urpluses in two years out of three, but
the net deficits since Confederation rose to over eleven {235} millions
by 1913; and while there was no question that the administration had
been improved, there was room for belief that the surpluses had been in
part book-keeping ones, obtained by including in the large capital
expenditure items properly chargeable to revenue.

At first sight this failure to meet operating expenses, much less to
pay interest on the investment, together with constantly increasing
capital outlay, seemed to warrant strong condemnation of government
methods. And, in truth, a serious indictment could be framed.
Efficient government ownership is more difficult in a democratic
country where shippers, employees, would-be employees, supply dealers,
all have influence over the administration, than it is in a
bureaucratic state. Intercolonial employees were given their posts and
kept in them by political influence, and their numbers were often as
excessive as energy was lacking. Supplies of coal and new land as
required were usually purchased from political friends, with an
additional margin for campaign contributions;[1] at election times the
{236} road became a vast political machine. Under the administration
of the governments of Laurier and Borden the grosser scandals ceased,
but in one form or other political influence continued to be exerted.

Yet this was not the whole story. If the Intercolonial did not earn
dividends, there were other reasons at work than government
inefficiency. The road ran for long stretches through barren country
where little local traffic originated. In competing for through
traffic it was handicapped by the roundabout length of its route: it
ran along two sides of a triangle, while the Canadian Pacific,
subsidized by one political party, was built along the base, and the
National Transcontinental, built by the other party, came in between;
in summer it had to face the competition of the St Lawrence route as
well. Nor was dividend-earning the sole standard of success to be
applied. The Intercolonial was built originally for political and
military ends, not merely for commercial gain. It had given shippers
the lowest rates in the world: 'the surplus is in the pockets of the
people,' one of the political heads declared. If, it was often urged,
the canals of Ontario and Quebec were operated by the government at a
dead {237} loss, without a cent of tolls, why grudge th