XII THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
owned cables would compel them to surrender a large percentage of 
their profits; and against the even more difficult problem of public 
apathy. He did not live to see the complete development of the 
‘“All-Red Line,” but he had the satisfaction of seeing the completion 
of the most important link, the Pacific cable connecting free with 
Australia and New Zealand. 
Still another matter which constantly engaged the attention of 
Sandford Fleming was the question of standard time, and the adoption 
of a prime meridian. Between 1876 and 1896 he advocated these 
reforms through every channel that he could command. He addressed 
societies in America and Europe, issued a score or more of pamphlets 
dealing with every phase of the question, and carried on a voluminous 
correspondence with scientific men all over the world. The success 
with which his efforts were finally crowned is almost equally striking 
proof of the futility of withstanding any reform which he had 
determined to carry through, and the extraordinary difficulty in con- 
vincing the average civilized man that an obviously cumbersome and 
illogical system to which he is accustomed should be abandoned in 
favour of one that has everything to recommend it. 
In 1880 Mr. Fleming was elected Chancellor of Queen's Univer- 
sity and retained the office up to the time of his death. That he had 
given to the subject of higher education the same earnest thought that 
he devoted to every question in which he was interested, is revealed in 
his well considered addresses to the students of the university. He had 
not had the advantage of a university education, and probably realized 
all that he had thereby missed, but he had always been a wide and 
discriminating reader, and brought to the consideration of educational 
problems the fruits of a lifetime’s experience in many other directions, 
and his own shrewd common sense. Queen's conferred upon him in 
1908 the honorary degree of LL.D. He had already been similarly 
honored by the University of St. Andrews in 1884, by Columbia 
University in 1887, and the University of Toronto in 1907. 
His eminent services as an engineer, and as a citizen of the Empire, 
were recognized in 1877 when Her Majesty the Queen created him 
a C.M.G. Twenty years later he was promoted to a K.C.M.G. He 
was a Fellow not only of the Royal Society of Canada (President 
1888-89), but also of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geological 
Society, the Royal Historical Society and the Victoria Institute; a 
member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, the American Society of 
Civil Engineers, the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, and many 
other professional and learned societies in Canada, England, the 
United States, and the countries of Europe. The list of his writings, 
extending over the amazing period from 1847 to 1914, fill several 
pages in the Bibliography appended to his biography. 
