New-York tribune., 1918-09-19
Canada in the Railroad Business

There is very great interest in the an
nouncement that the Canadian govern
ment has completed the purchase of the
Canadian Northern Railway and the
statement of Premier Borden that this
system will be merged with the railways
already owned by Canada--that is, the
so-called government railways of East
ern Canada and the National Transcon-
tinental, from Moncton to Winnipeg.
The Premier says that this purchase
will make the Canadian people the sec
ond largest railway proprietors in the
world, and he hints the day may come
when it will stand first.
All told, the new state-owned rail
ways will comprise system of about
$4,000 miles. The largest part of it is
that just purchased, the Canadian
Northern system, with 9,7OO miles in
actual operation and more under con
struction. With this addition the gov
ernment will have a complete transcon-
tinental line, and it is announced that
this will be connected as soon as pract-
cable with steamship lines on both the
Atlantic and the Pacific
The really interesting part of this cx-
pertinent is that it is to be in direct
competition, over practically its entire
length, with one of the best built and
most efficiently run railway systems in
the world, and a once heavily subsi-
dized railway at that, the Canadian
Pacific. And there will be in addition.
of course, the further competition of the
new Grand Trunk Transcontinental.
The new Canadian venture, therefore,
will provide one Of the severest tests of
governmental railway management that
have ever been undertaken Nor will it
be handicapped in any way on the gov
ernment side. Taken by and large,
Canada has in the last thirty years had
perhaps as intelligent, capable and pro-
gresslve government as any country
on the globe. 1t has been friendly and
helpful toward its railways. seeing in
them the key to the development of its
vast territories in the west and far
north. 1t has devised and perfected
perhaps the best banking system in the
world, an adaptation to her broad areas
OF the Scotch system. Canada has not
antagonlzed capital or fretted about the
natural drift to large business organi-
cations. Its land policy has attracted
large numbers of settlers from the
United States and the Old World.
AS a result of this unusual display of
real craftsmanship, Canada has had as
even and well balanced a development
as perhaps was possible TO any new
country. 1t has had spells Of severe
depression, but these have not been fol.
lowed, as in the United States. with ag
gresslve populstic movements, so dis
turbing to the financial and business
community. 1t now undertakes a broad
experiment in railway management not
as the result of bitter antagonism to the
railways as there has been in the United
States, not in spirit Of confiscation
but as practical means of furthcring
Canada's natural development. 1t will
have no monopoly, and yet, as the Pre-
mier shows, it will, on the basis of can
ltalization and costs have a perfectly
even start. In word, it seems to offer
the cleanest and most instructive show
down between state and private railway
management that has ever been framed.
1T the government operation is not a
success in Canada under these condi
tlons, it is safe to say that it cannot be
made success anywhere else for long
time to come.