e and complete the seven hundred and
ten miles under construction by the government,[5] $25,000,000 in cash,
and 25,000,000 acres of selected land in the Fertile Belt. They were
promised exemptions from import duties on construction materials, from
taxes on land for twenty years after the patents were issued and on
stock and other property for ever, and exemption from regulation of
rates until ten per cent per annum was earned on the capital.
Assurance was given that for twenty years no competitive roads
connecting with the western states would be chartered: 'no line of
railway south of the Canadian Pacific, except such line as shall run
southwest or to the westward of southwest, nor to be within fifteen
miles {143} of latitude 49 deg..' Ten years were given to complete the
task, and a million dollars were deposited as security.

The contract was received by Blake, then leader of the Opposition, and
his followers with a unanimous shout of disapproval. During the
Christmas recess Blake endeavoured to raise the country against it. A
rival syndicate was hastily organized, with Sir William Howland, A. R.
M'Master, William Hendrie, A. T. Wood, Allan Gilmour, George A. Cox, P.
Larkin, James M'Laren, Alexander Gibson, and other well-known
capitalists at its head. After depositing $1,400,000 in chartered
banks as evidence of good faith, they offered to build the road for
$3,000,000 and 3,000,000 acres less, to pay duty on all supplies
imported, and to abandon the monopoly clause, the exemptions from
taxation, and the exemption from rate regulation. With this weapon to
brandish Blake gave the government proposal no respite, but on a
straight party vote the contract was ratified by parliament and
received the formal royal assent in February 1881.

It was in many ways unfortunate that from the outset the Canadian
Pacific project was made the football of party politics, but it was
{144} perhaps inevitable. The first duty of an Opposition is to
oppose, and even if some good measures are factitiously resisted, many
a 'job' is prevented by this relentless criticism. The government
proposal, it would now seem, was on the whole in the country's
interest, but it had weak points. In attacking these the Opposition
was led on to take up a position of hostility to the whole project,
while the government was equally indiscriminate in defending every jot
and tittle of the bargain. In any event, with the bitter rivalry of
the Grand