Plain William C. Van Horne became Sir William in 1894, when he was knighted by the queen for his high value as a worker in her domains in North America. Being nothing if not democratic, he was inclined, until he became used to it, to wax jocular about his title. “I’ll wager,” he is reported to have said one day soon after he had received it, “that my old friends among the railroad boys down in Chicago, who used to call me Bill, will make some pointed remarks when they learn that I am Sir William now.” His bluff geniality is one of the things that Canada likes best about Sir William. She claims him as a citizen, since his greatest work has been done and he has lived for years within her boundaries. She is proud of him and he is proud of her. “Very few people,” he said to me, “have more than a faint idea of the marvelous resources and possibilities of this country. In the provinces of Quebec and Ontario the innumerable streams rushing down from the mountains offer sufficient water power to run the factories of a nation. A beginning has been made here that will eventually lift this locality into one of the leading industrial and electrical centers of the continent. In the making of paper in particular it will be preëminent. Much of the pulp wood used in paper manufacturing has thus far been obtained from Maine, but the supply there will be exhausted in less than five years, and then the paper makers must come to Canada for their supply of pulp. There are already extensive pulp wood industries in the Province of Quebec, but these are bound to be greatly multiplied.” “It is in the Northwest, however, where millions of acres of land await only the plow and seed to produce the finest wheat in the world, that the most inviting opportunities for young men are to be found. The Canadian Northwest is much as was the great region of the United States west of the Mississippi River fifty years ago. It is a country at the outset of its development—a country which needs and will adequately reward the vigorous efforts of young manhood.” “In your field of railroad building I presume there will be great opportunities?” I remarked. “Undoubtedly,” replied Sir William. “Is the railroad business a good one for a young man?”