Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/467

Rh far north, probably as far north of the Grand Trunk Pacific as that is beyond the Canadian Pacific. The continuation of such a road has already been seriously considered in Canada, a group of Canadian, American and English capitalists having projected several years ago what was to be known as the Trans-Canada railway. This line was to run from Chicoutimi on the Saguenay Kiver, or the city of Quebec, in a practically air line through northern Ontario and Quebec, north of Lake Winnipeg, and through the upper parts of the territories of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Athabaska to the Rockies, and thence to the Pacific. The company had even made some little headway with surveys of the proposed route—which was to include a branch to James Bay, and another from Edmonton to Dawson—and was negotiating with the federal government as to a subsidy, when the floating of the Grand Trunk Pacific project, backed by the powerful Grand Trunk interests, and with the certainty of early construction, knocked the Trans-Canada scheme on the head, for the time being. There is small doubt, however, that this line, or one following the same general route, must eventually be built to meet the needs of the country, as the tide of settlement pushes gradually to the northward.

The importance of the Canadian transcontinental routes is not confined to Canada or Canadian interests. These routes are of course designed primarily to build up the Dominion, and facilitate inter-provincial as well as international commerce. Incidentally they become a factor of increasing importance in the opening up of new markets for Canadian products beyond the eastern and western seas. But there is a further and wider field in which they are a feature, the significance of which is seldom recognized. As a link in the chain of transportation between the heart of the British Empire and its outermost boundaries, especially for the carriage of troops and war materials, it would be impossible to overestimate the value of the present and prospective transcontinental lines across Canada.

In eastern Canada, the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk are, and have been for many years past, great rivals. In the west the Canadian Pacific had until lately a monopoly of the traffic, but the advent and rapid development of the Canadian Northern has put quite a new face upon the western situation, and has resulted, for one thing, in a lowering of freight rates from all points in the Canadian wheat belt to Lake Superior ports, which has been of very decided advantage to the farmers of Manitoba and the northwest. One still hears an occasional grumble from the western Canadian farmer on this score, but as a matter of fact freight rates on both the Canadian Pacific and