LITMIR.BIZ

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more than any other factor to filling these buildings. For the man who was “out all day busy with his work,” isolation did not present a major problem, but it did to “the woman who eats out her soul in loneliness.” He urged the Canadian government to change its surveying system in the Northwest. Rather than the block pattern it favoured, the government, he said, should provide for triangular farms that radiated out from small centres of settlement. These centres, in turn, should be clustered around a larger village and be connected by roads. The government, however, rejected his farsighted suggestion.

      In addition to all his other responsibilities, Van Horne was also involved in litigation relating to the section of the railway, built for the government by Andrew Onderdonk, which extended from Port Moody through the Fraser Canyon to Savona’s Ferry at the western end of Lake Kamloops. Neither George Stephen nor Van Horne believed that this part of the line had been soundly constructed. After inspecting the section in 1886, they concluded that only extensive and hugely expensive reworking would bring the line up to standard.

      But who would be liable for this repair, estimated to be as high as $12 million? Opposing this view was John Henry Pope, the minister of railways and canals when this particular stretch was constructed. Pope was convinced that the work had been well done and, when he stood his ground, the stage was set for a protracted feud between him and Van Horne. Relations between the men became especially bitter in 1887, when the CPR launched a multimillion dollar claim against the government. In its claim, the company contended that the disputed section did not measure up to the required standards outlined in the Act of 1881. But the hard-working, conscientious Pope was convinced that he was right, and he dismissed the Canadian Pacific’s claim. It was, he said, merely a scheme on the part of Van Horne and his associates to extort even more money from the government.

      Eventually both parties agreed to arbitration, and, although the arbitrators began their sittings in February 1888, they did not get an agreement for more than three years. During that investigation, arbitration counsel and witnesses spent weeks at a time along the disputed portion of the line. Van Horne was the chief witness and, in late June 1888, he journeyed west to Vancouver, where the court’s sessions continued day after day in the Hotel Vancouver. There he was subject to searching cross-examination by the leading legal figures of the day. As he delivered his opinion of the contested work he was characteristically blunt, if not reckless. His assessment led one of the arbitrators to remark out of court that, if one-half of what Van Horne said was true, the company ought to stop operating the line immediately. Collingwood Schreiber, the engineer-in-chief to the federal government, went so far as to tell Pope that, by trashing the government construction and claiming that the section was dangerous, Van Horne had placed himself in an untenable position. Given that he had not taken a single precaution against accidents, “should an accident occur, he would find it difficult to keep outside the walls of the Penitentiary.”

      However, the greatest demand on Van Horne’s attention in these years was the agitation in Manitoba for “free-for-all” railway construction. At the root of this discontent was the monopoly clause in the CPR’s charter: it forbade other federally chartered companies from building south of the CPR’s main line, except in a southwest direction, and even then no competing line was to come within fifteen miles of the international border. Manitobans protested vigorously against this clause, goaded by their fear of monopolies and high freight rates and their growing sense of alienation from eastern Canada.

      After the federal government disallowed three acts intended by the Manitoba government to encourage local railway construction, a storm of indignation swept across the province. Meetings were convened everywhere to protest against the perceived outrage and to draw up plans to prevent any repetition of it.

      By 1887 Manitoba had become a hotbed of disallowance agitation and railway plotting. In the resulting turmoil, George Stephen and William Van Horne became, for Winnipeggers, the two most unpopular men in Canada. Van Horne retorted that, when the citizens decided to burn them in effigy, they would need one mattress for Sir George, but two to do justice to him! Finally, in April 1888, legislation was presented to the House of Commons to do away with the monopoly clause. But Van Horne still got his revenge — in the “Battle of Fort Whyte.”

      In 1888 the Northern Pacific Railroad set out to lay its Portage la Prairie line, known as the Northern Pacific and Manitoba Railway. Some fifteen miles west of Winnipeg, its tracks were poised to cross those of a CPR branch line, deep in the heart of CPR territory. The Northern Pacific and Manitoba laid its track up to the CPR branch line, installed a diamond crossing, and then continued on its way — all in the dead of night. The next day, CPR men ripped out the crossing. An infuriated Van Horne instructed his western superintendent, William Whyte, to take appropriate action. In the middle of the following night, an old CPR engine was ditched at the crossing point and some two hundred and fifty men from the CPR’s Winnipeg shops were summoned to prevent its removal. Soon swarms of Northern Pacific workers showed up and, for five days, insults were traded back and forth. They did not cease until the Manitoba government called out the militia and had three hundred special constables sworn in specifically to lay the crossing, by force if necessary. With this action, bloodshed was averted.

      The issue was finally left to the Supreme Court of Canada to decide. Its ruling, delivered that December, was in favour of the Northern Pacific and Manitoba. The combatants dispersed, the track was laid, and the diamond was reinstalled. The CPR had surrendered, but Van Horne’s reckless actions constituted a public relations disaster for the railway. Whatever meagre support it had left in Manitoba quickly vanished.

      By this time, however, Van Horne was president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. On April 7, 1888, he was unanimously elected to the position at a meeting of the board of directors in Montreal. George Stephen, who had resigned from the position after seven years of almost constant anxiety and struggle, deemed it right that somebody experienced in railway administration should take his place.

      Before leaving for a holiday in England in September 1889, Stephen went to great pains to smooth the way for Van Horne in his dealings with the prime minister. In a letter to Macdonald, he wrote:

      You may be sure of one thing, Van Horne wants nothing from the Government that he is not on every ground justified in asking. You are quite “safe” in giving him your whole confidence. I know him better, perhaps, than anyone here and I am satisfied that I make no mistake when I ask you to trust him and to dismiss from your mind all suspicion that would lead you to look upon him as a sharper bound to take advantage of the Government every time he gets the chance.

      Then, after Stephen retired in England, he dispatched a steady stream of letters to his successor. Van Horne in turn used him as a sounding board and the CPR’s direct link to the British financial markets. He took care to keep Stephen abreast of CPR developments in frequent telegrams and letters. Strangely, despite their long and close association, these communications were written in a surprisingly formal style. Stephen continued to serve as a CPR director and member of the executive committee until his resignation in 1893.

      After he became president of the CPR, Van Horne had the continuing support of able and hard-working colleagues. The most important of these men was the assistant general manager, Thomas G. Shaughnessy. His love of minutiae, talent for administration, and acumen for business had been abundantly demonstrated over the years, and Van Horne would continue to depend on him. In fact, he appointed Shaughnessy assistant to the president in 1889.

      George Stephen (later Lord Mount Stephen). The Scottish-born financier was the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in which capacity he became a good friend of Van Horne.

       Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, PA207269.

      As president, Van Horne received a substantial boost in salary — from $30,000 to $50,000 per annum, retroactive to the beginning of the year. His new title did not, however, increase his responsibilities in any way. He was already in full control of company operations — and had been for years. Still, the announcement of his new appointment must have filled him with pride. After all, at the comparatively young age of forty-five, he had become the president of a railway system that comprised over five thousand

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