Pacific Railways and Nationalism in the Canadian-American Northwest, 1845-1873 9781512817133

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PACIFIC

RAILWAYS

AND NATIONALISM

IN

THE

CANADIAN-AMERICAN N O R T H W E S T , 1845-1873

A DISSERTATION IN

HISTORY

P R E S E N T E D TO T H E F A C U L T Y OF T H E G R A D U A T E SCHOOL OF T H E UNIVERSITY

OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A

OF T H E R E Q U I R E M E N T S

IN

PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT

FOR T H E DEGREE

OF DOCTOR OF P H I L O S O P H Y

LEONARD BERTRAM IRWIN

Copyright 1939 by Leonard B. Irwin

University of Pennsylvania Press

Printed in the United States of America

TO JESS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This subject was suggested by a preliminary study made by Dr. S. R. Kamm of Haddon Heights, N. J. Its preparation was materially aided by the valuable advice and training offered by Professor St. G. L. Sioussat and Professor Roy F. Nichols, who are, however, in no way to be blamed for its short-comings. The work of research was aided by many people, particularly Dr. James F. Kenney and the staff of the Public Archives at Ottawa, who provide ideal conditions for the student. The author is also especially grateful to the staffs of the University of Pennsylvania Library, the Manuscripts Room of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the National Archives at Washington, and the Essex Institute at Salem, Mass.

TABLE

OF

C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER

PAGE

INTRODUCTION I. II. III.

IX

T H E V I S I O N OF R A I L S TO T H E N O R T H W E S T

1

B R I T A I N LOOKS TOWARD T H E PACIFIC THE

POLITICAL

BACKGROUND

OF

21 THE

CANADIAN

PACIFIC IV,

THE

NORTHERN

WEST V. VI.

47 PACIFIC

AND T H E

_

BRITISH

NORTH-

.

C A P I T A L I S T S VS. S T A T E S M E N

101 ...

154

CONCLUSION

221

BIBLIOGRAPHY

227

INDEX

243

vii

INTRODUCTION T h e middle decades of the nineteenth century were marked by many important developments and transformations, both political and economic. In America they were characterized by an ebullient nationalism as well as by bitter sectionalism; by a decadent moral tone in public and commercial l i f e ; and by a glowing enthusiasm for every enterprise that promised to develop the uncounted and almost unknown wealth of the f a r West. It was the peak of that Gilded Age described by M a r k Twain, when it was easy to believe that f o r t u n e lay just over the western horizon. T h e most popular route to this vision of El Dorado was by railroad. T h e promotion of railway lines during this period reached an all-time h i g h ; in particular, this promotion was noteworthy for its emphasis on great f u t u r e benefits rather than on more moderate immediate utility. Roads were planned to run hundreds of miles into virgin wilderness, in bland confidence that they would draw forth wealth for the promoters, the security-holders and the entire nation. Some of them did, but more of them did not. T h e details of those which were successful are generally well k n o w n ; but the less successful have received less attention. It is primarily with two railway promotions that came to temporary disaster in 1873, though completed profitably later, that this study deals. T h e Northern Pacific and the Canadian Pacific are today two of the greatest rail systems in North America. Much has been written of their construction, with their vast engineering problems, and of their financial history. Little, however, has been done on the early story of these roads and their very important influence on the political history of the Northwest before the panic of 1873. Prior to this time the great area north of 45° and west of 90° was, with a few exceptions, little known or appreciated. A t the opening of the decade of the Forties, the American Northwest was almost uninhabited, except f o r a few posts on the Pacific. T h e Oregon Country, stretching f r o m the Mexican territory of California to Russian Alaska, was still claimed and jointly occupied IX

X

Introduction

by British and Americans. T h e British Northwest, a vast region f r o m Ontario to the Rockies, was peopled only by a few far-flung factories of that corporate empire, the H u d s o n ' s Bay Company. T o the average citizen of Canada or the United States, the Northwest was absolutely unknown and almost entirely unappreciated. By the early Seventies, a vastly different picture had appeared. New states and territories filled out the northwestern corner of the United States, and settlers were coming in in ever-increasing numbers. Even greater was the change farther north. T h e diverse and disunited colonies of Britain had been joined into a nation, and that nation had stretched its arm across the great Northwest all the way to the shores of the Pacific. T o a considerable extent mutual rivalry had produced this metamorphosis, and in the process railroads played a dominant part. In general, the picture presented was one of threatening expansion on the part of the United States and of defensive consolidation on the part of Canada. The Northern Pacific was an important feature of the former, while the Canadian Pacific was even more an integral element in Canadian national policy. It may quite truthfully be said that the railways were both a cause and an effect of the great political changes of the period in the Northwest. This was especially true of Canada, where the idea of a transcontinental railway was an inseparable part of the dream of a Dominion f r o m sea to sea. British control between the oceans could be maintained only if rapid communication were provided, and this communication was possible only if the territory it traversed were under the direct control of a single government. T h e problem, seeming to be almost a paradox, challenged the abilities of Canadian statesmen for several decades. T h a t it was solved successfully is a tribute to the democratic processes of government, for the obstacles were imposing. Dissatisfied elements in the provinces, political rivalries between sections, annexationist agitation in the United States, and the determination of American promoters to control the railway destinies of both countries, all conspired against those who wished to make Canada an independent and powerful entity in the British Empire.

Introduction

xi

A detailed investigation of the relationship between railways and the early political history of the Northwest remains to be done, and the present narrative is an attempt in this direction. It is not intended to be a history of the Dominion of Canada, or of the Northern Pacific or the Canadian Pacific; it is hoped rather that new light will be shed on the influences which each of these had on each of the others during their formative period. This optimism is based particularly on the fact that important sources are now available which were previously almost untouched, as far as this subject is concerned. Without question, the two most outstanding personalities in the problem are Sir John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of the Dominion, and Jay Cooke, Philadelphia banker and Northern Pacific promoter. To Macdonald, more than to any other statesman, must go the credit for maintaining British dominion on the continent and solidifying it with iron rails. One of his principal tasks was to meet and overcome the rival interests of American expansionists and railway promoters. Among the latter Jay Cooke held a predominant place. As the energizing force in the early history of the Northern Pacific, he was ambitious to make the entire Northwest, on both sides of the border, tributary to his road. In fact, if the border itself could be eliminated, all the better. Macdonald and Cooke, therefore, typified the rival interests that provide the drama in the story. It is a matter of great good fortune for the historian that the personal papers of both these men have been preserved. They are an almost inexhaustible mine of information on a variety of topics. On the subject of the present study they are especially valuable, since they supplement each other to a remarkable degree. In analyzing the antagonistic interests of the two men, it would be impossible to do the task with any thoroughness without placing their correspondence side by side and studying their relationship. Only then does the intimate story emerge. In addition to the papers of Cooke and Macdonald, use has been made of another previously untouched source,—the official reports of the American consuls at Victoria and Winnipeg. Scattered among the prosaic business details of the consulates are nuggets of an interesting and revealing nature, further supplementing the

XII

Introduction

larger sources just mentioned. The American congressional documents, and the parliamentary journals and sessional papers of Canada contain a great deal of information on all phases of the subject, from the early schemes of Asa Whitney to the testimony produced in the Canadian Pacific Scandal of 1873. A variety of newspapers and journals have been consulted for contemporary opinion; among the most valuable and interesting of these is the Nor'-wester, a pioneer newspaper devoted to the needs of the remote and isolated Red River Settlement. From these sources, and with the assistance of contemporary pamphlets and later studies on certain topics, the present narrative has been derived.

CHAPTER I T H E V I S I O N OF R A I L S TO T H E N O R T H W E S T

The idea of a railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific appeared in the first decade of our railway history. In a pioneer country, with a population moving westward at a constantly accelerating pace, it was only natural that a few far-seeing men should immediately seize upon the railway as a means of hastening migration and extending the limits of the nation. It is always difficult to determine exactly who was the first to father a new idea, and the scheme for a railroad to the Pacific Northwest is no exception. Perhaps the railroad proposals were but natural developments of earlier schemes for a wagon road to the Pacific. As early as 1824 one Lewis A. Tarascon, together with several relatives, petitioned Congress for a land grant and an act of incorporation for the Missouri and Columbia Road Company, in return for which the petitioners agreed to construct a sixty-foot wagon road between the said rivers. When completed, the road would be handed over to the Government, the contractors retaining a twenty-mile tract of land along the road and the right to a monopoly of bridge and ferry tolls.1 While nothing came of this petition, it is certain that Tarascon was not the only one to conceive the idea, and it would be revived by a few visionaries as soon as steam railways were proven practicable. Apparently the first suggestions of the sort in print occurred in 1832. In that year Judge S. W . Dexter, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in The Emigrant for February 6, suggested a railway from New York to the Columbia River, by way of the south shore of Lake Erie, and following the valleys of the Platte and Snake Rivers; it would be financed by a 3,000,000 acre grant.11 1 Petition of Lewis A. Tarascon (and others), praying the opening of a •wagon Road, from the River Missouri, north of the River Kansas, to the River Columbia. 'Taylor, W. D., "Pioneer Railway Development in the United States," in Transactions, Amer. Soc. of Civil Engineers, L X X I V (1911), 122; Carey C. H., A General History of Oregon, II, 730-1.

1

2

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

The suggestion was rather vague and no detailed proposals for construction were made; apparently no real attention was given to it by the public. About the same time Hartwell Carver of Rochester, N. Y., published some articles about a railway to the Columbia, and for many years tried to gain the ear of Congress, but unsuccessfully. 3 The first publication of a detailed project for a Pacific railway was the work of Dr. Samuel Bancroft Barlow of Granville, Massachusetts. In an article to the Westfield Intelligencer in 1834, Dr. Barlow proposed that a railway be constructed from New York to the mouth of the Columbia River. The United States Government should undertake the work, which he estimated would cost thirty millions, from the treasury surplus that would begin to accumulate as soon as the national debt was extinguished. Thus from the very start the idea appeared that such a railway was a national project and must either be government-built or aided by government grants. 4 Other advocates appeared with suggestions during the thirties; Hall J. Kelley visited Oregon in 1834 and believed a railway would be practical; Rev. Samuel Parker wrote in 1835 his prediction of railway travel to Oregon and John Plumbe of Dubuque memorialized Congress, suggesting the plan later adopted of granting alternate sections of land along the right of way." But railroads were still too great a novelty to most persons to permit them to consider seriously such gigantic schemes. It remained for another visionary, a decade later, to bring the idea before Congress and receive attention. Asa Whitney was born in 1797 at North Groton, Connecticut. H e had little taste for a farming career and in 1817 went to New York where he entered the dry goods importing business. Eventually, in 1836, he formed his own firm, but the panic of 1837 proved too much for him, and he was forced into bankruptcy. 6 In 1842 Whitney went to China as a commission agent for New York merchants, and in a very short time became again moderately * Bancroft, H. H., History of California, VII, 498. * Smalley, E. V., History of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 51-6. 6 Carey, C. H., op. ext., II, 731; Bancroft, H. H., California, VII 498 ff. ° Brown, M. L., "Asa Whitney and his Pacific Railroad Publicity Campaign," in Miss. Valley Hist. Review, XX, 209-210.

The Vision of Rails to the Northwest

3

wealthy. He had already formed some ideas regarding a more rapid means of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and his experiences in the Asiatic trade confirmed his opinion that a railway should be built across the continent to get the full benefit of the rich commerce of the East. He began to study the possibilities in detail, and on January 29, 1845, through Representative Pratt of New York, he submitted a memorial to the House of Representatives embodying the results of his ponderings.1 As stated in this first memorial, Whitney proposed simply a Government-built railway, which should be operated in the public weal, with rates only high enough to pay running expenses. But due to strong opposition developing to a publicly owned railway, Whitney altered his plan and on February 24, 1846, submitted to Congress the interesting if idealistic program for which he was to become famous.8 Whitney offered to construct a railway from the western shore of Lake Michigan to Oregon, via South Pass. He proposed to do this at his own expense and risk, if Congress would sell him a section of land of the required length, and sixty miles wide, at the reduced price of ten cents an acre. He declared that the land would sell at a good price and bring in enough revenue to build the road, which he estimated would cost 50 millions, with an additional 15 millions required for initial running expenses before settlement was complete.8 Furthermore, he offered to maintain and operate the road after it was completed, carrying United States government supplies, mails, troops and other necessities free of charge; and for the first twenty years to carry all merchandise for the public at a half-cent a ton per mile for distances over 200 miles. Lesser distances would cost one-half the rate charged by other American railroads. He offered special rates for corn and flour, proposing to transport them to the Pacific coast from any point on the road for twenty cents a bushel, and

''House Executive Docs., 28 Cong., 2 sess., # 72 ( 464). Also House Reports, 31 Cong., 1 sess., # 140 ( 583). This report contains all of Whitney's memorials. " Senate Documents, 29 Cong., 1 sess., # 161 (473). • Ibid., p. S.

4

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

$1.25 a barrel, respectively. Passenger rates were to be one-half that customarily charged by other railroads. Whitney was distinctly not an ancestor of the later railroad barons, for his sincere purpose was to provide the country with a railroad at cost. His profit, if any, was to come from the sale of the lands. Such disinterestedness was in some respects a handicap to the success of his ideas, for as his biographer has pointed out, "his failure to make demands leading to his own immediate profit was an attitude too altruistic generally to be understood and was responsible for the idea that he contemplated a vast secret speculation." 10 But though Whitney's plan was never adopted, he did yeomen service in making the country aware of the possibilities of the idea.* His most important successor was Edwin F . Johnson. His importance does not lie, like Whitney's, in his public propaganda, but rather in his reputation as an engineer, which carried more weight with the authorities than the theorizings of an amateur, and also in the fact that he was to become chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad a decade and a half later. Johnson, like so many of the early proponents of the Northern Pacific, was a Vermonter. H e discussed his ideas with another Vermonter associated with the Fond du Lac, Thomas H . Canfield, who was soon converted to the project. 1 1 Canfield persuaded Johnson to publish his ideas in pamphlet form and in 1853 this was done at their joint expense. 12 Briefly, Johnson's plan envisaged a railway from Chicago to Puget Sound by as direct a line as possible. H e believed that the Straits of Fuca presented an unparalleled site f o r a maritime city. In his pamphlet Johnson examined the merits of the northern 10

Article on Asa Whitney in Dictionary of American Biography, X X , 157. •Whitney had a rival for promotional honors in the person of George Wilkes of N e w York, w h o about 1844, published a plan for a publiclyowned and operated railroad to Oregon. H e felt that Whitney was proposing a selfish and dangerous monopoly, which might easily fall into the hands of British capitalists. His own plan was endorsed by the provisional legislature of Oregon, but rejected by a Congressional committee. Wilkes, George, Project of a National Railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, for the purpose of obtaining a short route to Oregon and the Indies u Life of Thomas H. Canfield, 16-17; Smalley, E. V., op. cit., 71. u Johnson, E. F., Railroad to the Pacific, Northern Route, 90-96.

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

5

route as to harbors, climate, natural resources, and transportation facilities. He criticized Whitney's proposed road by South Pass as being longer, more expensive and less open to settlement.18 Johnson's very able presentation of the case for the Northern route attracted attention in high government circles. Robert J. Walker and Jefferson Davis were two of 'the South's moist prominent statesmen, and Walker in addition was a director of the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac. According to the anonymous biographer of Thomas H. Canfield, the latter showed Walker the manuscript of the pamphlet before it was published. Walker, as an ardent southerner opposed to a northern route, was sufficiently disturbed to inform Davis of it, and Davis hastened to New York to see Johnson. Johnson loaned him the manuscript and when Davis had studied it, he returned to New York to try to persuade Johnson not to publish it. His arguments about snowfall, sharp elevations and other difficulties failed to convince the engineer, and Davis left with the knowledge that a telling blow for the northern route would soon be before the public. The subsequent passage, on March 3, 1853, of the act providing for an official survey of all possible routes, was approved by the southerners as a means of counteracting the effect of Johnson's arguments. 14 By this time, of course, the idea that a transcontinental railroad was sooner or later to be built had become fairly well-fixed in the public mind.* The propaganda put forth by Whitney was having its effect, even though it failed to help him personally. Newspapers were beginning to beat the drum, and Congressmen began to consider the effects of such a project on their home states. Leaders like Benton of Missouri and Douglas of Illinois evolved 18

Ibid., 106. The Life of Thos. H. Canfield, 17-18. This account has no corroboration from other sources, and may be due to faulty memory on Canfield's part. • A s early as 1850 Minnesota was arousing itself to the benefits which a northern Pacific road would bring to the Territory. T h e St. Paul Pioneer claimed that a railroad from that point to San Francisco would be shorter, safer and easier than one from St. Louis, and pointed out that "there is a' route or trail from the Red River to the Columbia River over which mails are regularly transported, by the Hudson's Bay Company, with safety and ease." Williams, J. F., A History of The City of St. Paul, 260 14

6

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

plans of their own, 15 and attacked those already presented f o r the "For

Benton's plan, see Cong.

