The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881-1885 (48 page)

It was time, Stephen realized, for a reconciliation between his colleague and the Prime Minister, to whom the name of Smith had been anathema since that dark night in 1873 when the old fur trader had turned against his leader on the issue of the Pacific Scandal. Stephen felt he owed it to his cousin; Smith was not greatly interested in railways, did not know much about them, and took little part in the
CPR’S
affairs; but in desperate times he was like a rock. When extra money was needed, Smith raised it. When he was asked to put up his personal fortune to back a loan, he signed it away without so much as raising one of his tangled eyebrows. And yet, beneath that hard shell, tempered in the service of the great fur company and in the hurly-burly of politics, there was an uncommon, childlike sensitivity. When Stephen prudently kept Smith’s name off the original
CPR
board, Smith became petulant. He wanted the honour and glory of publicly participating in great national deeds. The disaffection of the Prime Minister clearly irked him; he wanted to make up. Now his grateful cousin handed him that prize. Macdonald’s reception was kind and cordial and Stephen thanked him for it; the two, it was said, settled their differences over a bottle of good Scotch whiskey. Smith did not mention the particulars to Stephen; that was not his way, but “I know he
felt
a good deal and I know – without his saying it – that he is today a much happier man.”

That was the only gleam of light in an otherwise gloomy month. The debate on the railway resolutions turned into a bitter and lengthy parliamentary wrangle, sparked by a daily diet of rumour, speculation, and minor sensation fed to the country through the Opposition press. Why were the
CPR’S
directors haunting the lobbies of Parliament if they believed
in the justice of their case? It was said they had a special room near the Commons chamber “where the speeches of the Government supporters are probably manufactured to order.” Charles Brydges, who had once managed the Grand Trunk, was in Ottawa supposedly to feed information to the Liberals. So was Hickson, Brydges’s successor, who protested officially on the
GTR’S
behalf the expenditure of public funds “for competition against private ‘enterprise.’ ” On February 12, Hickson published all of the correspondence between the Grand Trunk and the Government respecting advances to the
CPR
. According to the
Globe
, it “fell like a bomb-shell in the Ministerial ranks.” There was a rumour that the Government was seeking a way to abandon the loan. The Quebec
bleus
were in open revolt. All these stories, opinions, and bits of gossip filtered through the crowded capital and out across the country.

One thing was clear: the
CPR
was in deep trouble. As the
Globe
had not failed to point out, the people of Canada at the time of the signing of the contract had been told that “this Company possessed vast resources; that its credit was unlimited; that they would never, never ask for any further aid from the country; that the people should rejoice because the amount of their burdens and obligations on account of this road were absolutely and immutably fixed.” The news from Ottawa made the declarations of 1881 sound hollow indeed. “The thirty millions once gone will be gone for ever,” mourned the
Globe
.

The tension grew. On February 15,
Les Canadiens
, regarded as the special organ of Sir Hector Langevin, Macdonald’s Quebec lieutenant, virtually declared war on the Government. The position of the three Quebec cabinet ministers, it said, was critical in view of the railway’s unjustifiable demands; they could save themselves only by conforming to the public sentiment in their province. As for Macdonald, he was in decline; he would probably be gone within a year along with Tupper and Tilley. There was a hint of a union between Blake and Langevin himself. On February 17, a mass meeting was held in Quebec City to protest the Government’s railway policy.

On February 19 it was noted that not a single minister of the Crown was in his place; there was trouble within the Cabinet. Nobody quite knew what it was the Quebeckers wanted except that they wanted money – some favoured Ottawa’s taking over the provincial debt; some wanted an increased federal subsidy on railway mileage within the province; some demanded a bonus for Quebec railways already constructed.

