CANADA'S TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM. 461 



far north, probably as far north of the Grand Trunk Pacific as that 

 is beyond the Canadian Pacific. The continuation of such a road 

 has already been seriously considered in Canada, a group of Canadian, 

 American and English capitalists having projected several years ago 

 what was to be known as the Trans-Canada railway. This line was 

 to run from Chicoutimi on the Saguenay Kiver, or the city of Quebec, 

 in a practically air line through northern Ontario and Quebec, north 

 of Lake Winnipeg, and through the upper parts of the territories of 

 Saskatchewan, Alberta and Athabaska* to the Eockies, and thence to 

 the Pacific. The company had even made some little headway with 

 surveys of the proposed route — which was to include a branch to 

 James Bay, and another from Edmonton to Dawson — and was 

 negotiating with the federal government as to a subsidy, when the 

 floating of the Grank Trunk Pacific project, backed by the powerful 

 Grank Trunk interests, and with the certainty of early construction, 

 knocked the Trans-Canada scheme on the head, for the time being. 

 There is small doubt, however, that this line, or one following the 

 same general route, must eventually be built to meet the needs of 

 the country, as the tide of settlement pushes gradually to the north- 

 ward. 



The importance of the Canadian transcontinental routes is not 

 confined to Canada or Canadian interests. These routes are of course 

 designed primarily to build up the Dominion, and facilitate inter- 

 provincial as well as international commerce. Incidentally they be- 

 come a factor of increasing importance in the opening up of new 

 markets for Canadian products beyond the eastern and western seas. 

 But there is a further and wider field in which they are a feature, the 

 significance of which is seldom recognized. As a link in the chain 

 of transportation between the heart of the British Empire and its 

 outermost boundaries, especially for the carriage of troops and war 

 materials, it would be impossible to overestimate the value of the 

 present and prospective transcontinental lines across Canada. 



In eastern Canada, the Canadian Pacific and the Grank Trunk 

 are, and have been for many years past, great rivals. In the west the 

 Canadian Pacific had until lately a monopoly of the traffic, but the 

 advent and rapid development of the Canadian Northern has put quite 

 a new face upon the western situation, and has resulted, for one thing, 

 in a lowering of freight rates from all points in the Canadian wheat 

 belt to Lake Superior ports, which has been of very decided advantage 

 to the farmers of Manitoba and the northwest. One still hears an 

 occasional grumble from the western Canadian farmer on this score, 

 but as a matter of fact freight rates on both the Canadian Pacific and 



* Now the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. 



