weight
in this argument, which Sir Charles Tupper himself had strongly urged
only a few months before, and in the light of the later Canadian
Pacific extension through precisely this American territory as well as
through Maine, there was much buncombe in the flag-waving answer made.
Yet, on the whole, so necessary to national unity was an unbroken road,
so hard a country was this to make into one, that it was best to err on
the side of safety. The political interests at stake warranted some
risk of money loss.

It was, however, on the question of the form and amount of the aid
offered that most controversy arose. Sir John Macdonald had lightly
prophesied that in the end the road would not cost Canada a single
farthing. He {147} doubtless meant that land sales would repay the
expenditure; even this did not prove true, and the statement awoke
unreasonable expectations as to the bargain to be made. When the
contract was made public it was denounced as meaning nothing more or
less than that the country was to build the road and present it gratis
to the company. To anticipate a few years, we may note the actual
results at the end of 1885, when the last rail had been laid. The cost
of the main line only, including the government sections, and of
equipment, to that date, was approximately $150,000,000. From private
sources some $50,000,000 net had been secured: the $65,000,000 stock
had been sold at varying prices, realizing slightly over $30,000,000
for the treasury, and first mortgage bonds, land-grant bonds less
amount redeemed, and outstanding accounts made up the balance. The
government, on its part, had given, by the final arrangements,
$35,000,000 cash, and completed road costing another $35,000,000; three
and a half million acres of the land-grant had been sold for about
$11,000,000, and at only two dollars per acre the fourteen odd million
acres left were worth over $29,000,000.

On the other hand, it was urged that the aid {148} given was not so
great as it seemed. The value of the government sections was
particularly questioned.[6] Whatever its value, it was not more than
enough to induce capitalists to run the great risks involved. The road
had to be operated as well as built, and few believed that for years to
come there would be sufficient traffic to make ends meet. Its future
depended on the future of the West, and it needed a robust optimism at
times to believe that the West would overcome frost