If We Are Unable To Defend Canada, We Shall Not
Have Much Better Prospects Of Success If We Land An Army To Attack New
York Or Any Other Important City."
CHAPTER XX.
Intended Route for a Pacific Railway in 1863.
The result of mature consideration, reasoning carefully upon all the
facts I had collected, was, that, at that time, 1863, the best route
for a Railway to the Pacific was, to commence at Halifax, to strike
across to the Grand Trunk Railway at Riviere du Loup, 106 miles east of
Quebec, then to follow the Grand Trunk system to Sarnia; to extend that
system to Chicago; to use, under a treaty of neutralization, the United
States lines from Chicago to St. Paul; to build a line from St. Paul to
Fort Garry (Winnipeg) by English and American capital, and then to
extend the line to the Tete Jaune Pass, there to meet a Railway through
British Columbia starting from the Pacific. A large part of this route
has been completed. For instance, an "Intercolonial" Railway -
constructed so as to serve many local, but no grand through, purposes;
constructed to satisfy local interests, or, probably, local political
needs - has been built. The Grand Trunk extension from Detroit to
Chicago, an excellent Railway, has been completed, thanks to the
indomitable efforts of Mr. Hickson, the Managing Director of the Grand
Trunk. A line from St. Paul to Winnipeg has also been opened; but the
route of the line from Winnipeg to the Pacific has been deviated from,
and, to save distance, the Kicking Horse and Beaver River Passes have
been chosen. I think needless cost has been incurred, and that future
maintenance will be greater than it need have been.
The British Columbian Railway has been constructed from Fort Moody to
Kamloops, and is now part of the Canadian Pacific.
It seemed to me, at that time, that the route of the Ottawa Valley,
Lake Nipissing, and round by the head of Lake Superior, was a great
project of the future; and that to accomplish so great a work, in such
a country, the policy was to utilize existing outlays of capital,
filling in vacant spaces rather than duplicating what we had got.
It seemed to me, also, that the use of existing railways in the United
States was not only economical, but politic: and I knew that, at that
time, the Government of the North would have made every reasonable
advance to meet England in affairs of mutual interest. There was every
desire, at that juncture, to work cordially with our Queen and her
people. For example, the passing of the Slave Trade Bill, modelled on
English legislation, in, I think, 1863, through both Houses of Congress
at Washington, with hardly a hostile expression. Apropos of this
Bill, Mr. Charles Sumner told me, in 1865, at his house at Boston, the
following story. "The Bill for putting down the slave trade in
association with England and the other anti-slave trade countries
passed so quickly as to astonish its friends.
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