The Grand Trunk continued to work on its friends in the House. Stephen believed the company was trying to force the Government “to
impose conditions in making the proposed loan, the effect of which would be to prevent investors ever interesting themselves in the property.” He added: “…  it is clear that we have nothing to look for from the
G.T.R
. but the bitterest and meanest kind of hostility.…” In London, John Rose underlined the obvious: the campaign was terrifying the British investors and even intimidating the banks.

By February 20, the excitement in the House was intense. Only two French Conservatives were present; there were rumours of Cabinet resignations; the Quebeckers were locked in a heated caucus. Forty-two of them, it was whispered, had bolted the party; only one of them had yet spoken in the debate. The Prime Minister himself looked drawn and pale, but determined. When a vote was finally taken at two-thirty the following morning on an Opposition amendment, the Quebec members surprised the Opposition by falling faithfully, if sullenly, into line. Macdonald had given in to the French and promised a retroactive subsidy to Quebec on the somewhat dubious premise that the line between Montreal and Ottawa, now owned by the
CPR
, was a work of national importance.

It was by no means over, however. It was noticed that Sir Charles Tupper was purposely absenting himself at every division, rising from his seat and retiring to the galleries. As the divisions on the Opposition amendments continued, Tupper’s repeated retirements began to provoke jeers. Why this inexplicable conduct? The answer was that Tupper was serving in two roles; he was both Minister of Railways and High Commissioner to Great Britain – a dual position that prompted the
Globe
to call him “a sneak.” The climax came when a writ was served on Tupper, claiming five thousand dollars for infringement of the Independence of Parliament Act, a law that barred any Member from holding another salaried job with the government. That was cleared up the following month by an amendment, which allowed Tupper to hold both positions with the provision that he be paid for only one of them. The Opposition immediately dubbed it “the Tupper Whitewashing Bill.”

To a casual newspaper reader, it must have seemed as if the debate was tearing the country apart. Such was the level of acrimony within Parliament that the Speaker was forced, on February 23, to call a Minister of the Crown to order: it was John Henry Pope, the faithful friend of the railway, embroiled in a squabble with Blake and Mackenzie.

The following Tuesday the
Globe
, which never let up, summed up the state of the nation in an editorial that was only too accurate:

“To what a sad condition Sir John Macdonald and his colleagues have
reduced the country! Quebec, separating herself from the other Provinces, compels the Government to yield to her demands. Manitoba talks secession, and is certainly discontented. The other Provinces, including Ontario, are dissatisfied, and the Indians – ill-treated, cheated and half-starved by the partisans whom Sir John tries to satisfy at their expense – threaten hostilities. Perhaps it is sufficient offset to all this that the Grand Old Schemer maintains his serenity, that Lieut. Governor Dewdney has received an increase of salary, that Sir C. Tupper is content, and that the c.p.R. Syndicate are satisfied.” Only British Columbia, once “the spoilt child of Confederation,” appeared to be at peace.

It was the first time, really, that Canadians had become aware of the new kind of nation they were tying together through the construction of the railway – an unwieldy pastiche of disparate communities, authored under varying circumstances, tugged this way and that by a variety of conflicting environmental and historical strains, and all now stirred into a ferment by the changes wrought through the coming of steel. Macdonald had been used to governing a tight, familiar community from the federal capital. Until the coming of the railway he had known most of it intimately – the people, the places, the problems. Suddenly he was faced with an entirely different political situation. Far out along the half-completed line of track, new political leaders whom he had never heard of in communities he had never visited were demanding a say in matters which he only partially understood. It is significant – and tragic – that, though the Prime Minister was also Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, he himself had never been to the North West or entered a Cree or Blackfoot tepee.

He had not taken much part in the loan debate; the public argument he left to Tupper. His own labours took place behind the scenes and in the party caucus. To the French Canadians he had offered conciliation: the terminus would be extended to Quebec City and there would be a subsidy for the provincial railways. To the remainder of his irresolute followers he offered a familiar threat: if they did not support him, Parliament would be dissolved and they would face the prospect of going to the country on the heels of a Government defeat in the House. Meanwhile, he told Stephen, “the
CPR
must
become political and secure as much Parliamentary support as possible.” The Grand Trunk was now in opposition to the Government and would use its considerable political influence to fight Macdonald. All railway appointments in Ontario and Quebec henceforth must be made on a political basis: “There are plenty of good men to be found in the ranks.”

