One cannot leave railway legislation without referring to what is known as the Canadian Pacific scandals, though Sir Charles Tupper in his “Reminiscences of Sixty Years” writes of it as the “Canadian Pacific Slanders,” because two of the principal actors were Montrealers and the place, Montreal. The bare facts are: Two companies, one of which was under the control of Sir Hugh Allan of Montreal, had competed for the construction of the railroad, the bill for which the Government, through Cartier, had passed in parliament. Owing to disputes an effort was made to amalgamate the companies but without avail, so that Sir Hugh formed a new company under the title of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. This Company obtained a charter on February 19, 1873, to build the railway, and it was in connection with the granting of this charter that in the following April a Mr. L.A. Huntingdon charged the government with making a corrupt bargain with Sir Hugh Allan; in other words, that the Montreal promoter and his company had advanced large sums of money to the Conservative fund to secure the returns of candidates favourable to their obtaining the charter. The receiving of the money was neither contradicted by the government nor the contractors, and on behalf of the government it was offered as an extenuating circumstance that it was only in accordance with the “invariable custom,” and before a Royal Commission the ministers denied any corrupt bargain having been made. But the whole country was up in arms, and Sir John Macdonald, seeing inevitable defeat for his government, placed his resignation in the hands of the Governor-General. In the elections which followed, the new government, under the leadership of the new premier, the Hon. Alexander McKenzie, was sustained by a large majority. When in 1870 the Fenians for the second time under “General” O’Neill made a raid into Canada, crossing the border at Trout Lake in the Eastern Townships, a flutter was caused at Montreal, but the “general” was soon routed by a small contingent made up largely by volunteers from Montreal. Owing to a depression in trade, which set in about the fall of 1873 and which gradually grew worse in centres like Montreal as the years rolled by, Sir John A. Macdonald’s appeal to the country that it should protect its own industries by placing heavy duties against goods imported from other countries, met with success and he was returned at the elections of 1878 by a large majority. This became known as the “National Policy” and though immediate prosperity was the outcome, there is no doubt that the same policy has made possible the formation of trusts, which in this country go under the name of mergers.