Globe, 31 Cong., 2 sess., 56-8.

northern route. Much more political capital could be made from supporting a central or southern road connecting important cities and going through more populous areas. New England was particularly interested in promoting a Pacific railroad on the northern route, in the hopes that Boston or Portland might benefit at the expense of New York, to which the Erie Canal had diverted a large amount of western trade. Vermont and Maine were especially notable in the number and quality of railroad promoters they supplied. John A. Poor and H e n r y V. Poor of the latter state were extremely active in the field. In 1854 H . V. Poor published an article discussing the five alternative routes f o r a Pacific road, and pointing out the advantages of the northern route. 18 In the course of the ten-year campaign of education a wide vista of benefits had been offered the country when the railroad should become a reality. Economic, military and political advantages were brought forward on display. Most of them had originated with Whitney and his supporters, and were enlarged upon by his successors. Probably the first in importance was the prospect of greatly augmented trade with Asia. It was this view which had first drawn Whitney to the idea. Every advocate of a railroad, by no matter what route, had quoted facts and figures to prove that the Oriental trade would bring untold prosperity to America. 17 Whitney estimated that the cost of transporting one ton of merchandise f r o m China to an Atlantic port would be $18 by transcontinental railroad, but as much as $12 more by boat around Cape Horn, without considering the difference in time saved. 18 Not only was there a brilliant prospect of increasing the rich Asiatic trade which we were already beginning to exploit by the New England clippers, but, railroad advocates pointed out, there was a splendid opportunity of obtaining a good share of the English M Poor, H . V., "Railroad to the Pacific" in Bulletin of The Geographical and Statistical Society, I, pt. I I I . 11 Albright, G. L., Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, S. u Senate Docs., 29 Cong., 1 sess., # 161 (473), 10.

American

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

7

market in the Orient. For many years Great Britain, through its possessions in Asia, its sea power and its commercial enterprise, had exercised a virtual monopoly of the lucrative trade of the East. Whitney had been especially struck by this fact during his sojourn in China, and in his memorials to Congress pointed to the fact that a Pacific railroad would give to the United States a quicker and cheaper route to the East than Great Britain could provide, either by Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. Without it, we would be forever barred from Asia, for England "will be in no hurry to permit a fair competition, which time, distance, and expense now prevent, and will be unwilling to change the present channels or lessen the present time and expense, except for the transmission of intelligence to and from her armies in Asia." 19 Wilkes, in his pamphlet, voiced the same opinion. 20 Benton urged this advantage also as a means of insuring international peace. Speaking on his own Pacific railway bill in 1850, he pointed out that "when we make it all nations must travel it—with our permission—and behave themselves to receive permission. Besides riches and power, it will give us a hold upon the good behavior of nations by the possession which it will give us of the short, safe, and cheap road to India." 21 Americans were aware that the British were not blind to this possibility. A number of suggestions and plans were being offered by British enthusiasts during the forties and fifties for a transcontinental railroad across British America, and emphasizing the advantages for Oriental trade just as Americans were doing. These suggestions were occasionally copied in the American press, sometimes with editorial comment calling attention to the need of forestalling the British. One of the country's leading railroad papers, the Railway Times, was active in urging the building of a Pacific road as soon as sectional differences could be overcome. It quoted the Hamilton, Ontario, Spectator, as boasting that the shortest and best route for a railway lay through British America, and warned the public that Canada, backed by English capital, "Ibid., 2.

" Wilkes, Geo., op. cit., 8.

" Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., 2 sess., 57.

8

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

could not be expected to delay the construction of a road that would benefit the Empire so highly.22 The need of being first in the field was recognized by Edwin F. Johnson as a strong argument for the Northern route as opposed to any other. He wrote: The attention of the English government and of English capitalists is already seriously directed to the subject of a communication by railroad across the continent from the Great Lakes, and should the Northern route not be built, a road designed to accomplish the same object will undoubtedly at no very distant day be attempted within the British possessions, on ground, which although not by any means as favorable as is to be found within our own borders, is still sufficiently favorable to render a road constructed upon it superior, in many respects, probably, to any of the more southern routes, and upon which if a road is built it will command somewhat more than the Lion's share of the Pacific trade."

Asa Whitney himself, devoted as he was for many years to his project of bringing the trade of Asia to the United States, realized the possibility that Great Britain might secure the same advantage to herself. When he finally gave up all hope of persuading Congress to act on his plan, after six years of disappointment, he turned to England. He had reason to believe that the Government or private capitalists might support his plan if the route were transferred to British territory. He went to England in 1851 to offer his services and knowledge of the undertaking in return for a land grant or money subsidy, but was unable to compete successfully for public interest with the great Exposition then being held. The Morning Chronicle, however, in commenting on his failure, admitted that he had been more nearly successful than any other American who had ever come to England supporting a commercial enterprise. 24 Although the object of capturing England's Asiatic trade was at first the greatest incentive of the Pacific railroad movement, another motive bulked large. The leaders from 1840 to 1860 "Railway Times, May 25, 1861. "Johnson, E. F., op. cit., 137-8. * Brown, M. L., op. cit., 221-2.

The Vision of Rails to the

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9

were struck by the fever for territorial expansion; during this period the boundaries of the nation were thrust outward to their present extent, and threatened to go northward and southward even farther. The nation's destiny as the one great power of the Western Hemisphere was kept constantly before the eyes of its citizens by political spell-binders and an inspired press, and any legitimate project which might contribute to this vision was sure of an interested audience. The Northern Pacific railroad idea came before the country at the height of the expansion movement, and its proponents did not fail to elaborate on the possibilities which it offered. At the time Whitney first broached his plan to Congress, neither California nor Oregon were recognized as American possessions; however, the recent election of James K. Polk on a platform calling for the occupation of all Oregon and the termination of the joint-occupation agreement with England made it fairly certain that the United States would reach the North Pacific in a very short time. It was this area rather than the Mexican coast in which the early expansionists were interested. Naturally, therefore, railroad advocates emphasized the advantage which a railway to the Columbia River would give the country in its contest with England in the Northwest. As one modern writer says: When men first dreamed of a railroad to the Pacific coast of the United States, it was to the Oregon country that they hoped to build. T h e longstanding boundary controversy with England, the efforts of Kelley and Wyeth, of Linn and Benton, the activities of the missionaries, and the dramatic quality of the overland migrations to Oregon in the early forties had all contrived to give the Northwest coast a prominent place in the public mind and to turn the thoughts of imaginative men in that direction."

The advantages of a northern railroad in promoting our claims to Oregon were not lost on Congress, for the House Committee which reported on Whitney's memorial in 1845 commended the point to the consideration of the House, and suggested that it * Hedges, J a m e s B., Henry

Villard

and the Railways

of the Northwest,

1.

10

The Vision of Rails to the Northwest

might become a factor in the determination of a policy of peace or war. 2 8 Even with Oregon secured to us by the treaty of 1846, danger was not past. It was recognized that our hold on the region was only a paper one, separated as it was from the rest of the country by two thousand miles of wilderness, a mountain barrier, and several months of travel. Whitney prophesied that Oregon would some day be the most important part of the globe, but warned at the same time that unless it were bound to the nation by iron rails, it would eventually be lost to us, either by conquest or succession. There was talk of a n Oregon Republic, and "prosperous republics around us would soon produce the same results as monarchies, and would force us into the European system of a standing a r m y to support a balance of power." 2 7 Senator Gwin of California put the matter squarely before Congress in one of his many railroad speeches. Sir, it is useless to disguise the fact, that upon the completion of one or more railroads connecting our Atlantic and Pacific possessions, depends the existence of this Union. The present connection between the Atlantic States and our Pacific coast is too precarious. A hostile collision with any maritime nation will interrupt, if not destroy, that connection.'*

There was, in fact, an influential group of Democrats in Oregon a n d California who were hostile to eastern interference, and pondered on the possibilities of secession. A letter from San Francisco appeared in the Oregon Statesman in 1855 describing the details of an alleged plot to form a Pacific Republic of ten states west of the Rockies, with the significant comment: " Y o u may also guess how readily such a severance will be graciously received by England, France and Spain." 2 0 T h e expansionists had visioned a nation extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and at least west of the Rockies, stretching northward f r o m Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Although the *House "Senate * Cong. "Fuller,

Reports, 28 Cong., 2 sess., # 199 ( 468). Docs., 29 Cong., 1 sess., # 161 (473), 8. Globe, 32 Cong., 1 sess., 2467. G. W., The Inland Empire of the Pacific

Northwest,

III, 131.

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

11

treaty of 1846 had been a blow to them, they still felt confident that that vast region could be ours, commercially if not politically. The Northwest was an economic unit, not to be broken up by any artificial boundaries. As the greatest and most enterprising nation on the continent it was clearly the destiny of the United States to draw unto itself the economic advantages of the whole Pacific coast, whether above or below 49°. T o the accomplishment of this destiny, expansionists eagerly seized upon the transcontinental railroad idea as a valuable means to the end. 30 British enterprise found itself unexpectedly on the defensive, in danger of losing its grip even on the northern coasts which fast-moving events and American aggressiveness had left to it. Instead of a British domain, the Pacific bade fair to become a Yankee one, as settlers, trappers, traders, and miners poured into the whole region from San Francisco to Puget Sound and threatened to overflow into the Hudson's Bay Company's territory. T o many American expansionists the treaty of 1846 was but a temporary setback in their forward march, and they envisioned the day when New Caledonia should recognize its own best interests and drop like ripe fruit into the lap of the Union. The railroad to the Northwest must surely be the one greatest single factor in bringing this about. That it would give the United States a valuable outlet and inlet to Rupert's Land was definitely in the view of Congress when it granted a charter to the Northern Pacific Railroad. 31 The propaganda of men like Whitney, Wilkes and Johnson, the agitation of western Congressmen, and the glowing pictures painted by the more ardent expansionists, rapidly converted the Pacific railroad idea from a chimera to a practical certainty in the public mind. Throughout the decade of the fifties, railroad conventions were being held in many cities,—-Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans, Little Rock. Without exception they adopted resolutions or memorials to Congress declaring themselves in favor of a transcontinental railroad, though they generally differed as " See Weinberg, A. K., Manifest Destiny, 362-4, for expansionist philosophy as it related to Canada. " House Misc. Docs., 43 Cong., 1 sess., V , # 272 ( 1 6 2 1 ) .

12

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of Rails to the

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to plan or route. A typical proposal was that adopted by the Little Rock Convention of July 4, 1852. After reciting most of the expected benefits, it called for the construction of a railroad from Memphis to the Pacific. It should be built by private enterprise, but with a long-term government guarantee of a 5% net dividend. Construction should be government-supervised and limited to cost, and in return for the government surety of profit, the railroad should carry mail, troops and government property free. 3 Whitney was an indefatigable publicist. In addition to his several memorials to Congress, he wrote pamphlets and newspaper articles, and addressed public meetings and state legislatures. He had the advantage of having personally explored, with a party of young men drawn from several states, part of the route he advocated, from Milwaukee to the Missouri River. 33 With this background of authority, he was able to go before public meetings in the next few years and almost without exception obtain votes of endorsement. State legislatures permitted him to speak to the members, and a majority of the thirty states, including some twothirds of the nation's population, passed resolutions of approval and sent them to Congress. At first sectionalism seemed to play a minor part, for five of the supporting states were southern, including Georgia and Alabama from the deep South. 34 But soon, as the idea of a railway to the Pacific became more generally accepted, local claims were brought forward, championing other routes. De Bow's Review published a proposal in 1847 for a railroad from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, to which Whitney made a long reply, marshalling facts to prove the superiority of the northern route. 35 His principal pamphlet on the subject, published in 1849, was written at the request of twelve men in the capital, from all sections of the country. But sectional leaders were opposing him. 36 Douglas had attacked Whitney's route and "Senate Misc. Docs., 32 Cong., 2 sess., # 5 (670). " Cotterill, R. S., "Early Agitation for a Pacific Railroad," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., V, 396-414. M Albright, G. L., op. cit., 16-18; White, H. K., History of the Union Pacific Railway, 6. * De Bow's Review, I V , 164-76. " Brown, M. L., op. cit., 219.

The Vision of Rails to the

13

Northwest

plan of construction from its first presentation, and Thomas H. Benton denounced the huge land grant asked for, proposing instead his national highway west from St. Louis ; De Bow's Review, speaking for the South, damned with faint praise both Benton's and Whitney's schemes, one for "fearfully increasing executive patronage," and the other for creating "perhaps the most dangerous corporation in the world." 37 Naturally the sectional jealousies for a railroad route made their appearance in Congress and were eventually the determining factor in the course of legislation. Whitney's northern route plan had many friends and was repeatedly urged on Congress, but despite able support and cogent argument it fell a prey to political exigencies. The peak of Whitney's success was reached in 1850, when select committees of both houses made favorable reports on his bill. The House committee praised him "for the origination of the project, for the maturity of the first plan, for the large amount of practical information he has brought to bear upon the subject, and for the awakening of public attention to its importance." 38 The Senate committee report praised Whitney's plan as by far the best yet suggested. It would provide the country with a much-needed public work at no cost or risk of loss to the government; in fact the lands retained by the government would be largely increased in value by the construction of the road. If Whitney failed to complete the task, the government would not lose, for the remainder of the land grant would revert to it. Furthermore, Whitney's plan would obviate a legislative dispute over rival routes, since he would choose (as he had done) the one most likely to be successful from his own point-of-view. In an effort to allay sectional feeling, the committee said that, while the South would undoubtedly benefit from Whitney's road, nevertheless if any southerner should be willing to undertake a similar scheme in the Southwest, his offer would also be approved. Despite these favorable committee reports, Whitney was unable to get Congress to act. So much time had passed that sectional, constitutional and political opposition had crystallized to prevent " De Bow's Review, July, 1849, 31. "House Reports, 31 Cong., 1 sess., I, # 140 ( 5 8 3 ) ; Senate

Cong., 1 sess., # 194 (565).

Reports,

31

14

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

his success. Led by Benton and Douglas, his detractors finally succeeded in tabling his bill in 1852. Although in this sense he failed, he had awakened the country so thoroughly to the Pacific railroad idea that the movement went on unabated. Not a session of Congress passed without the introduction of one or more, generally many, bills for the purpose.* As has been mentioned previously, Edwin F. Johnson, a prominent Vermont engineer, had become a strong partisan for Whitney's route, though not for his financial ideas, and had gained the attention of Robert J. Walker and Jefferson Davis. The influence of his writings did much to bring Davis and other southern leaders to the opinion that something should be done to prevent the extreme northern route from monopolizing the interest of the nation. This desire was shared by supporters of other routes, notably Gwin and Douglas, and the combination of interests produced the first definite action by Congress since the idea of a Pacific railroad was broached. The northern route had been too well-sponsored to be shelved without cause, but if an equally practicable central or southern route could be located and officially approved, it might well be adopted by Congress. Accordingly the plan was devised of ordering a survey of all possible routes by army engineers under the W a r Department. Near the close of the session in 1853, Senator Gwin moved an amendment to the army appropriation bill setting aside $150,000 for the purpose, and the motion was accepted." The plans for the surveys, as drawn up by Davis, provided for exploration along five routes: the 32nd, the 35th, the 38th and *It was a favorite device of railway enthusiasts to solicit the opinions of experts regarding railway routes and publicize them. For instance, in 1847, Calhoun and T. Butler King, chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, wrote to Lieut. M. F. Maury, superintendent of the naval observatory at Washington, requesting his opinion on a railroad by the southern route. Maury replied with elaborate astronomical data to prove that a railway from Memphis to Monterey would be the shortest possible route to Asia. (Cotterill, op. cit., 404.) Eleven years later Maury was again solicited for an opinion by a citizens' committee of St. Paul, and his reply, again bolstered by scientific material, advised for military necessity two routes: one from Minnesota to Puget Sound, and the other from El Paso to San Diego. (Rawlings, T., Confederation of the British North American Provinces, 217.) "Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., 2 sess., App., 351.