This was something that both Stephen and Van Horne had fought against – the almost universally accepted Canadian business practice of hiring a man on the basis of his party affiliation (not to mention his religion). Stephen considered himself above politics. As for Van Horne, he placed ability before any other consideration. Now, however, they were both forced to bow to the inevitable. “It has always been a matter of principle with me never to enquire into a man’s politics in transacting business,” the general manager wrote ruefully to the Hon. Peter Mitchell that spring, “but I must say that our past winter’s experience at Ottawa has somewhat staggered me.…” Before the debate was over Macdonald was able to write to a political friend that Stephen had informed him that Van Horne “is fully aware now of the necessity of not appointing anybody along the line who has not been ‘fully circumcized’ – to use his own phrase.”

Van Horne’s conversion to politics is fascinating. At first he pretended to have nothing to do with it. Late in 1886 he wrote to Nicholas Flood Davin that “I think it is for the interest of all parties and for the whole country, that the Canadian Pacific railway should not become a political machine.” He would not allow any employee to take part in elections, he said, under penalty of dismissal. Indeed, when Macdonald tried to persuade Stephen to let the popular Harry Abbott run federally as a Conservative in Algoma, Van Horne resisted it. Nonetheless, he could not escape politics. Just three months after his declaration to Davin he was secretly aiding the political cause of Arthur Wellington Ross, who had so strongly supported the
CPR
in the loan debate of 1884. Van Horne wrote to William Whyte, Egan’s successor in Winnipeg, that “while of course we cannot afford to act openly in his case … we must neglect nothing to secure his election and vindication.” He then went on to make some specific suggestions:

“If, on election day, the special trains which you will probably run do not fit in just as Mr. Ross would like, it will be necessary to run trains to suit him, letting it be understood that he has hired them and paid for them. Make regular bills for the service at a good round rate and send them to Ogden and I will attend to the matter when they get here. Make the rate at least one dollar per mile for the round trip. You had better say to such of the officers as you can fully trust in the matter, that it is a question to vindicate Mr. Ross in the course he took in favor of the Company at a time when it was a question of the salvation or the destruction of the whole enterprise but caution them to work with the greatest discression
[sic]
and if any man should divulge the fact that he has been spoken to on this subject by anyone connected with the Company he should be bounced without much ceremony.”

From this point on, Van Horne appeared to plunge into politics, apparently throwing caution to the winds as far as discretion was concerned. His letters to the Prime Minister tell the story:

February 21, 1887
: “…  Our men are solid with very few exceptions and these can’t be spared from duty [to vote].… We will have sixty men at Brockville to vote for Woods and everyone who would vote otherwise will be far away.”

February 26, 1887
: “We are doing everything possible for Dawson.… I told the Goderich people they would be pretty certain not to get a branch of the c.p.R. if they sent M. C. Cameron back.…”

January 3, 1888
: “I have given our people in the North West instructions to do everything possible to secure Macarthur’s defeat.…”

February 28, 1891
: “Our canvass is nearly complete and the
CPR
vote will be practically unanimous – not one in 100 even doubtful.”

The
CPR
also secretly backed some newspapers, especially in Winnipeg, where opposition to the railway was the most vocal. Both the Winnipeg
Call
and the Manitoba
Free Press
were subsidized by the company though Van Horne went to great lengths to conceal that fact. “I feel sure we will be able to keep the ‘Free Press’ in hand,” he wrote to Macdonald in January, 1889, “but that of course should be a profound secret as should our past dealings with the ‘Call.’ I wouldn’t have that known for the world – it is something I am very ashamed of.”