press, and on the platform. Blake
himself moved against it a resolution of over a hundred clauses, which,
as usual, exhausted the subject and left little for his lieutenants to
say. Mr Laurier particularly criticized the large land-grant and the
exemption from taxation. Had the policy of gradual construction been
adopted, he contended, it would not have been necessary to take a leap
in the dark and give the syndicate the power of a monopoly in the
western country: 'there might have been fewer millionaires in this
country, but there would have been many more happy and contented homes.'

The Government was, however, committed, and a party majority ratified
the contract. After events justified both the policy of the Government
and, to some extent, the criticism of the Opposition. Great national
interests were at stake. Nothing short of an {60} all-Canadian railway
could bind together the far-flung Dominion. But the building of this
railway, and still more its operation, would be a task to daunt all but
the most fearless, and to those who undertook it generous terms were a
necessity. In their clear understanding and courageous grasp of the
facts, and in their persistent support of the company through all the
dark days until the railway was completed, Macdonald and Tupper and
Pope deserved well of their country. Yet it is equally clear now that
in many points the criticism of the Opposition was well founded. The
land-grant was of least value when most needed--in the early years.
The freedom of the company to select land where they pleased gave them
a mortgage on the West and power to deter possible rival roads. The
exemption from taxation of the company's lands for twenty years after
the issue of the patents, and of its capital stock and equipment for
ever, threw unfair burdens upon the straggling settlers. Still more
threatening to national unity was the monopoly clause, guaranteeing the
company for twenty years against the chartering, either by the Dominion
or by any province afterwards established, of any road enabling United
States railways to tap western traffic.

{61}

The issue was decided, as to any immediate effects, by the success of
the Conservatives in the general elections of 1882. The country wanted
the road, and as usual was not disposed to read too closely the fine
print in the contract. But the matter did not end there. Each party
had been led by attack and counterattack to take a stronger s