It was, however, on the question of the form and amount of the aid offered that most controversy arose. Sir John Macdonald had lightly prophesied that in the end the road would not cost Canada a single farthing. He {147} doubtless meant that land sales would repay the expenditure; even this did not prove true, and the statement awoke unreasonable expectations as to the bargain to be made. When the contract was made public it was denounced as meaning nothing more or less than that the country was to build the road and present it gratis to the company. To anticipate a few years, we may note the actual results at the end of 1885, when the last rail had been laid. The cost of the main line only, including the government sections, and of equipment, to that date, was approximately $150,000,000. From private sources some $50,000,000 net had been secured: the $65,000,000 stock had been sold at varying prices, realizing slightly over $30,000,000 for the treasury, and first mortgage bonds, land-grant bonds less amount redeemed, and outstanding accounts made up the balance. The government, on its part, had given, by the final arrangements, $35,000,000 cash, and completed road costing another $35,000,000; three and a half million acres of the land-grant had been sold for about $11,000,000, and at only two dollars per acre the fourteen odd million acres left were worth over $29,000,000. On the other hand, it was urged that the aid {148} given was not so great as it seemed. The value of the government sections was particularly questioned.[6] Whatever its value, it was not more than enough to induce capitalists to run the great risks involved. The road had to be operated as well as built, and few believed that for years to come there would be sufficient traffic to make ends meet. Its future depended on the future of the West, and it needed a robust optimism at times to believe that the West would overcome frost and drought and other plagues. The fact that in 1885 Canadian Pacific stock sold as low as 33 3/4 in London, and a shade lower on this side of the water, shows the estimate the world of finance put upon the bargain it had made. Nor was the road completed in 1886. It was then only begun. Grades had to be bettered, trestle-work filled up, extensions flung out, terminals secured, and a new road built every few years. {149} Looking back now, after the lapse of thirty years, it would seem that the government would have done better if it had given less of the land which was to prove so valuable, and had, instead, guaranteed the dividend on the stock for a term of years. In the eighties, however, western acres were held in little esteem and money guarantees, with Grand Trunk memories fresh, looked dangerous--and it was in the eighties that the decision had to be made. [Illustration: Sir William Cornelius Van Horne. From a photograph by Notman]