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

15

39th, the 41st and 42nd, and the 47th to the 49th parallels of latitude. 40 The last named embraced the region recommended by Whitney and Johnson. The expedition which was to survey it was placed in charge of Isaac I. Stevens, an ex-army officer who had just been appointed Governor of the new Territory of Washington. Stevens had been very eager to obtain the survey appointment, and had applied to Davis, a personal friend, as well as to Marcy, the Secretary of State, and McClelland, Secretary of the Interior, within a few days after the surveys were authorized, submitting a plan of organization and a cost estimate. 41 Davis appointed him, and also appointed Captain George B. McClellan as his assistant, perhaps with the hope that the latter would bring about an unfavorable report of the northern route. 42 Stevens was well-qualified for his task, as he had done valuable engineering work in the army, and served in the Coast Survey after the Mexican War. 4 3 His plans called for two expeditions, one under McClellan to operate eastward from Puget Sound across the Cascades, the other led by himself westward from the Mississippi. In addition he sent out subsidiary expeditions along the route in order to cover as wide an area as possible. The survey was commenced in the summer of 1853, and was carried out with care and thoroughness, at least as far as Stevens himself was concerned. But McClellan's work was not so satisfactory; he had preconceived opinions against the practicability of any route north of the Columbia River, and after a cursory examination based largely on reports of Indians, announced that snow lay from twenty to twenty-five feet deep in the Snoqualmie Pass during the winter. Since Stevens' instructions to him had specially stressed the need for accurate knowledge of snow conditions, his failure to secure it made Stevens' final report less convincing than it could otherwise have been.44 In fact, it offered Jefferson Davis an alternative set of conditions to choose f r o m ; for only ten days after McClellan had decided that the Snoqualmie " Smalley, E. V., op. cit., 79. " Stevens, Hazard, Life of I. I. Stevens, I, 285. Life of T. H. Can fie Id, 18. " Stevens, H., op. cit., I, passim; Albright, G. L., op. cit., 44. " Stevens, H., op. cit., I, 394-5.

u

16

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

was impassable, an engineer named Tinkham, sent out by Stevens, crossed it and reported favorable grades and little snow. 45 McClellan was not pleased. Even McClellan's biographers admit that in the survey work he exhibited the same skill in preparation, with lack of subsequent fulfillment, as plagued his career in the war later. 46 As a result of his explorations, Stevens was thoroughly convinced of the practicability of the northern route, and praised it highly in his report. 47 When the reports on all the routes surveyed had been transmitted to Secretary Davis, and he had sent them to Congress with his recommendation, Stevens and the northern route supporters were deeply chagrined. Davis gave it as his opinion that the results favored the most southern route, that along the 32nd parallel, as being shorter and having a far more favorable climate and topography than the northern route. At once a storm of criticism arose that bore out the prophecy made by Senator Gwin in 1853, that the mere act of choosing one route over others would spell the defeat of all. Northerners charged Davis with rank sectionalism, claiming that his mind had been made up in advance and that the surveys were planned merely as a cloak to give official color to the choice. True or not, the belief has remained current with later northern writers. Naturally Stevens' son and biographer adopted this view. He states that Davis was "astonished and deeply disappointed" at the favorable aspect given the northern route in the reports; that in his report to Congress he took pains to disparage it by magnifying the difficulties and probable cost; and that in discussing the question of snow, he praised McClellan's findings while ignoring those of Stevens. 48 ** Fuller, G. W., The Inland Empire of the Pacific Northwest, II, 202. " Myers, W . S„ G. B. McClellan, 82. "Senate Exec. Docs., 35 Cong., 2 sess., X V I I I , # 4 6 (992). This is Vol. 12 of Pacific R. R. reports. 48 Stevens, H., op. cit., I, 428-9. Very similar charges, in blunt terms, are to be found in an article entitled The Opening of the New Northwest in The New Englander, X X X , 367-388 (July, 1871). This was written by Burdette Hart, and since the whole article is pure publicity for the Northern Pacific Railroad route, appearing at the time that Jay Cooke & Co. were advertising that road, it must be discounted to some extent.

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

17

Practically the only result of the Pacific survey, aside from a fuller knowledge of the new territories in the west, was to enmesh the railroad question inextricably in the slavery and other sectional issues that were dividing the country. T h e South, barred by natural obstacles from extending the plantation system farther west, and clinging in desperation to its precarious hold on the national government, could not afford to see a railroad constructed where settlers would be attracted to free soil. The North, confident in the belief that a northern route was the logical one, from topographical, military and commercial reasons, saw in the South's efforts to secure the road only another instance of the Southerner's willingness to advance the slave power against all right and reason. Although deeply disappointed by Davis' action, Stevens continued to work for the northern route in the years following, while acting as Governor of Washington Territory. In his first message to the territorial legislature, in 1854, he urged a memorial to Congress for three Pacific railroads. He was also deeply interested in the extinguishing of the rights of the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company in the Northwest and suggested that the Government appropriate $300,000 for the purpose.4® It was likewise as a result of his activity that the name of Northern Pacific Railroad first appears in American railway history. On January 28, 1857, the territorial legislature passed an act to incorporate a company of that name. It was capitalized at $15,000,000 to build a transcontinental railway along Stevens' route, commencing the work in three years and completing it in ten. Stevens' name appears as one of the incorporators. Needless to say, nothing was ever accomplished under this charter, due to lack of funds. 50 Until the Civil War, Stevens remained in the public eye as probably the outstanding successor to Whitney in promoting the railroad interests of the northwest, through speeches and articles in the press. 61 • Stevens, H., op. cit., I, 418. " Smalley, E . V., op. cit., 95 : 6. 11 See his Letter to the Railroad Convention of Washington and Oregon coiled to meet at Vancouver, IV. T., May to, i860 (Wash., 1860), and his Address on the Northwest before the American Geographical and Statistical Society delivered at New York, Dec. 2, 1858. ( W a s h . , 1858.)

18

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

Although sectional rivalry was thus effectually preventing any action by Congress, the feeling had not disappeared that the country needed a railway to the northwest for military and commercial defense against Great Britain. A leading paper remarked in 1858: While Congress is postponing the consideration of the Pacific railway from May to December, and from December till May, Great Britain has her railway to the Pacific already commenced. . . . Let any one who doubts the joint ability of the Canadian and English Governments to accomplish so great an enterprise take down the map and look at the line of the Grand Trunk, already connecting the Atlantic with the lakes, and then look at the comparatively short distance from Lake Superior to Vancouver Island."

I. I. Stevens, writing to a railroad convention in Washington Territory in 1860, likewise called attention to British plans for a railway to British Columbia. However, he said, the country north of Lake Superior is impassable, and they must connect with our roads at Pembina. If we hasten to construct a northern Pacific railway, the Canadians will not attempt to build a competing line, but will connect their eastern roads with it, thus making not a northern transcontinental railway, but a truly central one, serving both sides of the international boundary. He asserted that the heads of the Grand Trunk were ready to put up capital to bring such a road into existence. 88 A House Committee reporting a railway bill in 1860 stated: The main reliance for troops in time of war is the militia of the country, and a policy which shall tend to throw population on our frontier and to develop all its varied resources, will tend infinitely to strengthen this right a r m of our national defense . . . it is not probable that any effort will be made to establish a continental communication by rail through British America, at least for many years, if the United States, in adopting a railroad system, shall provide for the northern route. . . . If the northern route be on American rather than on British soil, its effect on the commerce of the Pacific can hardly be exaggerated. . . .** M Boston Evening Transcript (June 5, 1858), quoted in Bancroft, H. H., History of British Columbia, 642. ™ Stevens, I. I., Letter to the Railroad Convention of Washington and Oregon. . . p. 18. 54 Charter of the Northern Pacific R. R. Co. Organization and Proceedings, By-Laws, and Appendix, 41-49.

The Vision of Rails to the Northwest

19

Despite these warnings, no agreement could be reached in Congress while the sectional balance was maintained. Only with the secession of the South and the resulting clear control of Congress by the N o r t h , was the deadlock finally broken and legislation passed making a transcontinental railway possible. Even then the advocates of the extreme northern route were to be disappointed; the central route direct to San Francisco was chosen, and given aids and subsidies that f u t u r e roads were unable to obtain. But the serious break with Great Britain during the Civil W a r gave special point to the advantages claimed for the border route, and Congress was not allowed to forget them when the Northern Pacific Railroad appeared with appeals for aid in later years. In looking back at these two decades and more of agitation for a N o r t h e r n Pacific railway, one is struck by the idealism and naivete shown in most of the discussion in the earlier years. As much as the pioneering spirit must be admired, it must be confessed that every project for a transcontinental railway prior to the Civil W a r was founded largely on moonshine. T h e country was still chiefly agricultural, and except for some cotton plantations, was engaged in local and small-scale enterprise even in that. No Pacific railway could have begun to support itself on the farming population which it could attract to the F a r West at that time. A s for the prospect of untold wealth to be derived from the carrying of the world's Asiatic trade, that was still more visionary. T h e trade between European countries and the Orient was growing and was profitable, it is true, but it was to remain a comparatively minor factor in western economy for decades to come, especially in the bulky or perishable goods which railroads could carry to best advantage. N o r in any of the glowing pictures of this trade conjured up by the railroad advocates of the period was there any shadow of the Suez Canal forecast,—a route which was to supplant the Pacific railway even as the railway supplanted the journey round the southern capes. W i t h respect to costs and plans of construction, the pioneers were equally optimistic. As one writer has said, "They underestimated the costs and even so dealt in figures f a r above the reach of the business world of their day. It is nothing short of inspiring

20

The Vision of Rails to the

Northwest

to read how easily these men talked of millions to communities that would have been hard put to it to raise hundreds." 55 As a matter of fact, the only grounds upon which such projects could have justified themselves at the time were political. A Pacific railway really fell in the same category with a navy or a chain of extensive fortifications; if it would serve to protect the country against British attack, or to pacify the Indians, or to gain more territory in British North America, or to prevent secession of the Pacific states, it would be accomplishing its most realistic purpose, with no illusion of dividends or other economic profit to becloud the issue. These benefits were stressed, of course, but it remained f o r the British to follow the path of cold logic and consider the railway question in the light of pure political advantage. " Cotterill, R. S., op. cit., 414.

C H A P T E R

II

BRITAIN LOOKS TOWARD T H E

PACIFIC

T h e growth of the transcontinental railway movement in the United States, as previously discussed, is a well-known story. Not so familiar, however, is the parallel history of the early movement in British N o r t h America. T h e first overland railway across British territory was not completed until 1885, a comparatively recent date in railway development, and hence it is sometimes forgotten that the idea of such an enterprise had been familiar to the British public for forty years previously. There is an extremely close parallelism between the significant dates in the history of the Canadian Pacific project and those of the Northern Pacific in the United States, a similarity which is by no means fortuitous. T h e British were well aware of the railway proposals of Whitney and others in the States, and of their possible effects on British political and commercial interests. Conditions in British North America around mid-century were such as to promote suggestions for similar schemes which should bring their benefits to the British Empire. As the nineteenth century approached the half-way point, British North America presented roughly the same sort of political picture that the thirteen colonies had made seventy-five years before,— that of a number of provinces partially and separately governed by England, loosely bound together by economic ties, and with a strong sense of local interest and provincial jealousy. T o the westward there was a vast wilderness, sparsely inhabited, and almost barred to further settlement, not indeed by a Royal Proclamation Line, but even more effectively by the utter lack of transportation facilities and the presence of an all-powerful corporation whose chief interest was antagonistic to colonization. One feature of the situation that had not been found in the history of the American Colonies was the existence of a strong, aggressive and growing neighbor willing to acquire any advantage it could, com-

21

22

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

.mercial or territorial. This was a factor that Canadian and Imperial statesmen were never able to forget. On the Atlantic coast were the insular provinces, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, and the Maritimes, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The most lucrative industries here were fishing, coal-mining, lumbering and ship-building. From the time of the first Empire, these provinces, with the possible exception of Newfoundland, had had a close economic relationship with New England. This had been especially marked during the War of 1812 when New England had so bitterly opposed the policies of Jefferson and Madison and had continued its profitable commercial dealings with the Maritime Provinces. The latter had still, by 1850, no direct rail connection with Canada, and consequently their trade interests lay southward rather than westward. This was a situation fraught with potential danger. "In political temper all three provinces were irrevocably British. In economic outlook however they continued to move within the orbit of New England. In these two grim facts—both of them dominant, yet mutually antagonistic—is to be found for a century and a half the basic problem of the Maritime Provinces." 1 The Province of Canada had come into being in 1841 by the Act of Union. It was the result of a large number of forces, including the Rebellion of 1837, the mission and report of Lord Durham, and the energetic influence of Poulett Thomson. In his report on Canadian affairs, Lord Durham had recommended the union of Upper and Lower Canada and the establishment of responsible government, one object being to prevent the English-speaking population, dissatisfied with the existing government, from being driven into union with the United States. The Imperial Government accepted the recommendation and appointed Charles Poulett Thomson as Governor-General in 1839 to win the provinces over to the plan. In spite of strong opposition in both Canadas, he succeeded in gaining the consent of the legislatures and the Union was effected. But Canada remained a sharply divided province, split by racial, lingual, religious and economic differences, and 1

Cambridge History

of the British Empire, VI, 273.

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

23

bound to the United States by commercial ties closer, perhaps, than those with England or the other provinces. Weak as it was, however, it was the focus around which the consolidation of the British Empire in North America had to be effected. Beyond western Canada there stretched a vast area of mountains, marshes, and networks of rivers and lakes before any further white settlement was reached. North and northwest of Lake Superior the country was a primitive wilderness, considered to be impassable for travel and impossible for cultivation. It constituted a more effective barrier to westward migration than any natural obstacle in the United States and was to play an important part in the later railway debates in the Dominion. Not until the valley of the Red River of the North was reached did civilization have another chance to obtain a foothold, and here a curious situation existed. Isolated on every side by hundreds of miles of wilderness, a settlement had sprung up along the lower reaches of the Red River in the early years of the century, long before American pioneer enterprise had pushed into the upper river valley in Minnesota and the Dakotas. The Red River valley was but a small part of that vast region known loosely as Prince Rupert's Land, or the Northwest Territories, the largest area under the complete control of a group of private individuals in the world. In 1670 Charles II had granted a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company conferring upon it the sole right of trade in all the country whose waters flowed into Hudson's Bay. For a century it enjoyed unmolested a monopoly of the rich fur trade, and established a number of factories on the Bay and on the great rivers and lakes of the interior. But by the late years of the eighteenth century a number of Canadian traders from Montreal challenged the monopoly of the Great Company and formed two rival companies, the North West Company and the X Y Company. A bitter three-cornered fight for supremacy followed, only slightly relieved by the union of the two Canadian groups in 1804. Competing factories were built near each other, and open warfare frequently took place between the traders and trappers who knew no other law than their own. It was into the midst of this savage country that the first colony

24

Britain

Looks Toward

the Pacific

of peaceful settlers was thrust. It became known as the Selkirk Colony or Red River Settlement, and had its origin in 1812 as the project of a Scots nobleman, the Earl of Selkirk. Selkirk was a m a n of high ideals and philanthropic tendencies; he sympathized with the Scottish c r o f t e r s whom the growing wool industry had forced f r o m their homes, and he determined to f o u n d a colony f o r them on the Red River. H e bought stock in the H u d s o n ' s Bay Company in the hope of persuading the directors to sponsor the colony. Although they r e f u s e d to do this, they did agree to g r a n t him a large area of land on which to plant his colony, on condition that he undertake all the costs and responsibilities that should arise. Probably the Company saw in the proposed colony a means of acquiring food supplies more easily than before, and hence tolerated it. But the N o r t h West Company saw only a plan on the part of its rival to hinder the N o r ' - W e s t e r s ' f u r trade, and its opposition was bitter. T h e young settlement was several times nearly d e s t r o y e d ; probably only the merger of the two rival companies in 1821 preserved it. Even then its existence was precarious f o r a number of years, due to floods, crop failures and other natural hazards. But by mid-century, a f t e r the Selkirk family had t u r n e d it back to the Company, it had become a p e r m a n e n t oasis in the wilderness for hunters and trappers, with the settlement of F o r t G a r r y as its capital and chief town. It w a s still, however, entirely cut off f r o m the rest of the British possessions except f o r the canoe and overland trails f r o m York F a c t o r y on H u d s o n ' s Bay a n d F o r t William on Lake Superior. 2 F r o m Red River to the Pacific Coast the wilderness closed in again, unbroken save f o r the tiny isolated posts of the H u d s o n ' s Bay Company. Only on the very shores of the Pacific was any f u r t h e r settlement to be met with in 1850, and then only an infant colony centering around F o r t Victoria on Vancouver Island. H e r e too the Great Company was all-powerful, under the exclusive t r a d i n g g r a n t which had been made to it by Parliament. In theory, by the terms of the grant, the Company was to encourage settle' There are many accounts of the early history of the Red River Settlement. One of the best brief ones is in The Cambridge History of the British Empire, VI, 410-18. Also see Egerton, H. E., Canada, pt. II, ch. 6, in A Historical Geography of the British Dominions, edited by Sir Chas. Lucas.

Britain Looks

Toward

the

Pacific

25

ment, but it did only lip-service to this responsibility, and many of the colonists were Americans from Oregon and California whose presence was doubly unwelcome to the authorities. This then is a bird's-eye view of the extent and nature of the British possessions in North America at the beginning of the second half of the century. Not only were they less populous than the United States, and less united, but the population was almost entirely concentrated on the Atlantic seaboard and in the St. Lawrence Valley. By far the greater area of British North America was unsettled, and with few men interested in building it up. Canadians in general, as well as Englishmen, looked upon the Northwest as a barren, ice-locked, and useless region, suitable only for hunting. As late as 1855 the Montreal Transcript spoke of it as incapable of producing grain or potatoes, and the Hudson's Bay Company was ever willing to indorse such views. Only a few editors, such as George Brown and William McDougall, had ventured to question these opinions and attack the Company, and they had received little support. The pressure which eventually forced the government to recognize the necessity of dealing with these forgotten lands came not from within, but from without. Slowly the statesmen came to the realization that the ever-moving line of American settlement in the Northwest was pressing against the invisible border, and might soon burst its bonds. Only then did modern history begin in the Northwest.3 As had been the case in the United States, there were a few individuals in England and the colonies who were years in advance of the times and seriously considered the possibility of joining the opposite coasts of the continent by a railway line. They were less successful in gaining real support from government than were Whitney and Johnson, but this was due, no doubt, to the divided authority to whom they had to appeal. But articles, pamphlets and speeches appeared in considerable number to show that the idea was being pondered and worked over. In one respect, at least, the proposal to build a Pacific railway through all-British territory in 1850, was far more visionary than the contemporary •Stanley, G. F. G., The Birth of Western Canada, 23-4.

