me
Provinces put on an equality with their American rivals. And since
this vast project was much beyond the power of the Grand Trunk to
finance, it was arranged that the road should be divided into two
sections. The eastern, from Moncton to Winnipeg, was to be built and
owned by the government and leased to the Grand Trunk Pacific, free for
seven years and at a rental of three per cent of the cost for
forty-three years following. The western, from Winnipeg to the coast,
was to be built and operated by the company, aided by a government
guarantee of principal and interest on the greater part of the bond
issue.

The announcement of this plan in July 1903 led to a storm of
controversy as fierce as that which followed the launching of the
Canadian Pacific. The Opposition brought forward various policies,
looking to a greater measure of government ownership; the minister of
Railways, Andrew G. Blair, resigned in protest; rival railways opposed
openly and sometimes by secret plot; two general elections were fought
on the issue. But rarely is a government in Canada defeated on a {209}
proposal, sound or unsound, to spend untold millions, if the money is
to be had at all. The agreement went through, with modifications, in
the following year, and the building of the great northern road began.

The railway policy of the past twenty years is still on its trial, but
some tentative conclusions may be ventured.

In the first place, it seems clear that a new transcontinental was
needed, not only to open the West, but to develop the hinterland of
eastern Canada. The rediscovery of a vast clay belt north of the
height-of-land between Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes, its known
resources in timber and pulp and its probable mineral wealth, as well
as the farming areas of the western plains, and the forest, mine, and
fishery wealth of northern British Columbia, all gave some economic
justification for the adventure. Perhaps even stronger were the
political considerations. Here, again, if railways were Canada's
politics, it was not only because Canadians were materialists, but
because they were idealists. They were determined that, in spite of
geography and diplomacy, in spite of Rocky Mountains and Lake Superior
wildernesses, Laurentian plateaus and Maine intrusions, {210} Canada
should be made one and independent. Often this national spirit has
been manipulated to serve sordid ends in railway as in tariff matters;
the flag ha