the river rate one dollar fifty
cents. I could give instances in the South where cotton by rail costs
two dollars a bale; by water, twenty-five cents.

If Panama works this great reduction, this revolution, in freights,
will that not hurt the railroads? Ask the railroads whether they make
their profit on the long or the short haul. Ask them whether high
rates and sparse population or dense population and low rates pay the
better dividends! Compare New York Central traffic receipts and
Southern Pacific on the average per mile! Now ships that are to use
Panama plan pouring twenty million people into the Pacific Coast in
twenty years.

Will Canada share the coming tide of benefits? Only two things can
prevent her: first, lack of preparation--too much "hot air" and not
enough hustle; too much after-dinner aviating in the empyrean and not
enough muddy mess out on the harbor dredge with "sand hogs" and "shovel
stiffs"; then, second, lack of adequate labor to prepare. After-dinner
speeches don't make the dirt fly. Canada wants fewer platitudes and a
great deal more of good old-fashioned hard hoeing.

CHAPTER XI

TO EUROPE BY HUDSON BAY

I

It must have become apparent to the most casual observer that
transportation has been to Canada more than a system of exploitation by
capital. Transportation has been to Canada an integral part of her
very national life--which, perhaps, explains how with the exception of
extravagance incident to a period of great prosperity her railroad
systems have been founded on sound finance from bed-rock up. In spite
of huge land grants--in all fifty-five million acres--and in the case
of one railroad wild stock fluctuations from forty-eight to three
hundred dollars--it is a question if a dollar of public money has ever
been diverted from roadbed to promoters' pockets. Certainly, in the
case of the strongest road financially in Canada, no director of the
road has ever juggled with underground wires to unload worthless
securities on widows and orphans. Railroad stocks have never been made
the football of speculators. Charters in the old days were juggled
through legislatures with land grants of eight and twelve thousand
acres per mile; but at that time these acres were worthless; and the
system of land grants has for the last ten years been discontinued.
Because railroads are a necessary part of Canada's national
development, state aid of late has taken the form of loans, cash