commercial, the
desire to capture the trade and traffic of an ever-expanding and {28}
ever-receding west. Local convenience and local interests have played
their part, but in the larger strategy of railway building the dominant
motives have been political and commercial. They have been blended in
varying proportions; each has acted against the other as well as with
it, but at all times they give the key to facts which otherwise remain
a meaningless jumble of dates and figures.

The political motive is familiar and needs only brief reference. That
the present Canada is not a natural geographical unit is an undeniable
fact. Each of the principal sections has more natural connection with
the corresponding section of the United States than with the other
parts of Canada. And sixty years ago it was doubtful whether any
common sentiment could take the place of the physical unity which was
lacking. There was, of course, no national consciousness, based on
common history and common aspirations. At best the link of the
scattered colonies was that of common loyalty to the British crown, and
at worst a common inherited antagonism to the great republic to the
south. Yet far-seeing and courageous men were not content to accept
the decrees of geography or of the {29} diplomats who had been
over-generous in conceding territory to American claims. They sought
unity and understanding, out of fear of aggression from their
overshadowing neighbours and out of faintly shaping hope of what the
northern half-continent might become.

For unity, knowledge and daily intercourse were needed; for knowledge
and intercourse, speedy and cheap transportation was essential. Within
each province and between the two Canadas much had been done, but
neither river, canal, nor turnpike could serve to annihilate the vast
distances that separated east from west and west from farthest west.
Only the railway could achieve such a task.

But more was needed than patriotic sentiment. All-red speeches might
adorn a banquet or win an election, but facts--or fictions--as to
freight and dividends were needed to beguile the capital from
investors' pockets. The hope of securing for the Canadian provinces
the trade and traffic of the golden West was, in early years as in
late, much the strongest factor in railway policy.

When the white man came to North America, he found himself hemmed in to
the Atlantic coast by the long range of the Appalachians. Thes