The War gave the Canadian Pacific many opportunities of living up to these traditions, and the Company did not fail. While its ships were being sunk in service on the high seas and its general business on land was being dislocated, the Company did its part as a citizen in the enlistments, as already recorded. But, in addition, every good cause which aimed at alleviating human suffering and administering to human comfort found what to some must have seemed a surprisingly large support from the Company. Hospitals at home and field hospitals abroad, Red Cross movements, nurses’ homes, returned soldiers, disabled men and their dependants, Y. M. C. A’s, Salvation Army efforts, and all such persons or organizations were on the list for assistance in a big way. The War brought this out more distinctly, but it was part of the Company’s tradition. It is trustee for the funds of its shareholders, and cannot throw these funds away to improvident people or undeserving causes; but it uniformly seeks to help the community in the interests of the general weal. The Canadian Pacific Railway, owning and maintaining in Canada an enormous amount of property and employing over one hundred thousand people, who receive eight millions monthly in salaries and wages, is manifestly an extraordinary contributor to the upkeep of the Dominion in the ordinary business way. When we add to this the fact of the Railway’s support of all worthy causes, we are able to estimate in some degree the value to Canada of its citizenship. CHAPTER XVII The Floodtide of Wheat But for the fact that it is verified by actual tabulation, the statement that the Canadian Pacific Railway during the autumn of the year of grace 1923 carried two hundred and fifteen million bushels of grain over the steel trail, en route to feed the hungry in all parts of the world, would seem, to some of us, incredible. This huge scale of grain transportation means that about one hundred and thirty thousand cars were charged with the duty of taking to the world’s markets the magnificent product and offering of the vast prairie country of Canada. In the above sentences we personify both the cars and the prairies, because it does not require much imagination to speak of such prolific soil and such burden-bearing rolling stock as if they were instinct with life. The fact that behind them both is the splendidly strong endeavour and the passionately devoted skill of faithful men and women, seems only to add force to the personification of the elements of production and distribution, which, under Providence, they use for the good of the world. To some of us who look back to earlier days in the West, there is vivid romance in this development, and there is a sort of Alladin-lamp wonder in the transformation which the above statements indicate.