272 THE GROWTH OF CANADA 



territory as a new member of the confederation, 

 and still another province, British Columbia, far 

 across on the Pacific, also entered the Dominion. 

 Thus emulously the new English-speaking na 

 tion duplicated, with whatever disproportion 

 in numbers, the westward progress of its great 

 neighbor on the south. The faithfulness of the 

 duplication unhappily extended to certain un 

 savory details of politico-financial operations in 

 the development of the new regions. In the 

 United States the first transcontinental railway 

 was completed in 1869. In Canada the pledge 

 of immediate and energetic prosecution of a 

 parallel enterprise was a feature of the proced 

 ure through which British Columbia became a 

 part of the Dominion. A single year, 1873, 

 witnessed in its early months the ruin of several 

 fair political reputations in the United States 

 by the malodorous exposure of the Credit 

 Mobilier, and in its later months the downfall 

 of the first prime minister of the Dominion in 

 consequence of relations with the financiers of 

 the inchoate Canadian Pacific enterprise. 



The consolidation of British North America 

 into the Dominion was in itself an expression of 

 the feeling of national unity, and it was fol 

 lowed by the steady unfolding of policies that 



