Being a Dominion road, and favored, the company had a monopoly in Manitoba for building roads south of its line and roads connecting with foreign lines. This monopoly was surrendered in 1887 upon agreement of the Dominion Government to guarantee 3 1/2 per cent, interest on $15,000,000 of the company’s land grant bonds for fifty years. The company has paid its debt to the Government, partly by surrender of a portion of its lands, and now absolutely owns its entire line free of Government obligations. It has, however, a claim upon the Government of something like six million dollars, now in litigation, on portions of the mountain sections of the road built by the Government, which are not up to the standard guaranteed in the contract with the company. The road was extended to the Pacific as a necessity of the national development, and the present Government is convinced that it is worth to the country all it has cost. The Liberals’ criticism is that the Government has spent a vast sum for what it can show no assets, and that it has enriched a private company instead of owning the road itself. The property is no doubt a good one, for the road is well built as to grades and road-bed, excellently equipped, and notwithstanding the heavy Lake Superior and mountain work, at a less cost than some roads that preceded it. The full significance of this transcontinental line to Canada, Great Britain, and the United States will appear upon emphasizing the value of the line across the State of Maine to connect with St. John and Halifax; upon the fact that its western terminus is in regular steamer communication with Hong-Kong via Yokohama; that the company is building new and swift steamers for this line, to which the British Government has granted an annual subsidy of £60,000, and the Dominion one of $15,000; that a line will run from Vancouver to Australia; and that a part of this round-the-world route is to be a line of fast steamers between Halifax and England. The Canadian Pacific is England’s shortest route to her Pacific colonies, and to Japan and China; and in case of a blockade in the Suez Canal it would become of the first importance for Australia and India. It is noted as significant by an enthusiast of the line that the first loaded train that passed over its entire length carried British naval stores transferred from Quebec to Vancouver, and that the first car of merchandise was a cargo of Jamaica sugar refined at Halifax and sent to British Columbia. II.