26 
Land & Water 
August 15, 19 1 8 
An Imperial Highway: By J. M. Gibson 
OF all the Imperial enterprises outside the British 
Islands, the Canadian . Pacific Railway has per- 
haps had more points of contact with the war 
than any other. Its fleets of steamers on the 
Atlantic and the Pacific, linked across the North- 
American Continent by a railway admirably equipped with 
rolling stock, its great manufacturing plant in the Angus 
Shops at Montreal, its terminal elevators and facilities for 
rapid handling of food supplies, its affiliations with railways 
serving industrial centres in the United States, its staff of 
engineering, financial' and administrative experts — these 
combined to make the "C.P.R." an auxiliary of exceptional 
value to the British war machine, in view of the world-wide 
■character which the war quickly assumed and the necessity 
of bringing to the battle-fields of France with the utmost 
rapidity, supplies and men from the North-American Con- 
tinent and from the Far East. 
The personnel of the management and employees was also 
favourable to quick action. The Canadian Pacific has always 
taken pride in its place in the Empire — it has always claimed 
to be the Imperial Highway from Great Britain across Canada 
to Hong Kong, carrying the mails, innumerable passengers, 
and much freight half-way round the globe between Great 
Britain and its outposts on the Pacific. On the Atlantic it 
fought the battle of British shipping when it challenged the 
German domination of the so-called "Pool" by inaugurating 
a steamship service to Trieste, and on the Pacific it success- 
fully upheld the British Flag against the fierce competition 
of American and Japanese lines. The Imperial services of 
its chairmen and presidents — Lord Mount Stephen, Sir 
William Van Home, and Lord Shaughnessy — have been 
recognised by the Crown. 
When signs pointed ip war, before an actual declaration 
hqd been made, the whole system was keyed up to take its 
part in supporting the British cause — and the hundred 
thousand miles of Canadian-Pacific telegraph system was 
kept humming with messages rnobilising the rolling stock for 
the calls which such an effort was sure to demand. Every 
Canadian knew that in the event of a war between Great 
Britain and Germany, Canada would send troops overseas — 
the larger the number the better ; there were many reservists 
throughout the country to be rushed to the Atlantic ports, 
and Great Britain's need of food-stuffs from Canada meant 
speeding-up the grain shipments from the harvests of the 
West. 
War, therefore, found the Canadian Pacific ready an4 
willing, and from New Brunswick and No\^a Scotia on the 
Atlantic to British Columbia on the Pacific, every one of the 
85,000 employees felt that he or she was enlisted in the 
ranks. Right of way was given to all troops and supply 
trains. There was every reason to expect attempts ' to 
dynamite bridges on a railway of such strategic value, and it 
was due to the enlistment of two thousand special sentries 
that only one such attempt ever got so far as an explosion — 
delaying the passage of trains at Vanceboro for six hours. 
(A full account of this explosion and how it was brought 
about was narrated in Land & Water of April nth.) 
It was through its ocean services that the Canadian Pacific 
came into more direct touch with the war. On the outbreak 
of hostilities the British Admiralty requisitioned the principal 
vessels of the Company on both the Atlantic and the Pacific 
for service as armed cruisers and transports. Canadian 
Pacific steamers, thirty-seven in number, with a gross tonnage 
of 329,960, have been in Government service during the war 
either as cruisers or as transports and freight carriers. Since 
1914 these Canadian Pacific steamers have transported 
approximately 800,000 troops and passengers from or to 
Canada, the Mediterranean, India, China, Egypt, Gallipoli, 
Mesopotamia, across the English Channel, on the Pacific, in 
addition to about 3,500,000 tons of cargo, munitions, sup- 
plies, etc. 
The history of the war has produced no more romantic 
story than the career of the Canadian Pacific Empress of 
Russia as an Admiralty cruiser. 'W'hen she left Vancouver 
in August, 1914, she was already marked for patrol work, and 
when Hong Kong was reached, her interior fittings were torn 
out and replaced with coal bunkers. Four 4.7 guns were 
mounted forward and four aft. The Chinese crew was paid 
off, and British naval reservists and French gun crews were 
shipped for the Indian Ocean. She met the cruiser Sydney 
after that ship had made a mass of tangled wreckage of the 
roving Emden, and took off the prisoner members of the 
Emden's crew, including the captain, von Miiller, and carried 
them to Colombo, Ceylon. She captured the Turkish post 
and fort of Kam'aran, in the Red Sea, with the aid of Indian 
Territorial troops and several 15-pounder guns. For twenty- 
Soldiers leaving Victoria, B.C., on the Canadian Pacific Steamer Princess Sophia 
