(C) To Alter The
Administration Of The Company In Such Wise That While The Executive
Work Would Be Done In Canada, With Montreal As Headquarters, The Seat
Of Government Would Be In London, The Stock And Bonds Being Mainly Held
In England.
I think, at that time, there were not more than
20,000l. of the original issue of Ordinary Stock of the Grand
Trunk held in Canada.
Mr. Cartier knew, of course, all the ins and outs of the Grand Trunk.
His Government had in previous years placed the loan of
3,100,000l. from Canada, expended in construction, behind other
securities, to enable an issue of second bonds with which to complete
the Trunk lines. But, unfortunately, as a condition of this concession,
profitless branches were undertaken, branches, no doubt, locally
useful, perhaps politically needful, but profitless nevertheless.
Mr. Cartier's sole query was, "Have you arranged with the Government at
home as to the Military Revenue?" - to which I replied, that there was
no occasion: the Government made no objection, and regularly paid the
moderate charges made for the conveyance of men and material over the
Railway: and we could, of course, if the Canadian Parliament passed our
draft Bill into an Act, appropriate these receipts in any way the Act
directed. With the Canadian Government it was different. The Canadian
Government had, so far, delayed any settlement of our accounts for the
costly conveyance of mail matter, by special trains, over long
distances, so timed as to suit the Province but not to suit the Grand
Trunk passengers; and one of my objects in coming out was to endeavour
to induce Mr. Cartier and his colleagues to close up this pending
matter for the past and to accord a just and adequate amount for the
service of the future, such amount to be effective over a period of
years. We then went into general conversation. I told Mr. Cartier I had
been in Canada in 1851: and had at that time seen Papinean, Mackenzie,
and others, whose resistance had led to peace and union, and greater
liberty for all. This remark fired his eye; and he said, "Ah! it is
eight years that I am Prime Minister of Canada; when I was a rebel the
country was different, very different."
Mr. Cartier often preceded his observations, I believe, by the words
"When I was a rebel;" and old George Crawford, of the Upper Province, a
magnificent specimen of a Scotch Upper Canadian, once said, "Cartier,
my frind, ye'll be awa to England and see the Queen, and when ye come
bock aw that aboot ye're being a robbell, as no doobt ye were, will
never be hard again. Ye'll begin, mon, 'When I was at Windsor Castle
talking to the Queen.'" Years before, on Cartier being presented to the
Queen by Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, he told Her Majesty that a Lower
Canadian was "an Englishman who speaks French."
But Mr. Cartier had been a rebel; and a gallant and brave one.
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