at feat of statesmanship;
for to maintain the young Dominion intact was essential to its further
extension.

[1] _Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 319.

[2] _Sir George Etienne Cartier, Bart; His Life and Times_, by John
Boyd. Toronto, 1914.

[3] Sir James Whitney, prime minister of Ontario from 1903 to 1914, who
was a young student in Sandfield Macdonald's law office in Cornwall and
shared his political confidence, assured the present writer that
Ontario's first prime minister was not a Liberal in the real sense, his
instincts and point of view being essentially Conservative. After
Robert Baldwin's retirement Sandfield Macdonald's natural course would
have been an alliance with the progressive Conservatives under John A.
Macdonald, but his antipathy to acknowledging any leader kept him
aloof. His laconic telegram in reply to John A. Macdonald's offer of
cabinet office is characteristic: 'No go!'

[4] A conspicuous case in point is the entire want of sympathy between
Brown and Galt, men of similar type, whose opinions on several
questions coincided.

[5] _Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada_, by the Rt. Hon. Sir
Charles Tupper, Bart.

{158}

CHAPTER XIII

FROM SEA TO SEA

The extension of the Dominion to the Pacific ocean had been discussed
at the Quebec Conference. Some of the maritime delegates, however,
thought they had no authority to discuss the acquisition of territory
beyond the boundaries of the provinces; and George Brown, one of the
strongest advocates of western extension, conceded that the inclusion
of British Columbia and Vancouver Island in the scheme of union was
'rather an extreme proposition.' But the Canadian leaders never lost
sight of the intervening regions of Rupert's Land and the North-West
Territory. They foresaw the danger of the rich prairie lands falling
under foreign control, and entertained no doubts as to the necessity of
terminating in favour of Canada the hold of the Hudson's Bay Company
over these regions.

In 1857 the select committee of the Imperial House of Commons,
mentioned in a preceding {159} chapter, had believed it 'essential to
meet the just and reasonable wishes of Canada to be enabled to annex to
her territory such portion of the land in her neighbourhood as may be
available to her for the purposes of settlement.' The districts on the
Red River and on the Saskatchewan were considered as likely to be
desired; and, as a condition of occupation, Canada sho