873. In no other documents available to the public
has the connection between politics and railway promoting in Canada
been made so evident. The following are a few brief extracts from
letters addressed by Sir Hugh Allan to various American associates
during 1872:

Thinking that as I had taken up the project there must be something
very good in it, a very formidable opposition was organized in Toronto,
which for want of a better took as their cry 'No foreign influence; no
Yankee dictation; no Northern Pacific to choke off our Canadian
Pacific,' and others equally sensible.... I was forced to drop
ostensibly from our organization every American name, and put in
reliable people on this side in place of them.... Mr M'Mullen was
desirous of securing the inferior members of the Government, and
entered into engagements of which I did not approve, as I thought it
was only a waste of powder and shot. On a calm view of the situation I
satisfied myself that the decision of the question must ultimately be
in the hands of one man, and that man was Sir George E. Cartier, the
leader of the French party, which held the balance of power between the
other factions.... It was evident that some means must be adopted to
bring the influence of this compact body of men to bear in our favour,
and as soon as I made up my mind what to do, I did not lose a moment in
following it up. A railroad from Montreal to Ottawa, through the
French country, north of the Ottawa river, has long been desired by the
French inhabitants; but Cartier, who is a salaried solicitor of the
Grand Trunk road, to which this would be an opposition, has interposed
difficulties, and by his influence prevented it being built.... The
plans I propose are in themselves the best for the interests of the
Dominion, and in urging them on the public I am really doing a most
patriotic action. But even in that view, means must be used to
influence the public, and I employed several young French lawyers to
write it up in their own newspapers. I subscribed a controlling
influence in the stock, and proceeded to subsidize the newspapers
themselves, both editors and proprietors. I went to the country
through which the road would pass, and called on many of the
inhabitants. I visited the priests and made friends of them, and I
employed agents to go among the principal people and talk it up. I
then began to hold public meetings, and attended to them myself, making
frequent sp