liaments, and the short sessions of that blessed time
made such double service feasible. Here he was aided by two other men of
outstanding ability, Edward Blake and Oliver Mowat. Blake, the son of
a well-to-do Irishman who had been active in the fight for responsible
government, became Premier of Ontario in 1871 but retired in 1872 when
a law abolishing dual representation made it necessary for him to choose
between Toronto and Ottawa. His place was taken by Mowat, who for
a quarter of a century gave the province thrifty, honest, and
conservatively progressive government.

In spite of the growing forces opposed to him Macdonald triumphed once
more in the election of 1872. Ontario fell away, but Quebec and the
Maritime Provinces stood true. A Conservative majority of thirty or
forty seemed to assure Macdonald another five-year lease of power.
Yet within a year the Pacific Scandal had driven him from office and
overwhelmed him in disgrace.

The Pacific Scandal occurred in connection with the financing of the
railway which the Dominion Government had promised British Columbia,
when that province entered Confederation in 1871, would be built through
to the Pacific coast within ten years. The bargain was good politics
but poor business. It was a rash undertaking for a people of three and
a half millions, with a national revenue of less than twenty million
dollars, to pledge itself to build a railway through the rocky
wilderness north of Lake Superior, through the trackless plains and
prairies of the middle west, and across the mountain ranges that
barred the coast. Yet Macdonald had sufficient faith in the country, in
himself, and in the happy accidents of time--a confidence that won
him the nickname of "Old Tomorrow"--to give the pledge. Then came the
question of ways and means. At first the Government planned to build the
road. On second thoughts, however, it decided to follow the example
set by the United States in the construction of the Union Pacific and
Southern Pacific, and to entrust the work to a private company liberally
subsidized with land and cash. Two companies were organized with a view
to securing the contract, one a Montreal company under Sir Hugh
Allan, the foremost Canadian man of business and the head of the Allan
steamship fleet, and the other a Toronto company under D. L. Macpherson,
who had been concerned in the building of the Grand Trunk. Their rivalry
was intense. After the election of 1872 a stron