Canadian Northern are now considerably lower than obtain on the Great Northern and Northern Pacific for the same distances.
It seems at first sight rather hard lines that the Canadian Pacific, after fighting alone through the long lean years of western traffic—when the pessimistic prediction that the Canadian Pacific railway would never earn enough to pay for its axle-grease seemed about to be verified—should now, on the threshold of the fat years of western growth and prosperity, be faced with the competition not merely of one, but of two great rivals in the west. As a matter of fact, however, the Canadian Pacific has suffered very little loss of traffic from the competition of the Canadian Northern, and is not likely to suffer eventually from the competition of the Grand Trunk Pacific. Western Canada is growing faster than the railways; the two existing roads in the west have already pretty well all the traffic they can conveniently handle, especially during the harvest, and by the time the Grand Trunk Pacific is completed there will probably be more than enough for all three.
The completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the impetus that will thereby be given to settlement in the northern half of the great Canadian wheat belt, must inevitably lead to a demand for another transcontinental still farther north. It is a curious but indisputable fact that as wheat cultivation is extended north, the limits of the wheat zone are pushed forward,[1] and the total acreage available for cultivation increases from year to year. There will be ample room for another railway, and perhaps two, north of the route of the Grand Trunk Pacific, and still well within the wheat belt. When grain or other shipments reach Fort William from the west, they have the choice of either a rail or a water route. At present the Canadian Pacific offers the only rail route, but within a few years the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern will both have through lines from Fort William east.
The water routes east of Fort William are practically identical until Lake Huron is reached. There they branch out to a number of Canadian and American lake ports, where connection is made with the Grand Trunk, the eastern lines of the Canadian Pacific, and other roads leading east or south. Another route traverses Lakes Erie and Ontario, via the Welland and St. Lawrence canals, to Montreal. In time two alternative and shorter water routes will be available from Lake Huron to Montreal; the first, via the Trent Valley canal, now in course of construction, and on which the government has built an enormous hydraulic lift lock, the only one in America; and the other by way of the Georgian Bay canal. This latter project has been
- ↑ It is estimated that the hard wheat belt is receding northward at the rate of fifteen miles every year.