26

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

suggestion in the United States. At the beginning of 1852 the latter had 10,814 miles of railroad in actual use, and 10,898 miles more in process of construction. 4 Canada, on the other hand, had only 205 miles of road in operation at the same time, and 618 miles under construction; this in spite of the fact that before 1850 Canada had granted 34 railway charters with a total capitalization of £12,800,000.' Obviously the picture of a 2,000-mile railway must have been much more startling at>d even ridiculous to Englishmen than to Americans. Nevertheless there were earnest men who preached the advantages of such a road, and other men in high places who agreed. In the following discussion of the development of the transcontinental railway idea in Canada before Confederation, it will be noted how comparatively small a part economic advantage played in the argument. British North America was clearly in the position of a young and undeveloped country threatened by the proximity of a large, strong, and wealthy neighbor. Any railroad enterprise requiring government aid must satisfy political necessity as much, or more, than commercial utility. As one writer on railway matters has summed it up, economic considerations alone would not be sufficient to build the desired lines at the time nor in the direction that national interests required. Roads, due to economic forces, •were being built, but they threatened to direct the traffic to American ports and to American cities. The feeling of nationality that this danger aroused had its answer in the Canadian roads, built to protect the integrity of Canada by protecting Canadian trade and commerce.'

The historic journey of Alexander Mackenzie across the Rockies to the Pacific in 1793 may be considered as the real origin of schemes looking toward the establishment of a permanent route. He himself suggested the development of such a communication, Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census (1862). • Gibbon, J. M., The Romantic History of the Canadian Pacific 4

105.

* MacGibbon, D. A., Railway

S3.

Rates and the Canadian Railway

Railway, Commission,

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

27

and said that the Columbia River provided the only available route. This probably was a chief reason for the tenacity with which the British clung to the Columbia as the dividing line in the Oregon Country, and insisted on the continuance of the Hudson's Bay Company's right to navigate the river in the treaty of 1846.7 Mackenzie's expedition and that of Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Company, in 1841, provided much of the information and inspiration for early advocates of a railway. These were pioneer exploring journeys in every sense of the word, and are comparable in importance to that of Lewis and Clark in the United States. The proposal to construct a railway through British North America appeared as early in Canada as its counterpart did in the United States. Thomas Dalton, editor of the Toronto Patriot, wrote several articles in 1834 on the subject, and probably deserves credit as the first serious advocate of it.8 Lord Durham, in his famous report on Canadian affairs, strongly urged the building of railways to bind together the disunited provinces, and in particular suggested a line to the Pacific.9 But it was in the late forties that the first comprehensive schemes for accomplishing this appeared.* In 1846 there appeared a book written by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Richard Bonnycastle, R.E., Commandant of the militia in Canada West. In it the author discussed his views of the future of British North America in the scheme of empire. He pictured the development of commercial enterprise on the Pacific coast even in the far north, eulogized the coal deposits of the Arctic and the timber resources of British Columbia which would "furnish the dock-yards of the Pacific coast with the inexhaustible means of extending our commercial and our military marine," * Albright, G. L., op. cit., 2. ' Hopkins, J. C., Progress of Canada in the Century, 449. 'Lucas, Sir C. P. (ed.), Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America, II, 318-9. •An unverified instance of an early railway advocate rests upon the recollection of Amor De Cosmos of British Columbia, who in 1870 said that about 1844 a Halifax bookseller named A. W. Godfrey wrote to Sir Robert Peel urging a railroad from Halifax to Vancouver Island. (B. C. Legis. Council, Debate on the Subject of Confederation with Canada, 78.)

28

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

and predicted that "we shall yet place an iron belt from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a railroad from Halifax to Nootka Sound, and thus reach China in a pleasure voyage." 10 He did not present any detailed plan for building the "iron belt," nor did Robert Christie who made the same prediction in 1847 in his History of Lower Canada, but the idea was thus presented for the first time to a wide circle of readers. In 1848 the first definite plan was proposed in a pamphlet by another Royal Engineers officer, Lieutenant M. H. Synge, stationed at Bytown, now Ottawa. Synge proposed that the British Government establish a combined rail and water route from Halifax to Lake Superior, and then construct a railway to Fort Garry and on to the Pacific to protect what was left of the Oregon Country and defend the long international boundary. The government should bring from England the surplus, unemployed population to provide the necessary labor on the road, under strict supervision,—a sort of early Civilian Conservation Corps. The completed line would open up the country and give permanent homes to the new emigrants. Synge did not claim that the line would be immediately self-supporting; he looked at it as a national project to relieve unemployment at home and protect the empire. 11 He regarded the United States as an ever-present danger, and in another pamphlet urging consolidation wrote that American expansionists were intending to absorb Canada as they had done California. 12 At about the same time as Synge was writing, still another officer of the Royal Engineers, Major Carmichael-Smyth, appeared with a plan, first in an open letter to the famous patriotic humorist, Sam Slick (Thomas C. Haliburton), and then in a pamphlet. He proposed a railway from Halifax to the Pacific, which he estimated would be 4,000 miles long, and cost £24,000 per mile; it should be placed under the management of a board of fifteen men, three each representing Great Britain, Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Hudson's Bay Company. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the scheme was the proposal to import u 11 u

Bonnycastle, Sir Richard, Canada and the Canadians in 1846, I, 138. Synge, M. H., Canada in 1848. Synge, M. H., Great Britain One Empire, 42-3.

Britain Looks

Toward the

29

Pacific

convicts from England to do the construction work.13 The plan attracted considerable attention, even in the London press. On January 27, 1851, the London Daily Mail commented that it was a "noble plan" for consolidating the Empire and should not be forgotten. The Morning Herald called on the British Government to reflect that it had the best and the shortest route for a Pacific road already in her own possession.14 The Economist also favored the idea, but believed that it was a matter for colonial rather than English enterprise.15 The English press was aware, too, of the Pacific railway movement in the United States and what it might imply. The London Times published several comments on Whitney in 1849, commenting seriously on his plans; and another book urging a convictbuilt railway across Canada, published in 1850, quoted widely from American press comments on Whitney's project, and warned: "This at least is certain in the progress of such a road—the inevitable loss of Canada."1* By 1850 the thought of a road across British America had lost a little of its novelty and was being freely predicted by prominent men, such as Sir John Harvey, Governor of Nova Scotia, and Joseph Howe, greatest of Maritime statesmen; and in 1851 there appeared the first definite effort to secure from the Government the construction of the railway. On June 17 Henry Sherwood introduced into the Legislature of Canada a bill incorporating a company to construct a railway with a 5' 6" gauge from Lake Superior to the Pacific. This company was headed by Allan MacDonell of Toronto, who accompanied the bill with a memorial on the subject. He argued that such a road was needed by Great Britain to protect its Asiatic trade monopoly against the threat of an American line: Within this past year,

three

works

have been published

in

England,

emanating from different sources, urging the necessity and advantages of " Carmichael-Smyth, Robt., The Employment of the People and Capital of Great Britain in her own Colonies. " F e b . 4, 1849. Quoted in Johnson, G., Alphabet of First Things in Canada, 28. 11 Mar. 17, 1849. Ibid., 28. " Wilson, F . A., & Richardson, A. B., Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved, 101.

30

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

a Railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, such Railway to be constructed through the British Possessions. . . . N o t only are the United States, but the whole of Europe aroused to the importance of securing the immense trade of China, and the East Indies . . . should the United States construct a Railway through their territories, she (England) might soon feel how precarious is her tenure of the sceptre of the seas,—it would be wrested from her by her active and energetic rival."

The bill asked the Government to sell to the Lake Superior & Pacific Railway Company a strip of land the length of the road and sixty miles wide, at a reduced rate or at such price as should be paid the Indians for surrendering it to the Crown. The Company was to be capitalized at £1,000,000. It is interesting to note that the bill bore a strong resemblance to Whitney's, especially in the size of the land grant requested, and appeared at the same time that Whitney, despairing of success in the United States, was in England seeking to transfer his plan to Canadian soil; there is no evidence, however, that he had any connection with MacDonell other than as a source of inspiration. MacDonell's proposal met the same fate as had Whitney's. The Committee on Railways and Telegraphs "reluctantly" reported that it was premature, until the claims of the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company should be extinguished; at the same time, it praised the purpose of the measure and hoped that some day it might be accomplished. MacDonell tried again, but unsuccessfully, in 1853 and 1855.18 O n November 30, 1854, the Canadian Legislature received another proposal for a Pacific railway, which was described in an American periodical. A n extraordinary project has been submitted by the commissioner of the Crown Lands and eighteen others to the Canadian Legislature, and has been printed by order of that body for constructing a railway to the Pacific Ocean. The project is embodied in a petition praying for a charter for the "Northern Pacific Railroad Company." The proposed railroad is designed "Journal of the Legislative Assembly, X, App. # 3 (u.u.), Aug. 30, 1851. a Report of the Canadian Pacific Railway Royal Commission (1882), III, 2 ; Pope, Jos., Memoirs of Sir John A. Macdonald, II, 161-2.

Britain Looks

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31

to extend from the city of Montreal by the way of Bytown and, the valley of the Ottawa, to the western boundary of Canada, and thence across the S t Mary's river, between Lakes Superior and Huron, at a convenient place into Michigan, with the further right to enter into engagements with any other railway company or companies in Canada or the United States, for connecting their lines in such manner as may be found most advantageous.1*

By this last provision the petitioners had in mind the report of Governor Stevens' survey of the Missouri valley, which had convinced them that all Pacific railways must converge at some point on that river on their westward march, and the proposed Northern Pacific would provide the shortest route from that point to the Atlantic, serving both Canada and the United States. The incorporators included several distinguished names from both countries,—John Young, A. N. Morin, A. T. Gait, John Alfred Poor, and others. But the Legislature still felt that the time for such a scheme had not come, and the charter was denied. This project has interest both because it uses for the first time the name "Northern Pacific Railroad Company," and because it is one of the earliest suggestions for an international railway across the continent. This idea, which had many practical advantages from geographic and economic standpoints, was to recur again and again from diverse sources in the next decade or two, only to run foul of the necessity for an all-British line for political reasons. The proposition for a road to the coast through the northern part of the United States, and linked to the various eastern roads of both countries, naturally appealed more to Americans than to British statesmen. Edwin F. Johnson emphasized the growing wealth of Canada and the remarkable spurt in eastern railway building there in the fifties, "all of which will become directly tributary to the Northern route to the Pacific"; the resulting closer commercial relations between the two countries would tend to weaken Canada's European ties.20 Obviously, this prospect would not endear a combination route to the British Government. It is interesting to note, however, that to the Hudson's Bay Company the prospect of the railway running through "American Railroad Journal, X X V I I I , # 977 (Jan. 6, 1855). "Johnson, E. F., op. cit., 1S0-S.

32

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

American territory instead of their own was not so displeasing; Sir George Simpson wrote to Johnson in 1854 and commended "the vast advantages that must arise to the United States and adjoining Provinces in the event of this magnificent scheme of a railroad being carried into execution." 21 A decade after Synge and Carmichael-Smyth had pioneered the idea, it had become widely accepted by leading m e n ; lecturers made it the subject of public addresses; and newspapers reported possible steps toward its accomplishment. A name that was later to be famous appeared on the list of lecturers when on December 14, 1858, a Scots-Canadian civil engineer, Sandford Fleming, spoke at Port Hope on the future of the Pacific railway scheme. H e doubted whether the United States would have the capital or a feasible route; the one surveyed by Stevens was the best, but he believed that a still better one lay north of 49°. 22 A newspaper report unconsciously emphasized the rigors of a journey across the British possessions by its announcement of "improved" facilities: W e understand that arrangements are in progress by which passengers will be conveyed for one payment from Europe, via the Grand Trunk to Memphis in the State of Tennessee, and thence by the United States Daily Overland Route to San Francisco. A t this point, it is expected that a line of steamers will be immediately established to connect California with British Columbia."

By this time the vision of the "iron belt" was passing out of the range of mere academic interest and coming more and more into the political arena. There was an ever-increasing number of projects appearing which pressed upon the British and Canadian Governments for aid and comfort. In 1858 a group of London speculators were endeavoring to get the ear of the Imperial Government for a railway project fostered by James McQueen, a Londoner who, some years before, had predicted the recent gold 11 Portland & Rutland Railroad Co., Across the Continent: Atlantic and Pacific Railway, 108. "Sir Sandford Fleming Papers, vol. 112, in the Public Archives at Ottawa (hereafter cited as Fleming Papers). "Herapath's Journal, July 31, 1858.

Britain

Looks

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33

discoveries on the Fraser River, and had evolved a plan for a railway to reach them. H i s supporters now were attempting to obtain an Imperial guarantee of interest on bonds for the road, for they felt that otherwise English patriotism, so o f t e n misled by Canadian railway projects, might this time fail to rise to the occasion. One of the group undertook to enlist the co-operation of the Canadian Government and wrote to John A. Macdonald, the Attorney-General: T h e object of my troubling you with the present letter is to call your attention, and that of your colleagues, to the importance of establishing Railway Communication, through British America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. T h e discovery of gold in N e w Caledonia, and the probability of that region soon becoming densely populated should be a strong argument in favor of the projected line, both with the Imperial and the Canadian Government. . . . It seems quite certain, unless the Imperial Government, and that of Canada, put their shoulders to the wheel, t o facilitate the construction of this important t h o r o u g h f a r e through British N o r t h America, . . . t h a t the Americans by constructing a route f r o m St. Louis to California, will completely shut us out and become sole master of the traffic and territory. L a r g e grants of land should be conceded by the Colonial Government, which would be disposed of as the line progressed or as opportunities offer, for the benefit of the undertaking. . . . M r . McQueen's ideas are that the line should run from Montreal via O t t a w a City, Arnprior, Pembroke, Lake Nipissing, crossing French River, Sault Ste. Marie, skirting the Lake of the Woods, Red River, and so on t o w a r d s New Caledonia and F r a s e r River. . . .*

W h i l e nothing came of McQueen's project, it is interesting as being apparently the first to be brought directly to the attention of Macdonald, who was to be so intimately connected with the history of the Canadian Pacific in later years. Meanwhile the British Government was being kept informed of Pacific railway schemes in the United States by its minister at Washington, Lord Napier. On February 8, 1858, he wrote to Lord Clarendon commenting on the prominence Buchanan's message to Congress gave to a Pacific railway as a means of keep34 Chas. P. Ellerman to J o h n A. Macdonald, July 27, 1858. In Sir John A. Macdonald Papers (Railways, V I I ) , in the Public Archives, O t t a w a ( h e r e a f t e r cited as Macdonald Papers).

34

Britain

Looks

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ing together t h e distant parts of the U n i o n : " I t is generally felt t h a t the only means of preserving the adherence of the Pacific States, is by uniting them by Railroads to the Atlantic seaboard." H e reported that the message was immediately followed by S e n a t o r G w i n ' s bill f o r three Pacific Railways, which was amended in committee to provide f o r one central r o a d ; N a p i e r characterized this as a political compromise between north and south. H e also reported that Senator Foot of Vermont offered as a substitute f o r the committee bill another calling for a railway f r o m R e d River to P u g e t Sound, which the minister described as "a design strictly identified with the interests of and wishes of the N o r t h e r n Section of the Union, and extremely advantageous to H e r M a j e s t y ' s possessions, which would be brought into connection w i t h this R o u t e by the w a t e r s of Lake Superior." 2 5 W r i t i n g to L o r d Malmesbury on April 9, 1858, Napier enclosed a copy of a Wisconsin memorial to Congress urging a n o r t h e r n Pacific line, and c o m m e n t e d : There can be no doubt that this design is one of deep significance to the future welfare of the British possessions both on the Eastern and Western side of the Rocky Mountains, and it might be well for the Canadian Government to consider how far the Railroads of the Provinces might be brought into connection with the projected enterprize."

T h e Canadian Government was indeed considering the question of railways in the west, but not with a view t o w a r d connecting with any American line. O n the contrary, in the same year that L o r d Napier was writing, the Canadian Legislature passed a series of resolutions urging the speedy construction of the Intercolonial Railway as a matter of imperial concern, and in p a r t i c u l a r : That in view of the speedy opening up of the territories now occupied by the Hudson Bay Company, and of the development and settlement of the vast regions between Canada and the Pacific Ocean, it is essential to the interests of the Empire at large that a highway extending from the Atlantic "Copy in Governor-General's Ottawa. " Ibid.

Papers

(Series G, 156), in Public Archives,

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

35

Ocean westward should exist, which should at once place the whole British possessions in America within the ready access and easy protection of Great Britain, whilst, by the facilities for internal communication thus afforded, the prosperity of those great dependencies would be promoted, their strength consolidated and added to the strength of the Empire, and their permanent union with the Mother Country secured."

The British Parliament, too, was thinking in terms of an allBritish transcontinental route. Mr. Roebuck told the members of the Commons that a magnificent plan had been laid before the Colonial Secretary, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, for a railway from Halifax to Vancouver's Island, and that if he succeeded in carrying out the scheme he would achieve a renown that would hand down his name to posterity as a great Colonial Minister. His opinion was seconded by Gladstone, Lord Bury, and Lord John Russell. 28 Bulwer Lytton himself, during the debate on the bill for the government of New Caledonia (British Columbia) in 1858, said: I do believe that the day will come, and that many now present will live to see it, when, a portion at least of the lands on the other side of the Rocky Mountains being also brought into colonisation and guarded by free institutions, one direct line of railway communication will unite the Pacific to the Atlantic."

