There is a fourth railway, the Intercolonial, constructed and owned by the Dominion Government. This runs from Montreal to the Atlantic coast, serving the Provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. It is managed by a department of the Ministry of the Interior at Ottawa. The Intercolonial is considered by Canadians rather slow-going. Nationalisation and State control of railways is not yet a particularly popular proposition in Canada; in fact, throughout all the Provinces, and especially the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia, the idea of State control and management of anything is regarded with increasing suspicion. The Canadian prides himself on his independence and on his ability to manage his own affairs. To the financing of railways by the Dominion Government, and the great inducements held out to the C.P.R., Grand Trunk and the C.N.R. to push on with their construction, the phenomenal railway development has been largely due. As indicated in my account of the C.P.R., there are dangers to the country through the powers granted to the companies in their early years of constructive enterprise, but I found a very optimistic belief on the part of Canadians that the Canadian people will be strong enough to grapple with the railway companies if they show any signs of seriously abusing their privileges. The competition between the three great companies at present is so strong and so keen that the danger of their uniting for the oppressive exploitation of the people by a trust combining them all seems a possibility of the dim future. It is likely enough that some Napoleon of finance in the United States, Canada, or Great Britain may conceive and try to carry out the idea of such a Dominion Railway Trust. If and when that happens a very interesting situation will be created. He will not only have the public opinion of the Dominion expressing itself and bringing itself to bear upon the Dominion Parliament and Government, but he will have to deal with the public opinion of the several Provinces, and this is a power that will more and more have to be reckoned with. The Provinces are not at all likely to consent to the Dominion Government bartering away their Provincial rights in the use of the railways. It will be a very dangerous thing to the Dominion Government if it provokes a conflict between itself and the Governments of the Provinces. All the probabilities point to the continuance of the independent companies. There is room enough and to spare for a good fifty years to come for each of them to use all the capital it can command in the development of its own spheres of influence, and while that is so there seems no necessity for any big combine that would compromise the interests either of the passengers or the manufacturing and industrial users of the railways. * * * * * CHAPTER V SETTLING ON THE LAND