sent out, and unless we
get immediate relief we must stop. Please inform Premier and Finance
Minister. Do not be surprised, or blame me, if an immediate and most
serious catastrophe happens.

The application referred to was for a further loan of $5,000,000. The
request was ill received by the Cabinet. Ministers were decidedly
averse to any further assistance out of the public treasury. The prime
minister was told that it could not be done. On the other hand, if it
were not done, irretrievable disaster stared Canada in the face. For
if the Canadian Pacific Railway went down, what of the future of the
North-West? what of the credit {125} of Canada itself? This was
perhaps the supreme moment of Sir John Macdonald's career. With a
divided Cabinet, an unwilling following, and a hostile Opposition, it
is no wonder that even his iron resolution shrank from going to
parliament with this fresh proposal, which seemed an absolute
confirmation of the prophecies of his opponents. He had, I believe,
almost if not altogether, made up his mind that further assistance was
impossible. But he looked once again, and appreciated the herculean
efforts that his friends George Stephen and Donald Smith were making to
avert the ruin of the great enterprise, apparently tottering to its
fall. He realized what such a fall would mean to his country, to his
party, and to himself; and, summoning all his courage, he called a
final Cabinet council and placed the issue fully before his colleagues.
The master spirit prevailed.[19] One minister withdrew his
resignation, and he with other {126} ministers abandoned their
opposition. The ministerial supporters in parliament, cheered and
encouraged by the indomitable spirit of their chief, voted the
$5,000,000, and the road was carried forward to completion. From that
day all went well. Both loans were speedily repaid by the company; and
the Canadian Pacific Railway, to-day the greatest transportation system
in the world, was launched.

It is the infelicity of statesmen that one difficulty is no sooner
overcome than another arises to take its place. And so it now
happened. In 1885 Louis Riel led an armed rebellion of half-breeds on
the banks of the Saskatchewan, as fifteen years earlier he had led one
on the banks of the Red River. The causes were similar. The
half-breeds were alarmed at the incoming of new life, and could not get
from the Government a title to the lands they occupied t