The North- West and the Canadian Pacific Railway . 439 



was apparently inimical to the immediate interests of Manitoba. It 

 was provided that lines of railway should not be constructed 

 connecting the prairie country with the United States system of 

 roads, and this limitation was, at the outset, the cause of some alarm. 

 There was not, in the North- West, that faith in the practicability of 

 the route north of Lake Superior, for commercial purposes, that 

 there is to-day, and the people regarded the policy of protection to 

 the Canadian Pacific as contrary to the interests of the Prairie 

 Country. 



For some time the work of construction of the Canadian Pacific 

 was carried on by the Government, but in 1880 arrangements were 

 made for the transfer of the road to a private company. Then it 

 was that the principle of protection to the line was introduced. About 

 the same time the Legislature of Manitoba, with the concurrence 

 of the Federal Parliament, passed an Act providing for the extension 

 of the boundaries of the Province. This Act confirmed the principle 

 of Canadian Pacific protection, and committed the Province thereto 

 by a provision making the territory thereby added to the Province 

 subject to the Canadian Pacific bargain, and to any Act or Acts of 

 the Dominion Parliament that might thereafter become law. In 

 this way the Provincial Government committed the Province legally 

 and constitutionally to the prohibitions of the Canadian Pacific 

 contract, notwithstanding the same local ministry found it con- 

 venient afterwards to become instrumental in the passage, through 

 the Legislature, of certain acts authorizing the construction of rail- 

 ways thoroughly contrary to the letter of the Canadian Pacific 

 Charter to which they had given unqualified approval by the exten- 

 sion of the Boundaries' Act. This created a good deal of ill-will 

 between the Provincial and Federal Administrations, and the uncon- 

 stitutional acts were promptly disallowed by the latter. There can 

 be no doubt whatever that in this matter the Premier of Manitoba 

 — Hon. John Norquay — and his colleagues broke faith, personally 

 and politically, with the Dominion Ministers. As long ago as 1879 

 they, the Manitoba Ministers, agreed with the Federal Premier, that, 

 until the Canadian Pacific Railway was fully established, the Provin- 

 cial Authorities would not interfere in the matter of railway legisla- 



