The North- West and the Canadian Pacific Railway. 437 



1. The Union of 18G7. 



2. The Intercolonial Railway. 



3. The acquirement of the great North-West. 



4. The extension of Confederation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 



5. The Canadian Pacific Railway. 



I suppose the next step in our national progress will be Imperial 

 Federation. It will only be a sequence to the other five, and it will 

 surely come before long. But this elementary progress has been in 

 the direction of national development, and national independence of 

 the best sort ; and it has been of a kind, too, which places the future 

 possibilities of Canada beyond the reach of estimation. 



The four Charter Provinces were commercially united by the 

 Grand Trunk Railway proper, over one thousand miles long, and the 

 Intercolonial over eight hundred. When the latter was undertaken, 

 so weak were our national abilities that England had to aid us to 

 the funds necessary for its construction ; but a few years later, when 

 the Canadian Confederation extended from ocean to ocean, and the 

 vast undertaking of the Canadian Pacific was launched, by which 

 the greater Canada to the north and west was to be commercially 

 'united to the original union, the discovery of our immense resources 

 in the North- West, enabled the Federal Government to finance the 

 scheme unaided, and in the face of a deadly opposition. One of the 

 results of this enterprise is, that to-day we are arranging for trans- 

 Pacific, trans-Continental and trans -Atlantic traffic, between Japan 

 and Europe, through the Dominion of Canada, by a route shorter 

 than any other now available across the continent of America. 



It was first supposed that the Canadian Pacific, extending from 

 Montreal to the Pacific coast, would be considerably over three 

 thousand miles long, but the exact distances are as follow : 



Aggregate 

 Miles. Mileage. 



1 Montreal to Callander 347 



2 Callender to Port Arthur 657 1,004 



3 Port Arthur to Red River 428 1,432 



4 Red River to summit of Rockies 962 2,394 



5 Summit of Rockies to west crossing Columbia River . . 138 2,532 



6 West crossing Columbia River to Savonas Territory 150 2,682 



7 Savonas Territory to Port Moody 213 2,895 



