The romance of the Canadian Pacific Railway — John Shaqi
The romance of the Canadian Pacific RailwayMacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
History
The romance of the Canadian Pacific Railway
MacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
Canadian Pacific Railway Company
All these considerations, realized out of actually existing or foreseen
conditions, impelled the statesman of Canada in the 60’s to take
definite steps towards confederating the old provinces and then annexing
the vast territories all the way to the Pacific Coast. And here entered
the giants. Thus, for instance, in 1864 that great tribune of the
people, Mr. George Brown, of the Toronto _Globe_, reported in favour of
Confederation from a committee of the Canadian Legislature. About the
same time the Legislatures in Nova Scotia, mainly through the efforts of
Dr. (later Sir Charles) Tupper; in New Brunswick, through the influence
of Mr. Samuel L. Tilley; in Prince Edward Island, by the exertions of
the Hon. W. H. Pope, passed resolutions appointing delegates to a
Conference in Charlottetown for the purpose of discussing a uniting of
the Maritime Provinces. When that Conference met in Charlottetown a
deputation from Ontario and Quebec was received consisting of unusually
strong men, namely, John A. Macdonald, George Brown, George E. Cartier,
A. T. Galt, T. D’Arcy McGee, Alexander Campbell and Hector L. Langevin.
As a result of the Charlottetown meeting larger horizons loomed upon the
vision of that remarkable gathering. The souls of the men who then
assembled yearned beyond the sky-line of their own immediate
surroundings and, thinking of the extent of British Possessions in North
America, they were inspired and attracted by the greater task of
confederating them all into one great Dominion from sea to sea. It was a
tremendous task for that early day, but the men who faced it were giants
who could not rest satisfied with being cabinned and cribbed in a narrow
circumference, but who said:
“No pent-up Utica confines our powers
The vast, boundless continent is ours.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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