Rev'n'w of Rcvievjs, 1J12/13. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



981 



HOW THE CUBAN RAILWAY WAS BUILT. 



It has been said of Sir William Van 

 Home, former President of the Cana- 

 dian Pacific Railway, that he was al- 

 ways bigger than his job. This charac- 

 teristic was a mark not only of his 

 achievements of the C.P.R., but of the 

 later splendid achievement in Cuba. 



Most people know that Sir William 

 has built a railway in Cuba, but few 

 know how this daring and romantic pro- 

 ject was carried out. In a vividly told 

 story in the " Canadian Magazine," C. 

 Lintern Sibley gives us the account. 



The great Canadian railroad builder 

 had little notion when he first conceived 

 the idea of building a Cuban railway 

 what a tremendous problem confronted 

 him. It was just after the American war 

 with Spain, and Cuba was under the pro- 

 visional government of the United 

 States. Sir William thought the time 

 was ripe for the development of the is- 

 land, and believed that his project 

 would be received with open, arms. To 

 his astonishment he found that there 

 were five companies already awaiting 

 the opportunity to give a railway to the 

 island, two of them American. Further, 

 to his greater astonishment, " he dis- 

 covered that neither they nor he could 

 get a charter to build one, for the simple 

 reason that there was no competent 

 authority to grant a charter. Spain had 

 forever lost her authority, the island 

 government was not sufficiently ad- 

 vanced in home rule to do so, and the 

 American administration was prohibited 

 from doing so." 



For some men who had officially re- 

 tired from active business life this 

 would have been enough — not so with 

 Sir William Van Home. He quietly 

 determined to build the railroad without 

 a franchise. At this point we quote Mr. 

 Sibley's graphic account : 



Within a few daj's he had his agents at 

 work, and before anybody knew wfiat was 

 happening-, he had bought a strip of land 

 right across the Island. Wherever possible 

 that strip was just wide enough for the 

 right of way of the Island. Where he could 

 not buy a narrow strip of this kind, he 

 bought whole plantations. In one instance 

 he bought 30,000 acres at a clip. He needed 

 no franchise to build a line on his own pro- 

 perty. . . . Two great obstacles still 



remained. The first was this. He had no 

 right to cross the public roads, and could 

 not get it. The second was that the people 

 of Cuba regarded the project with sullen, 

 tacit opposition. They thought he was act- 

 ing simply as the agent of the United States 

 Government, and was thus beginning to 

 tighten the hold of the United States on 

 their property. 



How Sir William finally overcame 

 these obstacles is, told by the Canadian 

 writer : 



He would build a section at a time. Every- 

 body who could be pressed into service in 

 the locality of that section was hired and 

 paid good wages. The Cubans are as amen- 

 able as anybody else to courteous treatment 

 and good wages. The work would be car- 

 ried along the section until the right of way 

 came to a public road. Then suddenly every- 

 body would be discharged. The work would 

 thus be brought to a sharp and dramatic 

 finish, and the engineers would clear out of 

 the locality. But Sir William took care that 

 agents were left behind to suggest to the 

 people that it was a great pity that a man 

 who was bringing good money into the 

 country, and building them a railway, should 

 have this great work held up by being re- 

 fused permission to cross the public high- 

 ways. The same thing happened all the 

 way across the Island. 



The City of Camaguey was the v.^orst 

 spot on the whole island to deal with. 



The people there were sure Sir William 

 was an agent of the United States Govern- 

 ment, and they absolutely refused to sell 

 him any land or allow his railway to come 

 anywhere near the city. But he made friends 

 with one man who had a big block of pro- 

 perty running cornerwise into the city, and 

 he managed to secure that block from him. 

 Though he had no right of way on either 

 side of it, he announced that this was where 

 he intended to plant his workshops. Also 

 he serenely started to build the railway across 

 the property. . . . He issued invitations 

 broadcast to the people to come and witness 

 the ceremony of the turning of the first sod 

 of the Cuban Railway in Camaguey. 



The people were sullen and suspicious. 

 Hardly a soul responded. But at the last 

 moment the Mayor and his brother-in-law 

 and the latter' s little daughter put in a re- 

 luctant appearance. The little girl was per- 

 sonally invited by Sir William to turn the 

 first sod, and in the presence of her father 

 and her uncle, the Mayor, and a crowd of 

 small boys, she performed the ceremony. 



Then Sir William went back to Mon- 

 treal. 



In his own house he called a meeting of 

 the presid(Mit and board of directors of the 

 Cuban Railway, consisting of himself and 



