To my mind, all valuable credit
attaches to those who have completed the work. The christening of "La
Chine"--the town seven miles from Montreal, where the canals which go
round the rapids end, and the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa rivers join
their differently coloured streams--contained the prophecy of a future
great high road to the then mysterious East, to China, to Japan, to
Australia; and it is to the Sieur de la Salle, who, 200 years ago,
bought lands above the rapids from the Sulpician Fathers of Montreal,
and began his many attempts to reach the lands of the "setting sun,"
that we owe the name; while the resolution of Sir Charles Tupper,
carried in the Dominion Parliament, finally embodied in an Act which
received the Royal assent on the 17th February, 1881, and was opposed
throughout by the "Grit" party, was really the practical start. It
would be inadequate to write of the Great Canadian Pacific Railway
without some reference to the history of railways in Canada itself.
In the interesting book, "Rambles on Railways," published in 1868, it
is remarked that great as has been the progress of Canada, in no
respect has the growth of the country shown itself in a more marked
manner than in the development of its railway system.
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