The increasing interest of the late fifties in a railway to British Columbia was due in part to the remarkable railroad-building boom which Canada experienced during that decade. In 1849 Sir Francis Hincks had secured the adoption in the Canadian Legislature of an act "affording the guarantee of the province to bonds of railway companies on certain conditions," amended in 1851 to apply to only three roads: the Great Western, from Niagara to Detroit; the Northern, from Toronto to Georgian Bay; and the Grand Trunk, from Quebec to Toronto. The latter, in particular, was promoted as a great national enterprise, "Sessional "Canadian "Hansard's

Papers, 26 Vic. (1863), # 14. Pacific Railway Royal Commission Report Parliamentary Debates, CLI, 1106.

(1883), III, 4.

36

Britain Looks Toward

the Pacific

with the backing of the Canadian Treasury and with very prominent names on its board of directors. A great deal of British capital was induced to invest in the road, lured by prospects of an eleven and a half per cent dividend. Millions of dollars of outside money poured into Canada between 1853 and 1857 and brought an ephemeral period of prosperity to the country, during which railway lines were built with optimism and vigor. T h e N o r t h e r n Railway opened its line from Toronto to Collingwood in 1855; the Great Western was completed f r o m Hamilton to W i n d s o r a year earlier; and the Grand Trunk, in spite of a complete collapse of its financial setup, extended its line f r o m Toronto to Sarnia in November, 1859. 30 It required little imagination to picture these roads, especially the Grand T r u n k , as vital links in the line that was to span the continent, and to bring to Montreal and Portland, across Canadian soil, all the products of the W e s t by the shortest route. W i t h the Grand T r u n k Railway thus already established as the central link in an all-British transcontinental line, and the Intercolonial Railway, f r o m H a l i f a x to Quebec, having been under serious governmental consideration for years as the eastern portion, it is easy to comprehend the interest and confidence with which many regarded the ultimate, if not imminent, construction of the western and final section. And yet it must be remembered that even in the sixties there was an almost total lack of knowledge concerning the territory through which a railway f r o m Canada to the Pacific would have to go. It was less well known than the corresponding regions of the United States had been three or four decades earlier. Those who were in a position to give an opinion based on actual experience were pessimistic about an all-British line. One of the first government surveys was undertaken f r o m 1857 to 1860 by Captain Palliser whose reports for some years dampened official enthusiasm. His conclusions were that while a railway was perfectly feasible between Red River and the Rockies, "the difficulty of direct communication between Canada and the Saskatchewan country, as compared with the comparatively easy "Bladen, M. L., "Construction of Railways in Canada to the Year 1885," in Contributions to Canadian Economics, V, 45.

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

37

route through the United States by St. Paul's, renders it very unlikely that the great work of constructing a road across the continent can be solely the result of British enterprise." 81 Palliser's opinion, however, was generally ignored by those who were eager to see the quick opening up of the West; a British periodical, for example, quite contradicted him: "The passes of the Rocky Mountains have been examined, and these expeditions have resulted in the discovery that there exists no practical difficulty in the construction of a road, or even a railway, from the shores of Lake Superior to the Fraser River." An American paper copied this and commented: The example of the American wagon way and overland mail route to California, will stimulate the British Colonies to such efforts as will doubtless at an early day achieve success, and give British interests north of parallel 49° the advantages of overland communication."

The combination of American example, commercial enterprise, and the gold rush to British Columbia did indeed produce efforts to establish faster communication with the coast pending the construction of a railway. The sixties were marked by several attempts to organize successful companies for the purpose. A group of Toronto men, headed by Allan MacDonell, obtained a charter in 1858 for the North West Transportation, Navigation and Railway Company, to construct railway links between navigable bodies of water from the Lakes to the Pacific. 33 Lack of financial support prevented this company from making any progress. About 1860 another group of Toronto men placed a steamer on the upper Great Lakes, and received a provincial grant to establish a mail and passenger service with Red River. After about a year of irregular operation by boat, canoe, dog-sled and snowshoes, the effort was abandoned. Another transportation enterprise appeared in 1862, under the name of the British (also the Columbia) Overland Transit Com" R a w l i n g s , Thos., op. cit., 149. ** United States Railroad and Mining Register, Sept. 7, 1861. " 2 2 Vic., c. 122, 1858. See also MacDonell, A., The North-lVest portation, Navigation & Railway Co. (1858).

Trans-

38

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

pany. This undertaking originated in England, with a capital of two and a half million dollars. Its prospectus held forth a glowing promise to travellers and investors: This Company will forthwith organize a perfect land transport train of horses and spring carts adapted for passengers and goods traffic, and erect log shanties for stabling and refreshments at stated intervals along the entire route. Cattle and provisions will be collected at these stations, and armed mounted escorts will be formed for convoy. . . . Applications have been made direct to the Legislative Council of British Columbia, and to the Government of Canada, for local charters, which shall secure for this Company exclusive privileges for several years to come. Both Canada and British Columbia have offered large inducements to the promoters of an overland route. . . . It is estimated that by the express carts of this company, the distance from Lake Superior to British Columbia will be performed in twelve days."

This company achieved the distinction of actually commencing operations. Several members of Parliament on May 22 inquired of the Government whether it had investigated the company, and whether emigrants should be permitted to undertake the journey to the Pacific by this method. The Government replied that while it was doubtful if the company could fulfill its promises, apparently only able-bodied young men were being accepted, and they could probably endure the rigors of the journey. 35 During the summer the first party left England and their arrival at Toronto was reported in the papers. They had missed many of the promised comforts, but were going on, and if the facilities needed were waiting at Red River as advertised, they expected to reach the Fraser in good time. They did reach St. Paul, but there they were stranded; evidently the promoters had relied too much upon the £ 4 2 passage money paid by each emigrant and too little upon the "capital" of the company, for no funds were available to carry the party further. The unfortunate Argonauts pooled their small remaining resources and sent one of their group back to England " United States Railroad and Mining Register, May 31, 1862. * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, ser. 3, C X V I , 2023. Also Nor'-Wester (Winnipeg), July 9, 1862.

The

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

39

for aid and justice. The emissary found the company's office closed and the chief promoter (a Canadian adventurer and fly-bynight journalist named Colonel Sleigh) conspicuously absent. Though he did succeed in discovering and causing the arrest of the secretary of the concern, this was probably small comfort to the agent or his unfortunate fellows marooned in St. Paul. Their fate is unrecorded. 89 An event of this same summer and autumn served to emphasize both the extreme hardships of a journey across the Northwest, and the value of the country if transit could be provided for it. This event was the hunting and exploring trip made from Red River to the Pacific by Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle in 1862 and 1863. Cheadle kept a journal of the expedition (a record of absorbing interest), which was the basis of subsequent lectures and publications on the explorers' return to England. They reported that if the obstructive policy of the Hudson's Bay Company could be removed, and communication opened between Canada and British Columbia, the intervening country would prove to be one of England's most valuable possessions." In recounting the various schemes that appeared for means of transit and communication to the west before confederation, there remains one worthy of comment chiefly because of the importance of its author, Sandford Fleming. As early as 1858 Fleming had worked out a scheme for the opening up of new territory. 38 In 1863 James Ross and William Coldwell, publishers of the Nor'-wester at Red River Settlement, started a movement among the settlers there to petition the Provincial and Imperial Governments to construct a wagon road to Red River and on to the Rockies. The petition was adopted at a mass meeting, and Fleming was asked to present it to the authorities. He took up the cause enthusiastically and went personally to the Premier of " The Nor'-wester, November 17, 1862. " A M S S . copy of Dr. Cheadle's Journal is in the Public Archives at Ottawa. See also Milton, Viscount Wm. F., & Cheadle, W . B., The Northwest Passage by Land (London, 1865), and the United States Railroad and Mining Register (Feb. 18, 1865), for a full report of a lecture before one of the learned societies of Great Britain. " There is an elaborate diagram of this scheme, in the author's hand, dated April 16, 1859, in Vol. 112 of the Fleming Papers.

40

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Canada and the Colonial Secretary, Newcastle, ably supporting the petition and explaining his scheme for the development of roads leading to railways. 3 9 Briefly, Fleming's idea was that new territory, such as the British Northwest, should be opened up by the construction of wagon roads which could later be used as roadbeds for railways. By his plan, settlement would take place first, and the way be made easy for the railway to follow. 4 0 This proposal by Fleming, which attracted much favorable comment on both sides of the ocean, was, as has been indicated, merely the latest in a long series of ideas and enterprises looking toward the opening up of the Northwest for rapid communication and eventual settlement. T h e Provinces and the Imperial Government had gradually become conscious of the possibilities inherent in the Northwest, and of the fact that there was real danger of its being lost by Great Britain to the United States. Astute statesmen realized that the artificial northern boundary was not immutable, and that the land hunger of the American pioneer was almost insatiable. L o r d Elgin is said to have remarked that a Yankee would not be content in the Garden of Eden, but would go W e s t w a r d . A s conditions were, the British Northwest was effectually barred to settlement f r o m the east by lack of travel facilities and by the policies of the Hudson's Bay Company. Only f r o m the south could immigrants penetrate the region, and consequently a large part of its small population was of American origin; the F r a s e r River gold discoveries of the late fifties brought many more. T h e situation bore, in fact, a strong similarity to that of T e x a s b e f o r e 1836, and the resemblance was not lost on the British Government. The key to the problem was the Hudson's Bay Company. U n d e r various grants and charters it held practically complete sway in both government and trade over all the British territories north and west of the Province of Canada. As a trading corporation it was unquestionably efficient, and its relations with the Indians had been conducted with tact and skill. But as a governing body for growing communities of white settlers, or as the sole g u a r d i a n " M a c B c t h , R. G., The Romance of the Canadian 40 Sessional Papers, 26 Vic. (1863), # 83.

Pacific

Railway,

14-16.

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

41

of a vast region coveted by aggressive neighbors, it left much to be desired. It possessed no military forces for defense, and was hostile to settlement as detrimental to its chief purpose,—the fur trade. T h e inroads of Americans, threatened or actual, were a cause of continued concern both to the officials of the Company and the Government. In 1856 the Company notified the Imperial Government that Sir George Simpson had reported the concentration of an American military force at Pembina on the Red River frontier, and believed it to be the precursor of a line of fortified posts along the border that would have the effect of intimidating the natives within British territory and weakening their confidence in the Company's ability to protect them. The Company asked therefore that the Government station part of a regiment of troops in the Northwest. 41 A short time later came another disturbing rumor. The New York Herald for November 14, 1857 contained a report that the Mormons, who were in conflict with the American Government, intended to migrate to Vancouver Island. The information was forwarded by Lord Napier to the colonial secretary and by him to Shepherd, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Shepherd assured the Secretary that Governor Douglas, though without military means, would do all in his power to prevent such a settlement. 42 The Government's own instructions to Douglas said that the Government was not prepared to exercise its reserved right of colonization on Vancouver Island, especially "in favor of refugees who have defied both the authorities of their Country and the usage of Christian and civilized life." 4 3 Although the expected exodus from Utah never occurred, the whole affair, unimportant in itself, indicates clearly the essential weakness of the British position in the Northwest. As long as the Company, rather than the Crown, was the governing power there, the territory was vulnerable to incursions from the United " J o h n Shepherd to Earl of Clarendon, Nov. 4, 1856. ( C Series, 364) in Public Archives at Ottawa. " J o h n Shepherd to Labouchere, Dec. 24, 1857. Papers ( G Series, 156). "Labouchere to James Douglas, Feb. 1, 1858. Ibid.

In Military

Papers

Governor-General's

42

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

States while remaining closed to railroads and settlements moving westward in a normal manner from Canada. With the increasing interest in the West and the many proposals for a transcontinental railroad, this situation was receiving widespread attention, and the fifties and early sixties saw the beginnings of the agitation which was to culminate in the transfer of all the Company's territories in North America to Canada. In the middle fifties the Company's rights were located in four distinct areas. Its original possessions, known as Rupert's Land, and comprising the lands surrounding Hudson's Bay, were held in fee simple by the terms of its original charter received from Charles II in 1670. Between this and the Rockies, stretching to the Arctic, lay the Northwest Territories, in which it had exclusive jurisdiction under a license granted in 1838 for twenty-one years. A similar license had been granted at the same time to New Caledonia, extending from the Rockies to the coast. Finally there was Vancouver Island; the Company haid obtained exclusive rights to govern this in 1846, at the time of the Oregon Treaty with the United States. The Company had pleaded that it deserved compensation for the loss of its trade in Oregon and asked for a perpetual monopoly over all western Canada, promising to foster colonization, and the conversion and civilization of the Indians. There was strong opposition in Parliament, on the ground that the Company would subordinate the needs of settlement to those of the Indian trade; but Earl Gray finally agreed to give a perpetual monopoly of Vancouver Island for a nominal rental, qualified, however, by the proviso that the Government might buy back the island in 1859 for the cost of the improvements." As a result of these licenses and grants, therefore, the year 1859 was a critical one in the affairs of the Company, since three of the four areas were subject to reversion to the Crown at that time. For some time before 1859 a considerable public and official opinion had been growing that the Crown should exercise its prerogatives and terminate the Company's grants. Montreal 41 Bancroft, H. H., British Columbia, 202-15; Caughey, J. W., op. cit., 360; Martin, Chester, "Confederation and the West," in Canadian Hist. Assoc. Rpts. (1927), 20-1.

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merchants had long been hostile to the Company and had carried on a fight against its trade monopoly by organizing companies of their own, such as the famous North West Company. When the organized attempts failed, individual traders, known as the "free traders," continued to trespass on the Hudson's Bay Company's lands, in spite of the latter's earnest efforts to turn the Indians against them. In general, therefore, the attitude of Canadian merchants and the Canadian government was one of strong opposition to the Company.45 A report by the Commissioner of Crown Lands to the Governor General on February 20, 1857, strongly advocated that the Company's lease be not renewed, and the lands be turned over to Canada. . . . . by this means only can those countries be retained long in the possession of Great Britain. For colonized they must and will be; it is only a question of who shall do it. If we do not, the Americans will, and that in spite of anything the Company can do to prevent it. . . . It would be very desirable . . . and quite practicable, if the British Government will consent to annex the Indian Territories, extending to the Pacific and Vancouver's Island, to Canada, to establish, during summer a monthly communication across the continent. It is of incalculable importance that these measures should be most forcibly pressed upon the Imperial Government at the present juncture, for on their solution depends the question of whether or not there shall be a counterpoise favorable to British interests and modelled upon British institutions to counteract the preponderating influence—if not the absolute dominion—to which our great neighbor, the United States, must otherwise attain upon this continent."

The first part of this opinion strikes at the heart of the opposition to the Company,—that it was hostile to settlement, and that the real resources of the country could be developed only under government auspices. Whether the claim is true or not, it is certain that in the fifties and sixties the Company had few friends except those financially interested in its welfare. As the crucial date approached when the grants must come up for renewal, a determined movement appeared in England and Canada to prevent such an event. Canada in particular was deeply interested in the 45 Preston, T. R., The Life and Times of Lord Strathcona, " Macdonald Papers (Northwest Rebellion, I ) .

28-9.

44

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question. In December, 1856, the Board of Trade of Toronto passed this resolution : Resolved

:

That the claim of the Hudson's Bay Company to

exclusive

right of trade over a large portion of British N o r t h America is injurious to the interests of the country so monopolized, and in contravention of the rights of the people of the British N o r t h American Provinces."

The Imperial House of Commons decided in 1857 to hold a thorough inquiry into the condition of affairs in North America under the Company, and appointed a select committee to hold a hearing. Canada was invited to send a delegate, and an excellent choice was made in the person of Chief Justice Draper. In the instructions furnished him by the Executive Council of Canada appears the following significant passage : His

Excellency

feels it particularly

necessary

that

the

importance

of

securing the N o r t h W e s t Territory against the sudden and

unauthorized

influx of

be

pressed.

immigration

from

the

United

States

side,

should

strongly

H e fears that the continued vacancy of this great tract, with a

boundary not marked on the soil itself, may lead to further loss and injury both to England and to Canada.

H e wishes you to urge the

Expediency

of marking out the limits, and so protecting the frontier of the lands above Lake Superior, about the Red River, and thence to the Pacific, as effectually to secure them against violent

seizure or irregular

settlement,

until

a d v a n c i n g tide of Emigrants from Canada, and the United K i n g d o m

the may

fairly flow into them and occupy them as subjects of the Queen on behalf of the British Empire."

In his testimony before the Committee, Chief Justice Draper fully carried out his instructions. He called attention to the increasing influence which American agents were gaining in Red River Settlement, and said that there was "a very serious apprehension that if something is not done, that territory will in some way or another cease to be a British Territory." He emphasized the great need for better transportation facilities across British "The Guardian ( L o n d o n ) , Jan. 14, 1857. "Minutes of the Executive Council of Canada (E R , 223 ff. ( F e b . 18, 1857), Public Archives, Ottawa.

