of Commons in 1880 that “the public interests require that the work of constructing the Pacific Railway in British Columbia be postponed.” Others of his party took the same stand, and it must be admitted that, apart from the prerogative of an Opposition above indicated, the whole project seemed vast enough to appal men who did not personally know the West well enough to visualize its illimitable future. The gigantic undertaking, as already mentioned, looked well nigh quixotic for less than four millions of people, and the fact that there were, in the years following, times when the whole effort seemed on the verge of disaster, ought to restrain our wholesale condemnation of early sceptics. Incidentally, it ought to bring us to the salute when we think of the railway builders who fought their amazing difficulties and, by fighting, gathered strength to win out in the end. Andrew Onderdonk in the mountains and other contractors between Lake Superior and the Red River, were doing good work, but their detached pieces of road ended in the air. And Sir John A. Macdonald was quick to see that something more had to be done. Accordingly, at a Cabinet meeting at the close of the first session after his return to power, Sir John brought up the question of building railways in the North-West in order to attract immigrants. Sir Charles Tupper, who, being at the head of the Department of Railways, had made special study of the situation, agreed with Sir John that something should be done at once and neither one of them was in love with the idea of Government ownership and operation of railways. Sir Charles thought the policy of a transcontinental should be again emphasized, and that a responsible company should be secured to build it. Sir John said that was always his idea; but it was a “large order” and they had better take a week to think it over. On the appointed day Sir Charles submitted a carefully prepared report in favour of a through line, built, owned and operated by a chartered company. Putting it in brief form, the suggestion was that the Government should complete and hand over to such a company the parts of the railway then built or under construction, estimated at about seven hundred miles, which, when finished, would have cost about thirty-two millions of dollars. The portions of the road then built, or being built, were the lines from Port Arthur to Winnipeg, from Kamloops to Port Moody and the Emerson Branch on the east side of the Red River, from the boundary-line to St. Boniface and Winnipeg. In addition to getting possession of these portions, the company would receive a cash grant of twenty-five millions of dollars, and fifty (later reduced to twenty-five) million acres of land along the railway.