Time Lord by Clark Blaise Page B

equally good harbour on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland with the railway system of the interior a glance at the chart will show that the most direct course is to traverse Newfoundland by a railway 240 miles in length to the Gulph of St Lawrence, thence by steam ferry (about three times the length of the ferry between Holyhead and Dublin) to Gaspé, thence by an extension of the Grand Trunk Railway to the interior of the United States to New York and to Canada. To establish this route the construction of some four hundred miles of railway would be necessary and beside a sufficient number of ocean steamers like the
Great Eastern
, powerful steam ferry boats to cross the Gulph of St Lawrence at all seasons would be required.
    Let us glance briefly at what would be accomplished by establishing such a line for traffic on the scale indicated. The journey from New York to London could be done in seven and a half days, and from Chicago to London in eight days while the ocean passage would be reduced to five days which performed by steamers like this one would throw every other line at least of passenger traffic entirely in the shade. When such a passenger route is established the ease, speed and comfort with which the voyage could be accomplished would have the effect not only of concentrating traffic to this the shortest passage between the two continents but also of greatly increasing the number of travellers. It would in fact become the great highway between the old and new worlds and it is not at all improbable that the speed and comfort of the voyage would increase the traffic to such an extent that in a very few years a daily line of
Great Easterns
would be called into registrationand thus the ocean would virtually be bridged by a system of steam propelled floating hotels.
    Mr. Fleming had entered a new phase. He had delivered the Red River petition, and it had been respectfully received, but with the predictable recommendation that the Canadians should build their own railroad with London’s blessing and approval. He had been accepted by his British and American peers, and he had been graced with a vision of Canada’s future that could indeed make her a player on the North American scene. Of course, there was not yet a Canada. The contrast among the United States at war, Britain in its imperial full flower, and ragtag Upper and Lower Canada had never been more striking.
    IN THE FALL and winter of 1863–64 he held a commission to survey the lands to the east and south of Quebec City, the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, a feasibility study, we might say, for the building of the long-delayed Intercolonial Railroad from Quebec City to Halifax, should all go well. Such a railroad would link the ocean ports of Halifax and Saint John, New Brunswick, with the river ports of Quebec and Montreal, and the Grand Trunk Railway inland to Toronto and beyond.
    Border disputes between the United States and the British colonies had rendered earlier British maps useless. Most of the territory originally surveyed for British development, including all of northern Maine, was now under American control. Fleming believed that the United States had never intended to claim, nor had expected, to gain northern Maine, and even if it had, the maps that had supported its claims were in error. Had England stood her ground, presented sound surveying evidence, northern Maine would have remained in British hands and the passage between Quebec City and Saint John would have been comparatively direct. Because of London’s malfeasance, as he saw it, hewas forced to loop a line north of Maine, adding hundreds of miles of track, and millions of dollars to the costs.
    Fleming rarely took Americans to task for exploiting London’s indolence wherever they could. It was the Colonial Office in London that had weighed the negligible costs to England of losing Maine against the possibly open-ended expense of defending it. Over the years, he became a