ally in British Columbia; that the cost of the
remainder was increased by having to join it to the unwisely located
sections, and that, allowing for the saving which could have been made
in location, he could have duplicated the latter for twelve or fifteen
millions.

[7] 'The payment to the government of $8,710,240, in advance, of
secured dividends, has deprived the company for the moment of the means
for continuous, vigorous exertion in construction, without enabling it
to recoup itself by the sale of its stock, as was confidently and
reasonably expected' (Letter of George Stephen to the government,
January 15,1884).

Speaking in parliament in 1885, Edward Blake declared that, omitting
the last ten millions issued, the company had raised on stock
$24,500,000, and, counting the next two dividend payments, they would
have paid or provided for dividends $24,875,000. Already $7,000,000
had been paid out in dividends, members of the syndicate receiving
$3,610,000 on their $10,000,000 investment. In other words, before the
road was opened for traffic, every cent paid in by the shareholders
would have been paid back or set aside for dividends, leaving not a
dollar for building the road.

{169}

CHAPTER IX

THE ERA OF AMALGAMATION

Subsidy and Control--Canadian Pacific Expansion--The Monopoly
Clause--The Grand Trunk

With the building of the Intercolonial, the Grand Trunk, and the
Canadian Pacific, the main lines of communication from ocean to ocean
were completed. In the decade which followed, the marked features
were: the adoption by the Dominion government of a policy of aid to
purely local roads, and the expansion of the two great private
companies, partly by new construction and partly by acquisition of the
smaller lines.

It has been seen that the policy of Canada after 1851 and of the
Dominion after Confederation was to give assistance only to lines of
more than local and usually more than provincial importance. During
the first ten or fifteen years after Confederation promoters looked to
province and municipality for aid, and did not look in vain. Soon the
provinces outran their resources, and began to {170} clamour for
increased federal subsidies to meet the pressing charges. But the
Dominion government concluded that, if it had to provide the money
needed, it might as well give it direct, and secure whatever political
credit the grants would entail. In 1882 it decided to embark on a new
s