Series), State

Book

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

45

America, which should encourage settlement and bind the whole area more closely to Great Britain; and expressed his belief that his children would see a railway across the breadth of British America. But such a thing could come about only if the dead hand of the Hudson's Bay Company were removed from the Northwest. 49 The Committee took exhaustive testimony from both the Company's officials and its opponents. The problem was complicated by the contention of Canada that the rightful boundary of the province lay at the Rockies or even at the Pacific, and that the original charter of 1670 was invalid. On this point the Committee in its report did not commit itself, but agreed that "it is essential to meet the just and reasonable wishes of Canada to be enabled to annex to her territory such portion of the land in her neighborhood as may be available to her for the purposes of settlement," and expressed the hope that the Imperial Government would make such arrangements with the Company as would bring about the cession of such districts. 60 In the discussion that followed in Parliament, it was decided to refuse a renewal of the licenses, and to unite New Caledonia and Vancouver Island as one Crown Colony, with the name of British Columbia, chosen by Queen Victoria herself. Considerable feeling was also expressed in favor of taking steps to carry out the Committee's recommendation by bringing about the cession of Rupert's Land to Canada as a counterpoise to the growing power of the United States. 51 This action on the part of the British Government had many motives and incalculable results; in particular it promoted two objects which concern us here. In the first place, by beginning the eradication of private monopoly control over the Northwest, it lessened the likelihood that this area would fall into the hands of the United States through the inability of the Company to defend or develop it. In the second place, it removed one of the greatest barriers to the accomplishment of that cherished dream,—a British railway across the continent. Such a project was manifestly "Report of the Canadian Pacific Railway Royal Commission (1883), 2-3. " Innis, Harold A., History of the Canadian Pacific Railway, 36n. " Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, CLI, 1096-1121.

46

Britain Looks Toward the Pacific

antagonistic to the fundamental interests of the Company. The latter's existence was wrapped up in the fur trade, which in turn was predicated upon an absence of settlement and civilization. But a railroad was both the epitome and the missionary of civilization; its purpose was to foster the very things which the Company most abhorred. Eventually the Company had to give way; it was to some extent a question merely of whether it should give way before the pressure of British interests or of American. This question was answered by Parliament's decision in 1858 and 1859, and its sequel of 1869, when Canada purchased the remaining area, Rupert's Land, from the Company. The two objectives referred to above,—the preservation of the Northwest from American seizure and control, and the provision of easier communication across the continent, were of course very closely related. In fact, the former was, to many persons, the chief object of the latter. While it was recognized that a transcontinental railroad might be advantageous commercially, all its earlier advocates insisted that it was necessary politically. Scores of articles, pamphlets and books preached the need of direct and rapid communication with the west if it was to be saved to Great Britain. Only by breaking the close ties which were binding the people of the Northwest to the United States, and replacing them by others to the eastward, could the territory be retained. The elimination of the Hudson's Bay Company was, therefore, an important and necessary step forward. But to many persons this seemed to strike at only part of the problem. They pointed out that if American expansion was a menace in the west, it was almost equally so in the east. It would avail little to attach the wilderness to the older provinces, if the latter were in turn to succumb to the commercial advantages offered by a union with the United States.

C H A P T E R III T H E P O L I T I C A L B A C K G R O U N D OF T H E C A N A D I A N 1.

PACIFIC

CONFEDERATION

The process of the unification of Canada before 1873 may be properly divided into five steps: the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841; the creation of the Dominion in 1867; the acquisition of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869; the admission of Manitoba and British Columbia into confederation in 1870 and 1871; and the passage of the Canadian Pacific Railway Act in 1872. Although the railway comes last on the list, it was not actually so in point of time. A s has been shown, the Pacific railway idea actually antedated most of the other items, and was closely connected with them in the public mind. The railway was to be the means of making political unification effective, while on the other hand, political union must be achieved before the railway could be built. Each was an essential factor in the great objective,—to preserve the dominion of the British Crown in North America. A great step forward had been taken when the Crown Colony of British Columbia was established, but there yet remained the tasks of uniting the older colonies and of eliminating the retarding influence of the Great Company from the vast middle area of the continent. Then, and then only, could the railway vision be realized, and the whole of the British possessions be bound indissolubly together. It is to be understood, of course, that no such clearcut series of progressive steps existed in the minds of the people of Canada, or even of most of its leaders. Necessity and opportunity drovd from one point to the next, as is the case generally in the history of any country. It is generally agreed by writers on Canadian history that Confederation was in large part a result of fear that otherwise the provinces must ultimately become annexed to the United States. From the early forties, the United States had 47

48

The Political Background

of the Canadian

Pacific

exercised a strong centripetal force that threatened to draw the whole continent within its orbit. Much of this power was derived f r o m the rapid railway development of the republic. The Canadians came more and more to be dependent on American lines. Montreal, f o r example, with its St. Lawrence outlet ice-bound several months of the year, and with no rail connection with the Maritimes, found an outlet in New England essential. In 1843 John A. Poor, a Bangor lawyer with a pioneer interest in railroads, conceived the plan of building a railway between Montreal and Portland, thus making the latter the seaport for Montreal's western trade. 1 H e worked energetically to promote the scheme and the outcome of his activity was the organization of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railway in 1846. Portland merchants subscribed $715,000 and many other Maine towns contributed. Montreal took care of the construction on the Canadian side and both cities immediately felt the benefits of the enterprise. So important was the Atlantic & St. Lawrence that it later became a part of the Grand T r u n k system. Another early international enterprise in which Poor was active was the European & N o r t h American Railway. This was planned to r u n between H a l i f a x and Portland. A great convention was held in the latter city in 1850 to promote the scheme, which was expected to shorten the travel time between New York and London to six or seven days. In addition it would provide a connection, with the Atlantic & St. Lawrence, between H a l i f a x and Montreal. Delegates f r o m New England and the Maritimes were both enthusiastic about the plan, but worried over the difficulty of obtaining capital. Joseph H o w e of Nova Scotia went to England to try to get Imperial aid, and a f t e r great efforts returned triumphantly to report that the Government would guarantee a loan of £7,000,000 on condition that a road also be built f r o m H a l i f a x to Quebec. T h e latter had already been under consideration, and was known as the Intercolonial; a line for it had been surveyed in 1848 by M a j o r Robinson of the Engineers. However, just as plans were being drawn up for organizing the two roads, 1 Poor, Laura E., ed., "The First International Railway," in Life Writings of John Alfred Poor, 27-31.

and

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

49

the Colonial Office announced that Howe was mistaken, and that the Imperial Government's aid was intended only for the Intercolonial project. This killed the whole scheme, for New Brunswick would not consent to the latter line only; its chief interest lay in closer connection with Maine. 2 T h e European & North American was obviously not the sort of line which would promote the political union of the British colonies, while the Intercolonial was expected to be. T h e two projects thus became antagonistic and played a large part in the political discussion of the Maritimes, and Canada as well. The European & N o r t h American was built gradually, in sections, beginning about 1867, and New Englanders regarded it as the natural extension of a transcontinental Northern Pacific road.* That it had the political possibilities early recognized by the British is indicated by a quotation f r o m a letter of J. E d g a r Thompson to Simon Cameron in 1869; he said that the road would draw "the people of these provinces into more intimate commercial relations with the U n i o n ; renewing a political connection as necessary as it is now earnestly desired by a large majority of the people, who have been prevented by old political issues, f r o m following the bent of their inclinations." 3 It was this very fear which impelled the British Government .finally to give reluctantly an imperial guarantee for the Intercolonial, on condition that the provinces agree to political confederation. These railway projects were only some of the more prominent among many of this period which had as their object the closer linking of the Provinces and the States. Other roads, such as the Vermont Central, the Ogdensburgh & Lake Champlain, the ' Skelton, O. D., T/ie Railway Builders, 56-65; Hincks, Sir Francis, Reminiscences of My Public Life, 201-203. For objectives of the E. & N. A. Ry., see speech of Representative Washburn of Maine, Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., 1 sess., App., 289-291. •Similarly the Intercolonial was considered in Canada as merely the beginning of the Canadian Pacific. An interprovincial meeting of Ministers in 1862 asserted "that the construction of the Road between Halifax and Quebec must supply an essential link in the chain of an unbroken highway extending through British territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in the completion of which every Imperial interest in North America is most deeply involved." Sessional Papers, 26 Vic., 1863, j t 14. 'Dec. 13, 1869. In Simon Cameron Papers, Library of Congress.

50

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

Ogdensburgh & Boston, the Erie & New York, and the Buffalo & Boston, were proposed and sometimes built. They were expected to draw Canadian trade to American cities, and eventually bring about annexation. The Intercolonial and similar defensive railway projects in Canada were ridiculed by Americans and many Canadians as an economic waste.* It was no wonder, therefore, that Canadian nationalists were anxious supporters of the development of roads that would really knit the provinces more closely together. The abrogation in 1866 of the Elgin Reciprocity Treaty, brought about both by hostile American railroad interests and the strained relations of the Civil W a r period, was another strong contributing factor in the Confederation movement in Canada, but that movement was already well on the way to completion. Although definite steps in that direction had not been taken until about 1864, it had been a subject of earnest discussion for some years among men who wished to see Canada preserved as a part of the British Empire, or at least kept from being swept into the willing arms of its southern neighbor. The agitation in the fifties for a railway to British Columbia was generally linked with a plan for political confederation. When the Morin petition for the "Northern Pacific Railway" was presented to the Canadian Legislature in 1854, one writer hailed it as a certain prelude to federation. When this great work is once seriously commenced—and commenced it assuredly will be, and completed too; for the route proposed is declared to be the only practicable one, for the purpose, across the continent—the only obstacle in the way of an immediate and complete political union of the whole of British North America, will have been removed. 4

As the fifties wore on, the earlier attitude in Canada 5 favorable to separation from England and annexation to the United States *To a considerable extent the charge was true. The Intercolonial, in order to fulfill its political purpose as a military measure, was constructed as far as possible from the Maine border, and over a route which produced little traffic. Long after it was completed in 1876, Lower Canada was still importing such articles as frozen fish from Maine by the Grand Trunk rather than from Nova Scotia by the Intercolonial. Douglas, J., Canadian Independence, Annexation, and British Imperial Federation, 77. * Hamilton, P. S., Union of the Colonies of British North America, 31. ' S e e the "Annexation Manifesto" of 1849, signed by many prominent Canadians, in Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development, 335 ff.

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

51

waned. Patriotic Canadians were annoyed by the preference of many Americans for the Russian cause in the Crimean War, 9 and by the blatant demands for expansion expressed by American politicians. The outbreak of the Civil W a r in the United States started a train of events which greatly strengthened the hands of the confederationists, and enabled them to bring about an early success. The power of the South in the American government before 1860 had been exercised against expansion to the North, and in favor of free trade and reciprocity. W i t h this conservative influence removed, Canada had good reason to fear a more aggressive policy from the United States. 7 Many Canadians, like many Englishmen, were openly sympathetic with the Confederate cause, and the activities of Southern supporters operating from Canada aroused much bitterness in the North. The most effective argument for confederation, of course, arose out of the strained relations between England and the United States Government. The Trent Affair, the recognition of Southern belligerent rights, and the construction of Confederate cruisers in England brought the two countries to the verge of war, and it was evident to Canada and England alike that the former would be the natural point of attack. However much British opinion might have been against imperialism at this time, it had no mind to lose its possessions through foreign compulsion, and the Government's indifferent attitude toward Canadian confederation and railway development underwent a decided change. The military value of the longdelayed Intercolonial scheme received dramatic support when British troops dispatched to Canada during the war were forced to make a long and difficult march in the winter from the coast to the interior garrisons. England agreed to guarantee a three million pound loan; Sandford Fleming was put in charge of a new survey in 1863; and the construction of the road was made one of the conditions of union in 1867. The movement for confederation during the early sixties found less support in the Province of Canada than it did in the Maritime • The Guardian (London), Mar. 14, 1855. 7 Whitelaw, Wm. M., The Maritimes and Canada before 151.

Confederation,

52

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

Provinces or even in England. T h e Sandfield Macdonald ministry had little interest in the question, and Canadian politics at this juncture was plagued by a particularly vicious spirit of petty partisanship. There was a strong movement in Nova Scotia in favor of a union of the Maritime Provinces, to which Newcastle gave his benediction, and it looked as though, if complete confederation failed, it would be the fault of Canada. But fortunately the patriotic feelings of several leaders, notably George Brown, Sir George Cartier, and John A. Macdonald, rose above the party strife. The Liberal ministry was defeated in 1864, and a coalition government formed, though really controlled by Conservatives under John A. Macdonald. T h e new government announced as its policy t h a t : T h e Government are prepared to pledge themselves to bring in a measure n e x t session for the purpose of r e m o v i n g existing difficulties by introducing the

federal principle into Canada,

coupled

with

such

permit the Maritime P r o v i n c e s and the N o r t h - W e s t corporated

into the s a m e

system

of

government.

provisions Territory

And

the

as

will

to be in-

Government

w i l l seek, by sending representatives to the Lower Provinces and to E n g land, to secure the assent of t h o s e interests which are beyond the control of our o w n legislation t o such a measure as may enable all British N o r t h A m e r i c a to be united under a General Legislature based upon the federal principle.'

T h e opportunity to bring the matter before the other provinces was already at hand. On September 1, 1864, there had gathered at Charlottetown, P.E.I., a group of delegates from that province and f r o m Nova Scotia and N e w Brunswick to plan a union of all three. The Canadian Government requested, and received, permission to send a deputation to the conference to bring forward the idea of a larger union. T h e resulting discussion found a large measure of agreement on the plan, except from Nova Scotia, and the meeting adjourned to reassemble a month later at Quebec. H e r e the divergent interests of the several provinces rose to the surface, as the details of the proposed union were discussed. Eventually a set of seventy-two resolutions were adopted, con8

Colquhoun, A . H . U., Fathers

of Confederation,

38.

The Political Background of the Canadian Pacific

53

taining the basic terms upon which confederation could be achieved, and the delegates returned to their respective governments to seek their consent. This proved to be a difficult task. Strong opposition appeared in all the Maritime Provinces. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland both definitely rejected federation, a position from which the latter has never receded. Local interests and party jealousies made the outcome dubious in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. That the decision was finally favorable was again due in large part to American factors. The victory of the North in the war, and the consequent lightening of Anglo-American war tension, had done little to relieve Canadians of their fear of aggression. The radical Republicans were firmly fixed in the saddle at Washington, and were doing a great deal of talking about using their vast military machine to drive the British flag from the continent. The Fenian Brotherhood was actively engaged in promoting an invasion of Canada, and Congress had given notice of its intention to end the Reciprocity Treaty. Canadian leaders were constantly receiving rumors like the following that was written to Macdonald. I returned yesterday from a three weeks sojourn in the cities of N e w York and Boston and feel more than ever impressed with the absolute necessity of this scheme (confederation) as a measure of defense. . . . I had no idea of the feeling of hatred and revenge for imaginary wrongs which has taken possession of the American mind amongst the educated and informed until I met them on daily change in those cities and heard them express themselves so freely on these subjects—they told me plainly that when they had subdued the rebels they would make out an act against Great Britain for all the depredations committed by the Alabama, Florida and C. in C. [Confederates in Canada?] . . . ."

The pressure from the States was increased in 1866 by the appearance in Congress of a definite proposal to admit the Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territory into the United States. The suggestion originated with James W. Taylor, Treasury •James Mathewson to Macdonald, Mar. 11, 1865. (General Letters, 1865-66).

Macdonald

Papers

54

The Political Background

of the Canadian

Pacific

agent in the Northwest. I n a report on commercial relations, he alluded to the resolution adopted at the Quebec Conference looking to the construction of the Intercolonial. Taylor said that the next essential step would be a Pacific railway through Canada, but he doubted the ability of either the British or Canadian governments to carry it through. H e suggested, therefore, that Congress propose that the President invite British North America to join the Union in return for a promise to construct the Pacific railway. T h e idea, coming as it did from a man known to be a fanatical annexationist, might have created little comment, had it rested there. But Taylor had supporters in Congress who agreed with his idea. 10 One of them, General N. P. Banks of Massachusetts, on July 2, 1866, introduced in the House of Representatives a bill embodying Taylor's plan ;11 in fact, Taylor wrote the bill. It was sent to the Foreign Relations Committee, of which Banks was chairman, but no further action was taken on it. H o w ever, it received a considerable amount of press comment, both in the United States and Canada. The Chicago Tribune said it was a better method of conquest than force, and the St. Paul Press said: When the Canadians are thoroughly released from the sentimental superstitions which now form the only bond or basis of the British connection, the pressure of their material interests will soon drive them to the door which Congress is about to open for their reception.11

Democratic papers generally ridiculed the bill, and claimed that it was an attempt to redress the balance of power against the time when the Democratic South should be restored to the Union.* " Blegen, T. C., "A Plan for the Union of British North America and the United States, 1866," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., IV, 470-483. 11 Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 1 sess., 3548. u Quoted in Smith, J. P., The Republican Expansionists of the Early Reconstruction Era, 94. • T h e Democrats also charged that the bill was a political move to draw the Irish vote over to the Republican column. Banks received a number of congratulatory letters and telegrams from Fenians, assuring him of Republican victories if he could get the party to express its support of the Fenian movement. Banks himself was voted a resolution of gratitude by the National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood. (C. O'Sullivan to N. P. Banks, Oct. 10, 1866. Ar. P. Banks Papers.)

