as possible so as to open up quickly the resources of
the Great West.

In the summer of 1880, accompanied by three of his colleagues--Tupper,
Pope, and Macpherson--Macdonald visited England for the purpose of
inducing capitalists to take hold of the enterprise. After much
negotiation they were successful, and on September 14, 1880, an
agreement for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway was
signed in London. The company was to receive $25,000,000 and
25,000,000 acres of land in alternate blocks on each side of the
railway running from Winnipeg to Jasper House at the Rockies. The line
was to be completed by May 1, 1891, and the company was to deposit one
million dollars as eviden