Mr. Richardson was appointed to the Senate. Senator Nicholls of Toronto had been a director of the Canadian Northern from the beginning. While the final transfer to the Government was still in the future, certain legislation was pending affecting the railway, and these two senators resigned their directorships so as to avoid every appearance of political advantage being associated with the railway. It was in the spring of 1918 when the complete surrender of the Canadian Northern to the Government was announced. On May 15th Sir Robert Borden described to the House of Commons the administrative policy of the Government: “As to the immediate future, I have already said that we do not intend to operate the Canadian Northern system directly under a department of the Government. It is our intention to operate it at present through the corporate machinery by which it has been operated in the past. There will be a reconstituted Board of Directors. We shall endeavour to get the best men we can; and we shall not interfere with them. We shall leave the administration and operation of the road to be carried on absolutely under that Board of Directors, and we shall use every means available to the Government (and, if necessary, we shall come to Parliament for that purpose) in order that anything like political influence, political patronage or political interference--I am using the word ‘political’ in its narrowest sense--shall be absolutely eliminated from the administration of that road.” This was the only policy which could be laid down with adequate appreciation of the magnitude of our task. It would be less than justice to Sir Robert Borden to refrain from saying that he and his Government lived up to that declaration. The same is true of his successor, Mr. Meighen. Neither directly nor indirectly did either of these Prime Ministers make a single communication to me, or intended to reach me, as far as I have the slightest inkling, with a view to influencing any decision likely to affect any man’s good will towards the Government. Up to that time Government railways to the north of the St. Lawrence, had not been operated on the basis of political advantage which had affected the Intercolonial management from the beginning. The National Transcontinental, between Quebec and Winnipeg, except for the grain traffic to Fort William, was a sort of waif, with so scanty a revenue that, with the war occupying everybody’s mind, nobody interested in votes seemed to pay it any attention. It found practically nothing for idle political hands to do. Satan was busy elsewhere. Between the Ottawa and the Pacific, members of Parliament had not all their lives seen the section men of the only railway in their region changed with every change of Government, because they were friends of the departing Administration, and friends of the incoming Government had been promised their jobs.