The Political Background of the Canadian Pacific

55

Canadian journals were almost unanimous in opposing it, and George Brown's Toronto Globe said that Taylor should try a plan to annex the moon. The general effect was to make Canadians more determined than ever to achieve independent self-government. Many years later the Winnipeg Daily Tribune said that the bill "proved a powerful motor in advancing Confederation and assuring the marvelous achievement of a Canadian inter-oceanic communication." 13 The Pacific railway was almost as much an integral part of the confederation idea as the Intercolonial. Solicitor-General Langevin said: When speaking of the Intercolonial Railway, I made no mention of the Pacific Railway, because I consider that we ought to devote our attention to accomplishing the works of which we at present stand in need. A t a later period, when our resources and our population shall have sufficiently increased, w e may direct our attention to the Pacific Railway. And should it become necessary, we can, with Confederation, hope to build it in less than ten years, whereas by remaining by ourselves, as we are, we could not hope to have it for perhaps one hundred years."

The argument that confederation would make the Pacific line possible, and so save the Northwest, took on added force just at this time, for the same month which had seen the Charlottetown Conference also had seen the chartering of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The New Englanders who were its first sponsors conceived of it as an international road, which should have its eastern terminus at Boston (or be extended on to Halifax) and should utilize existing Canadian lines westward to Lakes Michigan and Huron. Here it would return to American soil south of Lake Superior and continue on to the Pacific, a plan very similar to that endorsed by Jay Cooke a few years later. This road, the New England capitalists said, would serve both countries and would make unnecessary any other Pacific road north of it. The scheme received hearty applause from many railroad men in both countries, but it naturally did not appeal so thoroughly to the political leaders " Dec. 20, 1890. Quoted in Blegen, T. C., op. cit478. 14 Parliamentary Debates on Confederation, 366.

56

The Political Background

of the Canadian

Pacific

of Canada, who saw it only as a means of increasing the existing dependence of Canada on American commercial enterprise. 1 5 T h e knowledge that the American government had actually made a huge grant of lands to the Northern Pacific was a powerful stimulant to the confederation movement in Canada. Urged on by the apparently hostile influences below the border, and aided by skillful political manipulation, the battle for union was carried safely through the provincial legislatures, and delegates were sent to England to arrange the terms of the act with the Imperial authorities. In the discussion there, the British Government took little part, but left the formation of particular clauses to the men who knew best what Canada needed. W h e n , as a result of delicate negotiation and compromise among the racial, religious and sectional interests represented, the delegates had formulated the British North America Act, it was passed without change and with little debate in Parliament. T h e Intercolonial was made one of the essential conditions, and provision was made f o r the admission of British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Implied in the latter was the expectation that R u p e r t ' s Land would be transferred eventually f r o m the control of the Hudson's Bay Company to that of the new Dominion, for this region lay squarely between the new federation and the Pacific colonies. If a railway was to be built to the latter, the entire route must be under the jurisdiction of the government. W i t h the pressure of American settlement and interest growing ever greater in the Northwest, negotiations to this end with the Company became a matter of immediate necessity. The first ministry of the Dominion, in fact, had only to continue endeavors already begun by the Province of Canada.

2 . T H E A M E R I C A N MENACE I N RED RIVER

T h e picture of conditions in the Northwest in the 1860's is an interesting one, combining as it does so many elements typical of pioneer life. H e r e was the original center of the Hudson's 15

S m a l l e y , E . V., op. cit., 125-7.

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

57

Bay Company's activities since the days of its founding, and here still were its American headquarters and chief trading posts. The oldest and most important of the latter was York Factory on the Bay, the port-of-entry for merchandise used in the Indian trade, and the port whence the furs were shipped abroad. It was rapidly being surpassed in importance, however, by Fort Garry in the Selkirk settlement. This being almost the only place in the Company's dominions where farming was carried on, it had become the center of food supply and general merchandise for the whole country. It was, in fact, the metropolis of the West, the home of the buffalo-hunters and many of the "free-traders," and the lodestone that drew many a lonely voyageur from the wilderness. The Selkirk Settlement had been returned to the ownership and government of the Company by Lord Selkirk's heirs in 1834, and had then been organized as the district of Assiniboia. It was administered by a Governor appointed by the Company heads in London; almost invariably a factor of the Company was chosen. While the forms of civil government were adopted, in actual practice the settlement was conducted rather as a private estate. Everything centered around the Company's interest in the f u r trade, and the preservation of its monopoly. 16 For this reason, the situation was anomalous. The Company was not interested in colonization, nor equipped to govern towns and townspeople, especially such a diverse population as inhabited the Red River Settlement. In addition to the descendants of the original Scottish crofters, who were engaged chiefly in farming, there was a large proportion of French-Canadians, mostly hunters and trappers, but with a number who had acquired land-holdings and had settled down. There were also a number of English emigrants, who were either connected in some way with the business of the Company, or conversely were engaged in the free trade, that is, illegal trade in defiance of the Company's monopoly. Closely associated with the latter were some American traders interested mainly in promoting trade between Red River and St. M Cambridge History of the British Empire, John, Lord Strathcona, 103.

VI, 420; MacNaughton,

58

The Political Background of the Canadian Pacific

Paul. With all these ill-assorted elements, torn by opposing commercial, racial and religious differences, to be dealt with, it is little wonder that the Company was unsuccessful in its administration; the provincial governments, with no private monopoly to protect, were finding similar situations in their own borders hard enough to control. By 1860, there was marked discontent in Red River with Company rule. In the first place, while the region was exceptionally well adapted to agriculture, and a considerable number of the inhabitants were engaged in it, the Company made no attempt to aid them nor to develop an export trade in grain, since it regarded the colony's function to be merely that of supplying food for the hunters and trappers of the Company. 17 In the second place, the determination of the Company to stifle any competitive trade was extremely unpopular. It was but natural that many individuals would want to profit from the lucrative f u r trade, but to the Company this was the deadly sin, and it attempted to wipe it out by severe penalties. Much of the illicit trading was carried on by the half-breeds, and when the Company tried to suppress it, racial cohesion frequently defeated its efforts. It possessed little actual police power, and the arrest of a French free trader was often followed by his forcible release from jail. Thus the halfbreed population came to have a strong dislike of the Company, together with a distrust of Englishmen and Canadians in general, while on the other hand they became friendly with the American traders from St. Paul. Since the Company controlled all the direct means of communication with England, the illicit trade had to be carried on with the United States, and American traders were not backward about pointing out to the half-breeds the advantages they offered in contrast to Company control. But the half-breeds and farmers were not the only discontented group. Most of the English merchants in Red River were dissatisfied with conditions. The Company imposed a stiff tariff on imports other than its own; for instance, there was a duty of five shillings per gallon on non-British liquors which weighed heavily on a frontier community. 18 The processes of trade " MacNaughton, ]., op. cit., 105.

" The Nor'-wester, Apr. 1 and Apr. 15, 1861.

The Political

Background

of the Canadian

Pacific

59

through Company channels were far from satisfactory. The following description from the Nor'-wester, the colony's only newspaper, shows the merchants' point-of-view: Until recently, the method of importing goods to Red River was slow, unprofitable, and vexatious. The merchant drew at Fort Garry a bill of exchange on London, in the month of October or November. This he transmitted to a London agent (generally the Secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company), who fulfilled the orders by the month of June following, and despatched the goods to Hudson's Bay, in a sailing ship chartered by the Company. The vessel usually reached York Factory in the beginning of August, and in October the goods arrived in Red River in open boats which had previously been sent from the Settlement to receive them. Thus, under the most favorable circumstances, exactly a year elapsed from the time the money was transmitted until the goods reached their destination. But it not unfrequently happened that the early advent of winter blocked up the goods at York Factory, where they lay until the next summer, when the unfortunate merchant, in addition to the loss of nearly two years' returns on his capital, had also to pay for the winter's storage at York!1* Conditions such as these were well-nigh intolerable, and the merchants of St. Paul were the gainers thereby. The early trade by cart was soon improved by the introduction of a steamboat line on the Red River, and the Fort Garry merchant found himself in a position to replace the year-long cycle of trade with England by one of six or seven weeks with Minnesota. T h e newspaper article just quoted continued with the following comment: Every year our dealings increased, and our imports from England diminished. Only a small proportion of the goods consumed in this country now come by Hudson's Bay,—of the rest, what is not purchased in the States, nevertheless comes to us through the States. . . . The people of Minnesota are realising the importance of their commercial intercourse with this country. . . . We must nevertheless say that the St. Paul route is after all not our best permanent route . . . as British subjects we cannot regard a channel of intercourse which passes through the United States as at all natural. We ought to have our own outlet on British territory, and transact all our business by Fort William, Rainy Lake, and the chain of waters in that line. That unquestionably, is our best route. . . . It would " The Nor'-wester,

July 28, 1860.

60

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

remain open and free even though difficulties should arise between England and the United States, which the St. Paul route would not be.

This diversion of trade from the York Factory route to the St. Paul route had indeed proven so advantageous that the Company itself was compelled to adopt it for much of its business. In 1860, a year after the Anson Northrup, an American steamer, had appeared on the Red River, the Company established a depot at Georgetown, Minnesota, and put a steamer of its own on the river. By 1864 the United States estimated the annual imports from Red River Settlement at a million dollars and the exports at a half million, very considerable sums for a frontier community. 20 As this trade to the southward developed, the discontent of the Selkirkers with their political status increased. They regarded the Company as an obstacle to their natural progress as a community, since it was indifferent to the need for railway or other direct connections with Canada, and opposed to free trade. The loyal Englishmen in the settlement were afraid of the outcome of the growing relations with the United States, and were eager for the colony's transfer to the Crown. Criticism of the Government for failing to bring this about was frequently heard. The Nor'-wester compared the phenomenal growth of the American Northwest with the backwardness of the British: "Shame on the British government that this is the case. . . . Are they waiting until we make short work of our destinies by voting annexation to Minnesota or Dakota?"21 By 1862 its tone was becoming still more determined; it commented on the close relations between the colony and the United States and warned the British Government that the Company rule must be replaced by that of the Crown. It is high time that the British Government should take into consideration the affairs of this country. They have hitherto been indifferent to the condition of Central British America; but careless will no longer be indulged with impunity. The present Imperial

earnest utterly neglect Cabinet

" Blegen, T. C., "James Wickes Taylor," in Minnesota I, # 4, 191n. "October 15, 1861.

Bulletin,

History

The Political Background

of the Canadian Pacific

61

must at once take up the subject of a change in this country or they will soon wake up to a very unpleasant state of things here. Annexation to the United States is the universal demand of the people of this country, seeing that the H o m e Government will do nothing. This sentiment has been growing ever since commercial intercourse with Minnesota commenced; and it is increasing in intensity to such an extent that a little agitation would ripen it into a formal general movement."

When attacks by Sioux interrupted transit up the Red River, and the Indians shortly afterward made one of their periodical visits to Fort Garry, they were allowed to leave unpunished. This led the Nor'-wester to ask: "Who could expect anything better from the present incompetent government?" 23 These remarks are typical of the attitude of the Nor'-wester, which, as the only newspaper in the entire region, had great influence and was also widely read in the eastern provinces. It was not definitely in favor of annexation to the United States, except as a last resort, but it lost no opportunity to show its friendship for Americans and to preach the need of action by the British Government if annexation were to be avoided. Of the possibility of annexation, and of the urgent need for direct communication between Canada and the West, the Canadians at least were well aware. The press of western Canada, particularly the Toronto Globe, was urging the abolition of the Company's title throughout the late fifties and early sixties. The Provincial Government had done all it could to bring this about. At the time when the question of the Company's leases had been investigated by a Select Committee of Parliament in 1857, Canada had collected and forwarded evidence of its own, prejudicial to the Company, and had advanced the claim that the Company's charter was invalid. In the same year, Canada took active steps toward opening up direct communication with the West, if and when it should receive title to the land. An expedition was sent out under George Gladman to determine the best route between Lake Superior and Red River on British soil; in 1858 the expedition was divided into two sections, one under a geologist, Professor H. Y. Hind, and B

May 28, 1862. " February 9, 1863.

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The Political Background of the Canadian Pacific

the other under an engineer, S. J. Dawson. Their reports stated that a wide belt of fertile land extended from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, and that a practical land and water route could be established between Fort William and Fort Garry that would bring these two points within about three days travel of each other." Encouraged by these reports and by general public opinion, the Provincial Government continued its efforts. It attempted to establish a postal service with Red River, but lack of territorial rights along the route and the indifference of the Hudson's Bay Company to the idea caused its early abandonment. 25 Several charters were granted to private companies that offered to maintain a service to Red River, and Dawson was employed further to survey and construct a route such as he had recommended. The development of this route, accompanied by the removal of the Company's title, was widely hailed as an essential step in the preservation and growth of the Northwest as a British possession. Public interest in the Fort William-Fort Garry route was not based entirely upon the importance of this road alone; contemporary advocates of the transcontinental railroad saw it as an essential step in attaining their objective, and it was thus generally recognized. The very water-communication to which we have already referred determines the question, so often discussed by American statesmen, whether the Pacific Railway shall be on British or American soil. Some may regard this grand railway project as a mere dream of weak-minded politicians or reckless financiers; but the signs of the times, coupled with the facilities afforded by our waters, point to it as something which must be carried out sooner or later; and which must traverse this country."

Looked at from this larger point-of-view, the policies and powers of the Hudson's Bay Company seemed particularly antag" A report by Gladman to the Governor-General, dated Feb. 22, 1861, and emphasizing the military advantages of a route from Fort William to Fort Garry, is in the Military Papers ( C Series, 364). The reports of Dawson and Hind are found in Journals of the Legislative Assembly, 22 Vic., 1859, App. # 36. * Sessional Papers, 25 Vic., 1862, # 3 9 , 1. " The Nor'-wester, Feb. 14, 1860.

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63

onistic to the public interest. The Company had been criticized for neglecting the Lake Superior route in favor of the Hudson Bay route; but now that the Government of Canada was making every effort to open the route from the Lake, and although the Company had been compelled by competition of free traders to find a shorter route than that by York Factory, it still refused to co-operate with the Province, preferring instead to use foreign facilities to the southward. T o the patriotic Canadian press, the Company's tactics seemed almost treasonable : . . . By their immense resources and their influence in the British money market, they may succeed in having a railway built through Minnesota from the Mississippi to the Red River. . . . Thus they will delay indefinitely the building of railways on British territory to Red River from the eastward, and hinder that great imperial project—we may almost say necessity—the transcontinental road from Halifax to Vancouver, uncontrolled by a foreign Power, now friendly, but which may at any time become hostile. The next result will, of course, be the thorough Americanization of the boundless North-West. The route the Hudson's Bay Company propose to establish debouches on American soil. The immigration into Red River will therefore be almost exclusively American. Even should British emigration be directed thither, it must be remembered that a stream of settlers always leaves the greater part of itself behind, . . . and if it flows in an American, not a Canadian channel, British interests must suffer."

In line with public opinion such as this, the fight against the Company was being carried on at the same time that efforts were being made to locate a shorter route to the West. In 1861 E. W . Watkin of the Grand Trunk, supported by a powerful group of British capitalists, had come to Canada to investigate the possibilities of constructing the Intercolonial and a Pacific railroad. Although both the British and Canadian Governments were sympathetic, the Hudson's Bay Company was reluctant to surrender any lands or rights to promote the idea. When the Provincial Secretary of Canada wrote to Dallas, Governor of Rupert's Land, urging that the Company's co-operation was urgently needed to "Hamilton (Ont.) Spectator, 1858.

quoted in the London Guardian, Dec. IS,

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The Political Background

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Pacific

preserve the Northwest from the expected hordes of American miners to the new Saskatchewan gold fields, Dallas replied that any help on its part would tend to destroy its trading interests." Even when Watkin and his associates bought out the interest of the former owners of the Company, no arrangement could be reached which would satisfy the Company and the two governments alike. 29 T h u s by 1863 a temporary deadlock seemed to have been reached, which could be broken only by the elimination of the Hudson's B a y Company. In the meantime, the American menace was growing constantly greater, and the settlers at Red River were becoming more discontented. On January 21, 1863, at a mass meeting at Fort Garry a memorial to the Canadian and British Governments was adopted.* It cited the hardships under which the people labored due to lack of any communication with the rest of the empire, and reviewed the favorable reports of explorers regarding a road from Lake Superior to the Pacific. The colony felt the need of such a route so badly that it offered to bear the cost of a road from Red River to Lake of the Woods, if England or Canada would carry it on from there to Lake Superior. In conclusion the petition stated that "we feel bound to observe that American influence is rapidly gaining ground here; and if action is long delayed, very unpleasant complications may arise." 8 0 This petition and Fleming's powerful presentation of the case made a strong impression upon Newcastle, who had been interested especially in Canadian affairs since his visit to America with the Prince of Wales in 1860. But the Law Officers of the Crown were not willing to concede the correctness of Canada's position in claiming Rupert's Land, and the Government therefore maintained that the question must be settled between Canada and the "Macdonald Papers ( N o r t h w e s t Rebellion, I ) . " S e e Sessional Papers, 26 Vic., 1863, # 14, for correspondence on these questions. * S e e p. 39 above. T h e evidence r e g a r d i n g this m a s s meeting and petition is c o n f u s i n g . R . G. M a c B e t h , w h o lived in Red River, and The Nor'-Wester d e s c r i b e it a s a genuine popular movement. J . J . H a r g r a v e , another cont e m p o r a r y local chronicler, c h a r g e s that practically no one but the editors of the paper heard of the meeting until a f t e r it had supposedly been h e l d ; he a l s o d i s p a r a g e s F l e m i n g ' s part ( H a r g r a v e , J . J . , Red River, 3 1 1 - 2 ) . " Sessional Papers, 26 Vic., 1863, # 83.

