STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL 5587 STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL 



result of the prohibition of dual representation, 

 but remained in Parliament until 1880. He 

 again sat in the House of Commons as member 

 for Montreal West (he had in the meantime 

 moved from Winnipeg to Montreal) from 1887 

 to 1896. 



The "C.P. R." The interval between these 

 two periods of service in the Dominion Parlia- 

 ment, Smith devoted to the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway, which owed its successful completion 

 no less to his vision of the future and his 

 ability as a financier than to the executive 

 capacity of Sir George Stephen and the assist- 

 ance of Sir John A. Macdonald. Stephen 

 (later to be Baron Mount Stephen) and Smith 

 already had experience with railways, for, to- 

 gether with James J. Hill, they acquired control 

 of a bankrupt road in Minnesota out of which 

 has grown the Great Northern Railway. When 

 the time came to award the contract for the 

 construction of a transcontinental railway, 

 Smith's name did not appear in the list of 

 members of the syndicate because of a recent 

 political quarrel between him and Sir John 

 Macdonald. But it was not long before Smith 

 was recognized as one of the chief factors in 

 the company, and when the line was actually 

 completed it was Smith who drove the golden 

 spike which marked the end of the work. This 

 was on November 7, 1885, and on June 28, 

 1886, the first through train left Montreal for 

 the Pacific. For his share in the work, Smith 

 was rewarded with the nomination as Knight 

 Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and 

 Saint George. 



High Commissioner in London. During his 

 second term of service in the House of Com- 

 mons, from 1887 to 1896, Sir Donald (as he then 

 was) was a conspicuous member, although he 

 seldom addressed the House. Near the end of 

 the period, when the Conservative party was 

 falling to pieces, there were suggestions that he 

 should assume the leadership of the party, and 

 many believed that no other leader could save 

 it from defeat. Sir Donald labored hard to 

 effect some sort of unity, and to compromise 

 the Manitoba school question, but he declined 

 the leadership. Sir Charles Tupper was there- 

 fore called home to lead the Conservatives, and 

 Sir Donald Smith was sent to London in his 

 place as High Commissioner. He was raised 

 to the peerage in 1897 as Baron Strathcona and 

 Mount Royal. 



Although an old man, he was extraordinarily 

 active, appeared frequently in public and on 

 state occasions, and became in England, as he 



had been in Canada, one of the most familiar 

 figures in the public eye. The ambassador of 

 the United States to Great Britain is an officer 

 who has many responsibilities and many obli- 

 gations. Yet one holder of this office, Whitelaw 

 Reid, spoke of Lord Strathcona as follows: 



I sometimes think that my office is magnified 

 by your kindness into a greater than it would be 

 otherwise, and my duties, more numerous here 

 from the same cause, would sometimes over- 

 whelm me if my spirit of emulation were not 

 aroused by the constant spectacle of a rival. He, 

 too, is an Ambassador of an English-speaking 

 Transatlantic country, in extent equaling my own 

 and advancing by rapid strides to wealth and 

 importance second only to ourselves in the whole 

 Western world. Wherever I go there is he, and 

 to a great many functions I do not go, he does. 

 Yet, great as is the country he represents, the 

 Ambassador of the Dominion magnifies his office. 

 Beside his indefatigable exertions, my own office 

 is a sinecure. 



His Varied Activities. Not only did Lord 

 Strathcona labor in many fields at various 

 times, but even at the same time. While he 

 sat in Parliament, beginning in 1887, he was 

 president of the Bank of Montreal, and he 

 continued to hold this office even after he be- 

 came High Commissioner. He was also a 

 director or officer of many other financial and 

 industrial organizations. He took a keen inter- 

 est in educational problems, and was one of the 

 first to advocate technical training along the 

 lines afterward adopted by Sir William C. Mac- 

 donald. He was elected chancellor of McGill 

 University in 1889, and lord rector of Aberdeen 

 University in 1899. In 1900 he presented to the 

 British government the famous troop of the 

 "Strathcona Horse," a cavalry troop raised and 

 equipped at his expense for service in the 

 South African War. 



Lord Strathcona's interest in education and 

 in the welfare of people less fortunately situ- 

 ated than he took many practical turns. He 

 gave $1,000,000 as a half of the endowment 

 fund for the Victoria Hospital at Montreal, and 

 later added another million. Royal Victoria 

 College for Women, at Montreal, also received 

 $1,000,000 from him, McGill University re- 

 ceived over $2,000,000, and Yale, Aberdeen and 

 other universities received smaller amounts. 

 His private donations to charities were count- 

 less. Old friends of pioneer days were never 

 forgotten when they fell upon evil days, and 

 many who had no claim on him knew the 

 greatness of his generosity. Sir Wilfred Gren- 

 fell, the famous Labrador missionary, tells that 

 he found Lord Strathcona one Christmas morn- 



