Provinces, the United States will aid the construction, on the
terms named, of a railway from the western extremity of Lake Superior,
in the State of Minnesota, by way of Pembina, Fort Garry, and the
valley of the Saskatchewan, to the Pacific coast, north of latitude
forty-nine degrees, besides securing all the rights and privileges of
an American territory to the proposed territories of Selkirk,
Saskatchewan, and Columbia."
So much for an outrage of a character unheard of and unparalleled. It
was the result of "uncertain sounds;" of "duffer" government.
Let me give some illustrations. Before we began the, finally
successful, movement for the Intercolonial Railway, the confederation
of the Provinces of North America, and the final completion of a
railway binding the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific together, the
Right Hon. C. B. Adderley, M.P., wrote a "letter to the Right Hon. B.
Disraeli, M.P., on the present relations of England with the Colonies."
It was a skinflint document, and here are a couple of quotations: -
Page 57. - "I would have the Canadian Government, in the right time and
manner, informed that after a. certain date, unless war were going on,
they would have to provide for their own garrisons, as well as all
their requisite peace establishments, as they might deem fit; and that
they should be prepared to hold their own in case of foreign attack, at
least till the forces of the Empire could come to their aid."
Page 50.
