Canada and the States | Page 4

of the
Conservative party was then beating.
There was, however, one bright gleam of hope. That was to be found in
the, still remembered, effects of the visit of the Prince of Wales,
accompanied by the Duke of Newcastle, to Canada, and the United
States, in 1860.
Entertaining, with no small enthusiasm, and in common, these views of
an Anglo-American Empire, Mr. Tilley and I were of the same opinion
as to practical modes. We must go "step by step," and the Intercolonial
Railway was the first step in the march before us.
In the following pages will be found some record of what followed.
Suffice it here to say, that the Railway is made, not on the route I
advocated: but it is in course of improvement, so that the shortest iron
road from the great harbour of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the Pacific
may be secured. The vast western country, bigger than Russia in
Europe, more or less possessed and ruled over, since the days of Prince
Rupert, the first governor, by the "Merchant Adventurers of England
trading to Hudson's Bay," has been annexed to Canada, and one
country, under one Parliament, is bounded by the two great oceans; and,
as a consequence, the "Canadian Pacific Railway" has been made and
opened for the commerce of the world.
Mr. Tilley, now Sir Leonard Tilley, is, at the moment, Lieutenant-
Governor of New Brunswick, having previously filled the highest
offices in the Government of the "Dominion of Canada;" and he has not
forgotten the vow he and I exchanged some while after our first
acquaintance. That vow was, that we neither of us would die, if we
could help it, "until we had looked upon the waters of the Pacific from
the windows of a British railway carriage." The Canadian Pacific
Railway is completed, completed by the indomitable perseverance of
Sir George Stephen, Mr. Van Horne, and their colleagues--sustained as
they have been, throughout, by the far-sighted policy and liberal
subsidies, granted ungrudgingly, by the Dominion Parliament, under
the advice of Sir John A. Macdonald, the Premier. I have, in the past
year, fulfilled my vow, by traversing the Canadian Continent from

Quebec to Port Moody, Vancouver City, and Victoria, Vancouver's
Island, over the 3,100 miles of Railway possessed by the Canadian
Pacific Company, and have "looked upon the waters of the Pacific from
the windows of a British railway carriage."
My impressions of this grand work will be found in future chapters.
"The Dominion of Canada" now includes the various Provinces of
North America, formerly known as Upper and Lower Canada, New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia,
Vancouver's Island, and the extensive regions of The Hudson's Bay
Company, including the new Province of Manitoba, and the North
West Territories; in fact, the whole of British North America, except
Newfoundland.
This territory stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and
(including Newfoundland) is estimated to contain a total area of some
four million square miles.
As matter of mere surface, and probably of cultivable area, also, more
than half the Northern Continent of America owes allegiance to the
Crown and to Queen Victoria. So may it remain. So it will remain if we
retain the Imperial instinct. These noble provinces are confederated into
a vast dominion, with one common Law, one Custom House, and one
"House of Commons"--by a simple Act of the Imperial Parliament, the
Confederation Act of 1867, passed while Lord Beaconsfield was Prime
Minister and the Duke of Buckingham Colonial Minister. This union
was effected quietly, unostentatiously, and in peace; and
(circumstances well favouring) by the exertions, influence, and
faithfulness to Imperial traditions, of Cartier, John A. Macdonald, John
Ross, Howe, Tilley, Galt, Tupper, Van Koughnet, and other provincial
statesmen, who forced the Home Government to action and fired their
brother colonists with their own enthusiasm.
At home, all honour is due to a great Colonial Minister--the Duke of
Newcastle.
Taking up, some years ago, a tuft of grass growing at the foot of one of
the grand marble columns of the Parthenon at the Acropolis at Athens,
I found a compass mark in the footing, or foundation--a mere scratch in
the stone--made, probably, by some architect's assistant, before the
Christian era. I make no claim to more than having made a scratch of
some sort on the foundation stone of some pillar, or other, of

Confederation. And I throw together these pages with no idea of
gaining credit for services, gratuitously rendered, over a period of years
and under many difficulties, to a cause which I have always had at
heart; but with the desire to record some facts of interest which,
hereafter, may, probably, be held worthy of being interleaved in some
future history of the union of the great American