The Political Background

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65

Company by negotiation and purchase. Agitation in the West continued. On May 29, 1863, five months after the preceding petition was drawn up, another mass meeting was held at Red River Settlement, and a resolution adopted that the present government was utterly unfit for the times and urged local co-operation in forming a more suitable one. The meeting also resolved to pay no more taxes until its wishes were met. 81 A short time later Canadian officials were given further cause to be uneasy over American influence in the West. In 1864 Congress granted a charter and a large tract of land to the Northern Pacific Railroad, to run from Duluth to Puget Sound. Coming as it did at such a critical juncture in Canadian affairs, it gave rise to more than a suspicion that it was primarily a political move. C. J. Brydges, managing director of the Grand Trunk, expressed this opinion to John A. Macdonald, and Macdonald agreed with him. If the United States should actually construct such a railroad, while Canada did nothing, the Northwest would be drawn irretrievably into the American orbit. The Canadian Government accordingly made another effort to get action by the Imperial Government in their favor. Newcastle had been succeeded as Colonial Secretary by Cardwell, and the Executive Council of Canada drew up the following statement: The Committee of Council recommend that Mr. Cardwell be informed that the Government of Canada is more than ever impressed with the importance of opening up to settlement and cultivation, the lands lying between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains. The great extent of these lands and their adaptability for settlement are now established beyond a doubt; and it is not to be contemplated that a region so fertile and capable of sustaining so vast a population, should longer be closed to Civilization for the benefit of a trading company, however long established and respectable that Company may be. The rapid progress of British Columbia adds to the expediency of opening without delay an overland route to the Pacific and gives feasibility to the hope long cherished by many that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ere many years elapse, may be connected by one direct line of Railway through British territory from Halifax to British Columbia. The close relations springing up between the Red River 11

The Nor'-wester,

June 11, 1863.

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The Political

Background

of the Canadian

Pacific

settlers and the Americans of Pembina and St. Paul, and the removal of many Americans into the territory, render it doubly expedient that a settled government under the British Crown should be established in the country at an early date." At about this time the rumors were growing of new gold discoveries on the Saskatchewan, which, if confirmed, would lead to another rush like that at F r a s e r River in 1858, with American prospectors predominating. It was p r o b a b l y as a result of these rumors that Alexander M c E w e n of London wrote to Sir Edmund Head, Governor of the reorganized Hudson's Bay Company on J a n u a r y 18, 1866, inquiring if the Company were at liberty and willing to dispose of its cultivable lands to " a party of AngloAmerican capitalists, who would sell and colonize the same on a system similar to that now in operation in the United States, in respect to the organization of Territories and States." 3 3 The Company replied that it was willing to sell the land, but the question of government would require British concurrence. On F e b r u a r y 2 0 the Imperial Government wrote warning Head that the claims of Canada must take precedence over other engagements. T o this Head replied by inquiring how long Canada's " o p t i o n " was to remain open, and complaining that "the possibility of losing a favourable opportunity may become a very grave one in a pecuniary point of view." Alarmed by the possibility of Rupert's L a n d passing into the control of another private corporation dominated by Americans, the Canadian Government on J u n e 2 2 presented a protest. T h i s reiterated the claim that the Company had no legal title to Rupert's Land, and maintained that even if there were such a title, it would be contrary to the public interest t o let the fertile area remain in the hands of this or any other private corporation; even if the owners should encourage settlement, it was very doubtful if they would possess sufficient power and authority to govern it. It would probably fall into alien hands and forever prevent the building of a Pacific railway on British s o i l . " "Nov. 11, 1864. Documents Relative to the Opening of the Territory. Public Archives, Ottawa. " Sessional Papers, 31 Vic., 1867, # 19. ** Ibid.

North-West

The Political Background of the Canadian Pacific

67

It was not merely the gradual immigration of Americans into British territory that worried the Government; in addition, both during and after the Civil W a r , there had been a series of official and quasi-official statements and proposals in the United States looking directly toward the annexation of the British Northwest. While none of these achieved the importance of being accepted openly by the Administration at Washington, they were nevertheless disquieting. They were straws in a wind that might at any time develop into a disastrous storm. During the Civil W a r , at a time when Anglo-American relations were particularly tense, Congress called on the President f o r information regarding the relations between the United States and the central districts of British Northwest America. The resulting communication by the executive department was almost entirely the work of a special agent of the Treasury stationed in Minnesota, James Wickes Taylor. In his official capacity as agent and a f t e r 1870 as Consul at Winnipeg, and unofficially as propagandist and publicist, Taylor busied himself unremittingly on behalf of two objectives : the annexation of the British Northwest, and the promotion of a plan for control of railway traffic on both sides of the boundary by the Northern Pacific Railroad. His report on conditions as transmitted to Congress was, as might be expected, strongly pro-annexationist in tone. It contained several communications to the Secretary of the Treasury and others, together with a number of press clippings, all testifying to the precariousness of Britain's hold on the Northwest. Unless England should quickly respond to the "manifest destiny" of the Winnipeg basin, "the speedy Americanization of that fertile district is inevitable." The following excerpt f r o m a letter of Taylor to Secretary Chase, December 17, 1861, is typical: N o portion of the British territory on this continent is so assailable, so certain of occupation by American troops in case of a war with England, as Fort Garry and the immediate district thence extending along the valley of the Saskatchewan to the Rocky Mountains. If our struggle is to be . . . a struggle for national existence, against foreign foes as well as domestic traitors, Minnesota, however remote from the scene of the southern insurrection, will claim the distinction of a winter campaign for the conquest of

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The Political Background

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central British America. I append a rough diagram exhibiting that portion of British territory . . . which 1,000 hardy Minnesotians, aided by the French, American and half-breed population, could seize before the 4th of March."

That Taylor was not speaking for himself alone in expressing these sentiments is indicated by the words of a memorial which the Legislature of Minnesota sent to Congress in 1862. The legislators wished to call the attention of Congress to the state of political neglect from which Red River Settlement was suffering, and urged that representations be made to Great Britain. The revenue and postal system of the United States has been extended to Pembina, and beyond; and, with the aid of steamboat navigation, . . . has rapidly removed former prejudices to commercial, and even political association with the United States. It is not too much to say, that if England shall not immediately take measures in behalf of the Red River and Saskatchewan districts, by a political organization, and effective measures of colonization, that the Americanization of a grain region as large as six States of the size of Ohio cannot longer be postponed."

Statements such as these, together with the many similar opinions that appeared in the American press from time to time, and followed by the Red River petition and the continual drumming of the Nor'-wester, caused considerable discussion among British officials. There were supporters for each of the three alternative plans for the Northwest: to let it remain a wilderness; to erect it into an independent Crown Colony; or to annex it to Canada.* By 1865 the first had few adherents, except among the "little Englanders" who opposed all extension of imperialism; but there were a considerable number who questioned the wisdom of letting Canada carry out her desire to annex the Northwest. Among these were E. W. Watkin, and at least two leading Canadian statesmen,—John A. Macdonald and Cartier. They felt that such a course would impose too great a burden of defense "House Exec. Docs., 37 Cong., 2 sess., X, # 146 (1138). " Rawlings, Thomas, op. cit., 200-201. •After Confederation in 1867 there was the fourth alternative which was actually adopted,—to make it a province of the Dominion on equal terms with the older ones.

The Political Background of the Canadian Pacific

69

on Canada. On this point Watkin and John Bright considered the possibility of a plan for neutralizing Canadian soil by agreement with the United States, so that Canada would not be a battle ground in case of an Anglo-American w a r . " With the termination of the American Civil War, the danger of war between Great Britain and the United States was greatly lessened, but on the other hand the interest of American expansionists in the Canadian question seemed to grow all the greater. This feeling as a factor in promoting general Canadian unity after 1865 has been already touched upon, but it bears a (special importance as being perhaps the deciding element which brought about the settlement of the Northwest dispute and the decision of the Canadian Government to construct a railway to the Pacific. The accomplishment of Confederation in 1867 had been an effective answer to such proposals as that made by the Banks Annexation Bill of 1866, insofar as the provinces were concerned, but it left the rest of British America as vulnerable to attack or blandishments as ever. American influence in the Northwest continued to grow, and Canadian leaders felt more strongly than ever that the weak Company government must be replaced by a stronger, if the ultimate destiny of Confederation was to be made secure. On December 28, 1867, the Governor-General approved a series of recommendations made by the Council to be sent to London. Among them was the following: That recent proposals in the Congress of the United States in reference to British America, the rapid advance of mining and agricultural settlements westward, and the avowed policy of the Washington Government to acquire territory from other powers by purchase or otherwise, admonish us that not a day is to be lost in determining and publishing to the world our policy in regard to these territories."

It is impossible to judge with any exactitude just what the sentiment of the people of the Northwest was with respect to annexation to the United States. There were unquestionably " E . W. Watkin to John A. Macdonald, Feb. 18, 1865, in Papers (Northwest Rebellion, I). " Sessional Papers, 31 Vic., 1867-8, # 59.

Macdonald

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The Political Background

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many who favored it, though James W. Taylor's statement that nine-tenths of the inhabitants were pro-American was probably merely wishful thinking. 39 Such exaggerated opinions were general in the United States, however, and it was widely felt that any attempt on the part of Canada to annex the Northwest Territories would be a violation of the rights of the people there. The St. Paul Daily Press for February 27, 1868, carried an article, inspired by Taylor, to this effect: Some of our citizens, who have just returned from Washington, bring information that there is a scheme on foot in the British cabinet, to annex the whole of N o r t h w e s t British America to t h e Dominion of Canada by an o r d e r in council. . . . It is a measure that should be promptly protested against by our Government. T h e natural desire, we feel assured in saying, of nine-tenths of those people, if they are to be deprived of an independent Government and annexed to any foreign country, is that they be annexed t o the United States.

In line with this suggestion, the Minnesota Legislature adopted on March 6, a memorial to the President and Congress: W e regret t o be informed of a purpose to t r a n s f e r the territories between Minnesota and Alaska to the Dominion of Canada, by an order in council a t London, without a vote of the people of Selkirk and the settlers upon t h e sources of the Saskatchewan River, who largely consist of emigrants f r o m the United S t a t e s ; and we respectfully urge that the President and CongTess of the United States shall represent to the Government of Great Britain that such action will be an unwarrantable interference with the principle of self-government, and cannot be regarded with indifference by the people of the United States.

The resolution, which like the press comment just quoted, undoubtedly was the work of Taylor, further suggested that the cession of the area in question to the United States might serve to balance the Alabama Claims, and promote the construction of a northern Pacific railroad. 40 " T a y l o r to E d w a r d Cooper, Nov. 23, 1867. Quoted in Blegen, T „ " A P l a n for the Union of British N o r t h America and the United States, 1866," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., I V , 479. 40 Senate Misc. Docs., 40 Cong., 2 sess., # 68.

The Political Background

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71

This frank suggestion aroused considerable comment in the Canadian press. The Toronto Globe asked: What have these sages got to do with the valley of the Saskatchewan? And who told them that any part of British territory was either for sale, barter or exchange? Aliens are in that country simply by sufferance as they are in every other country where they are aliens. If they are not satisfied with the district or its institutions, the way is open. Nobody obliges them to remain. Nations we know can steal, but it is not very frequently the case that they go about it so openly as the Mtnnesotians propose.

To this the St. Paul Press retorted: What do they (the settlers) owe to a government which has treated them only with neglect, or use them for purposes of temporary convenience? If the hardy settlers should take their departure as they are now invited to do, how long would it take for the country which they have been opening up to civilization, to relapse into a barren wilderness as they found it?

The Minnesota memorial was not allowed to die unheard in Congress. On December 9, 1867, Minnesota's senator and former governor, Ramsey, like Taylor an annexationist and railroad promotor, introduced a resolution to forward the purpose of the memorial. It called upon the Committee on Foreign Relations to inquire into the expediency of a treaty with Canada providing for reciprocal trade relations, and contained several sections which are deserving of reproduction here, since they state definitely and clearly the platform of the annexationists of the American Northwest, and of many of the supporters of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Canada, with the consent of Great Britain, shall cede to the United States the districts of North America west of longitude 90°, on conditions following, to w i t : 1. The United States will pay $46,000,000 to the Hudson Bay Company, in full discharge of all possessory rights and of all claims to territory or

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The Political Background

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jurisdiction in North America, whether founded on the charter of Company, or any treaty, law or usage.

the

2. T h e United States will assume the public debt of British Columbia, not exceeding the sum of $2,000,000. 3. T o aid the construction of a railroad from the western extremity of Lake Superior to Puget Sound, the United States in addition to the grant of land heretofore made, will guarantee dividends of five per cent upon the stock of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company: Provided, T h a t the amount of stock guaranteed as aforesaid shall not exceed $20,000 per mile, and Congress shall regulate the securities for advances on account thereof. 4. T h e northwest territory shall be divided and organized into Territories of the United States, not less than three in number, with all the rights and privileges of the citizens and government of Montana Territory, so far as the same can be made applicable."

Ramsey was personally interested in the welfare of the Northern Pacific, and the provisions above were judiciously combined so as to add to the normal legislative strength of the road, that of the annexationists in Congress, in an effort to obtain the muchdesired government guarantee. Undoubtedly Canadian officials appraised the resolution at its true value, and were not afraid that Congress would go further with it at that time. In fact, one of Macdonald's confidential agents in Washington, G. W. Brega (who at the same time was a commissioner of the United States Treasury Department), wrote that he was not displeased with the resolution, as the "bunkum" portion created an immediate interest in the general subject of reciprocal trade relations, which would otherwise be lacking.4'-2

" Senate Misc. Docs., 40 Cong., 2 sess., # 2 2 (1319). " B r e g a to Macdonald, Dec. 10, 1867, in Macdonald Papers (Secret Service, I ) . This and other letters of this period from Brega to Macdonald are very interesting, for they contain urgent pleas for funds to be used in promoting a reciprocity agreement, by means which seem to hint at itching palms among American legislators. "I shall be extremely cautious; and you may rely upon it that in no event will either you or the government be compromised by me in any respect." Brega's position as agent for two governments simultaneously is very curious.

The Political Background

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73

But it was something which could not be ignored entirely,* and was perhaps the decisive factor in deciding the Canadian Government to abandon its claims to Rupert's Land as a matter of right, and to hasten the conclusion of negotiations with the Company. It was generally recognized that otherwise Americanization could not be much longer delayed; in fact, some felt that it had already become inevitable. Governor MacTavish of Rupert's Land (Assiniboia) wrote in 1869: "This will be its destiny. . . . Indeed it is for the interest of the settlers here that annexation should take place at once." 43 Even at this stage of events, the Canadian Government was divided in its councils. As late as September, 1868, only two ministers were whole-heartedly in favor of buying out the rights of the Company. Agreement was reached only as part of a compromise which involved the route of the Intercolonial." Delegates were sent to England to carry on the negotiations with the Company, and a long series of proposals and counter-proposals ensued, the deadlock being finally broken only by the interposition of the Imperial Government with compromise terms. These were finally agreed to on June 1, 1869, and signed on November 19. The Company agreed to give up its chartered rights in return for a payment by Canada of £300,000. It was also to retain blocks of land, not to exceed 50,000 acres, around its established forts, and keep title to one-twentieth of all the land in the fertile belt which should come under cultivation in the next fifty years.*5 Far from settling peacefully the long dispute in the Northwest, the conclusion of this agreement only aggravated a greater one. The year which followed found the Canadian Government in a •The Ramsey resolution was closely followed (Jan. 17, 1868) by another petition from the Red River Settlement, demanding the immediate inclusion of the region in the Dominion. "Should the reply of your Government prove unfavorable, as a last and desperate resource, to throw ourselves upon the liberality and protection of the United States Government for recognition and ultimate annexation." Macdonald Papers (Northwest Rebellion, I). " Martin, C., " T h e United States and Canadian Nationality," in the Canadian Hist. Rev., X V I I I , 5. 44 Wm. McDougall to Joseph Howe, quoted in Willson, H. B., Life of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, I, 235-6. 44 Sessional Papers, 32 Vic., 1869, # 25, 5-33.

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position more puzzling and unpleasant than before. The formal transfer of authority from the Company, which might have been expected to occur with perfect simplicity, actually took about eleven months, and was accomplished only at the cost of much bitterness, loss of official prestige, and international ill-feeling. The story of the Riel Rebellion is one of great drama and interest, but it has been told often and from many points-of-view ; here it will suffice to summarize it briefly, and note particularly its international aspects and its influence on the question of the Pacific railway project. The causes of the trouble lay to a considerable extent in a