United States, Germany, and Russia had railroad mileage exceeding
that of Canada. Much of the building was premature or duplicated
other roads. The scramble for state aid, federal and provincial,
had demoralized Canadian politics. A large part of the notes the
country rashly backed, by the policy of guaranteeing bond issues,
were in time presented for payment. Yet the railway policies of
the period were broadly justified. New country was opened to
settlers; outlets to the sea were provided; capital was obtained
in the years when it was still abundant and cheap; the whole
industry of the country was stimulated; East was bound closer to
West and depth was added to length.*

* During the Great War it became necessary for the Federal
Government to take over both the National Transcontinental,
running from Moncton in New Brunswick to Winnipeg, and the
Canadian Northern, running from ocean to ocean, and to
incorporate both, along with the Intercolonial, in the Canadian
National Railways, a system fourteen thousand miles in length.


The opening of the West brought new prosperity to every corner of
the East. Factories found growing markets; banks multiplied
branches and business; exports mounted fast and imports faster;
closer relations were formed with London and New York financial
interests; mushroom millionaires, country clubs, city slums,
suburban subdivisions, land booms, grafting aldermen, and all the
apparatus of an advanced civilization grew apace. A new
self-confidence became the dominant note alike of private
business and of public policy.