Union could never be real so long as leagues of barren, unbroken
wilderness separated the maritime from the central provinces.
Free intercourse, ties of trade, knowledge which would sweep away
prejudice, could not come until a railway had spanned this
wilderness. In the fifties plans had been made for a main trunk
line to run from Halifax to the Detroit River. This ambitious
scheme proved too great for the resources of the separate
provinces, but sections of the road were built in each province.
As a condition of Confederation, the Dominion Government
undertook to fill in the long gaps. Surveys were begun
immediately; and by 1876, under the direction of Sandford
Fleming, an engineer of eminence, the Intercolonial Railway was
completed. It never succeeded in making ends meet financially,
but it did make ends meet politically. In great measure it
achieved the purpose of national solidification for which it was
mainly designed.
Meanwhile the bounds of the Dominion were being pushed westward
to the Pacific. The old province of Canada, as the heir of New
France, had vague claims to the western plains, but the Hudson's
Bay Company was in possession. The Dominion decided to buy out
its rights and agreed, in 1869, to pay the Company 300,000 pounds
for the transfer of its lands and exclusive privileges, the
Company to retain its trading posts and two sections in every
township.
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