impenetrable
was not the agent of a democracy, but an emperor. He had his counterpart
in Japan. The Orientalism which Van Horne infused into the system even
while he laughed it out of court, was solemnly accepted by the man who
came after. But it was the Orientalism of efficiency. Shaughnessy was
its symbol. Away from it he was of little consequence except as a
benevolent citizen with statesmanlike views upon how governments should
govern. Within it he was mighty. He felt himself the apex of a thing
that knew no provincial boundaries. He consciously made it the
instrument of Empire. He was inordinately proud of its morale. To him
it was a complicated army. He felt it assimilating men who lived, moved
and had their being in C.P.R.--as he had. He was the great human rubber
stamp. He had extra power. He lived on fiats and papal bulls. Men
learned to tremble at his nod--not at Shaughnessy, but at the man who
personalized the infallible system. And as governments came up and
capsized in the storms of public sentiment, the great system went on in
its sullen but splendid way, a sort of solar system in which parties and
governments gravitated.

It would have needed a greater soul than Shaughnessy to be cynical about
C.P.R. It often needed his latent Irish humour to appreciate the larger
cynicism which it expressed concerning the country. The pap-fed infants
of Mackenzie and Hays served but to illustrate by contrast the perfection
and the well-oiled technique of the dynamo operated by Shaughnessy. It
became an obsession with him, as it did with Flavelle over a commercial
company, that "the king can do no wrong." His annual report bristled
with pride over the Company's achievements. He insisted upon the
inherent morality of the thing and of the men who were its officials.
And the older he grew the more Shaughnessy became absorbed in it. In his
career the office of President reached its climax. It was shorn of much
of its aspect of awe as soon as he left it.

His knighthood was a slight decoration on so august a personage; as
though the king had decorated the Mikado. The baronage more nearly
fitted the case. Shaughnessy was not too passionately a Home Ruler to
take it. But he was never so good a president of the C.P.R. after he got
it. He became particular over forms and etiquette. One almost looked
for a change of guard at the gate when entering the President's office.

No pomp, however, could undo