Few of those who are struggling in the business and pleasures of the day stop to consider that the world was ever different to what it now is. The positive results and advantages which we now enjoy have come to us gradually. They are accepted by our children as if they had always existed. It must, however, be evident to all who for a moment think, that to the creation of the railway system we owe much. If the railway has revolutionized many parts of Europe, I cannot but think that the history of the United States would have been very different but for its introduction. Certainly the lines of travel would have been by no means so extended, and what influence a restricted field of settlement might have exercised on the fortunes of the Republic no mere speculation can define. It is obvious that without the new agency the successful settlement of the great North-West of Canada would have been impossible. We have only to compare the condition of the Selkirk settlement of a few years back and the limited progress made during half a century to the sudden and extraordinary bound which it took when the first few miles of railway were put in operation. It is now twenty years since I was first publicly called upon, as a delegate on behalf of the Selkirk settlement, to give my attention to the question of opening up British North America by the establishment of a line of communication from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I was then called upon to submit my views on the subject to the Imperial and Canadian Governments. Those views were recorded in the parliamentary documents of that year, 1863,[K] and since that year have frequently been referred to in debate. British Columbia became connected with Canada in 1871, and one of the conditions of union was the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. I was appointed Engineer-in-chief of the undertaking. What the condition of the country was at that period may be seen in the many volumes published by the Government. I shall quote but one passage from the report for 1873, of the Department of Public Works, issued by the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, then Premier: “It is no exaggeration to speak of the extent of territory to be explored as immense.” I undertook the duty with all the zeal I could command, and moreover, I did so with a strong feeling of sympathy with the work as a great national undertaking, and as one which, I believed, would in the future command more than an equivalent for all the moneys expended upon it, in its bearing on our history and the advantages it would extend.