178 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



and boldly announced Us resolution to do the work itself. 

 Immediately after the announcement a Canadian capitalist, 

 Mr. Reid of Montreal, who afterwards assigned his rights to 

 the Reid Newfoundland Company (1901), undertook to con- 

 struct, equip (1890), and operate, during ten years (1893), 

 a railway via the Exploits River to Port-aux-Basques in the 

 far south-west, in lieu of Hall Bay, on terms similar to those 

 conceded to the American Company, in other words for some 

 3,000 or 4,000 square miles of land. Next Mr. Reid took 

 over from the Government a branch line which it had con- 

 structed to Placentia (1887-8), and the branch line to 

 Harbour Grace; and agreed in 1898 and 1901 to work 

 and maintain these lines, and all the other lines in the colony, 

 -itil 1931. Reconstructions of old railroads, steam-service 

 up the west and east coasts and along the coast of Labrador, 

 Bay-boats, the mail, the Government telegraphs, the dry 

 clock at St. John's (built in 1884), and the St. John's electric 

 tramways and pavements were thrown in to the contract of 

 1 898, as additional rights or duties ; for payments were made 

 both by and to the contractor, so that no clear distinction 

 was drawn between rights and duties, and although all men 

 agreed that the essence of the contract was to convert the 

 Slate into a Man, they differed as to whether the Man should 

 be looked on as an incarnate Atlas or Leviathan. Two of 

 the undoubted rights which he received under the concession 

 were a right to select additional land as before to the extent 

 of 5,000 acres per mile (or 2,500 acres per mile for the few 

 miles between Whitbourne and Tilton), and a right to buy 

 the freehold reversion of the railway on reassignment by him 

 to the State of one-half of the additional land conferred by 

 the contract of 1898 ; but he renounced these two rights, and 

 also re-sold the telegraphs to the Government for 370,000, in 

 1901. That is to say, the land claims of the Company were 

 cut down to their original 3,000 or 4,000 square miles, to be 

 selected either in alternate blocks of one mile frontage to the 



