ish, and nowhere was capital so abundant as in
London. In July, therefore, Sir John Macdonald, Sir Charles Tupper,
and John Henry Pope sailed for London, accompanied by George Stephen
and Duncan M'Intyre. London capitalists did not bite as freely as
anticipated. Barings and Rothschilds alike were chary about the
enterprise. Sir Henry Tyler, president of the Grand Trunk, was
approached, and agreed to build if the link north of Lake Superior were
omitted in favour of a line through the United States, south of the
lake, a condition which Sir John, strongly urged on by Tupper, would
not accept. An arrangement might have been made with a London group,
but only on condition of a four per cent guarantee for twelve years,
another condition which, less wisely, was also rejected. In the {141}
end the quest proved unavailing. It is true that the Paris firm of
Cohen, Reinach and Co. entered the syndicate, and that the London house
of Morton, Rose and Co. also joined. It was really, however, the New
York end of that firm, Morton, Bliss and Co., which was interested.
Contrary to the general impression, the fact is, that though most of
the shares when issued eventually drifted into English hands, no
English financiers shared in the building of the Canadian Pacific until
it was within one hundred days of completion. Perhaps, in view of the
Grand Trunk's record, it was as well that the men on this side of the
Atlantic were to be thrown on their own resources from the start, and
given the chance for bigness which responsibility brings.

Back to Ottawa the pilgrims came, and there on October 21, 1880, the
contract was signed by Charles Tupper for the government and by George
Stephen, Duncan M'Intyre, James J. Hill, John S. Kennedy, Morton, Rose
and Co. of London, and Cohen, Reinach and Co. of Paris. Donald A.
Smith's name was not there. It was only two years since he and Sir
John, on the floor of the House of Commons, had called each other
'liar' and 'coward' and any other sufficiently strong epithet they
{142} could put their tongues to, and it was to be a few years more
before the two Highlanders could cover their private feud with a
coating of elaborate cordiality. So, to preserve appearances, Smith's
interest was kept a secret--but a very open one.

When parliament met in December 1880 the contract was laid before it.
The terms were princely. For constructing some nineteen hundred miles
the syndicate were to be given fre