e Maritime
Provinces, to whom Confederation had been less kind, the benefit of
operating at bare cost the government railways! The Intercolonial had
undoubtedly done much to weld the eastern and central provinces
together, and this was worth more than a million dollars or two in
interest charges.

The desire for rates at cost, or lower, which has made the people in
Eastern Canada oppose all suggestions to turn over the Intercolonial to
the Canadian Pacific or Canadian Northern, led those of Western Canada
to urge government ownership of the other federal venture, the Hudson
Bay Railway. Owing to its far northern position, Manitoba possesses
ocean ports, Nelson and Churchill, which are nearer Liverpool than New
York is. Why, then, carry the grain of the prairie fifteen hundred or
two thousand miles to an Atlantic port before loading it on the ocean
freighter? Proposals to build a railway to a Hudson Bay port and to
establish a steamship line to carry the traffic at sea seemed plausible
and won much western support. Investigation soon made the difficulties
clear. Hudson Bay was fairly free from ice, but Hudson Straits were
studded with icebergs far into the summer. {238} Ships of special
construction would be needed for the dangerous passage, and, in any
event, grain could not be shipped until the spring after it was
harvested and would have to be stored in elevators during the winter.
And in the meantime the three transcontinental railways were enlarging
the eastern funnels, while the Panama Canal made an outlet by Vancouver
feasible. Still, there was a gambling chance that something would come
of a railway to Hudson Bay, and if the stroke succeeded, Canada would
be given a new coast, and would front the sea at the north as well as
at the east and the west. The territory between Le Pas, a terminus of
the Canadian Northern, and Port Nelson, selected as the better port on
Hudson Bay, had some mineral and agricultural promise. So, in the
prosperous days of 1911, it was decided to attempt the work. As it was
largely an experiment, the government's plan of state construction and
possibly operation found wide support. The line was still under
construction in 1914.

[Illustration: Railways of Canada, 1914]

Another exploration road which amply justified the faith of its
promoters was the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario. This railway,
striking up from North Bay into the mineral region and clay belt beyond
the {