Amongst Party Politicians At Home, There Was, At This Time, Of 1861,
Little Adhesion To The Idea Of A Colonial
Empire; and the reader has
only to read the reference, made later on, to a published letter of Sir
Charles
Adderley to Mr. Disraeli in 1862, to see how the pulse of some
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.
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