On this continent there surely never was such a weird phantasmagoria of railroad changes as occurred during and immediately following the war.

Canada led the Western Hemisphere into the fight that was to save freedom, and was to magnify Canning’s saying about the New World redressing the balance of the Old. The cost of the war in economic disturbance, during its progress, and since the delusive peace, was as little foreseen as its immediate cost in blood and treasure. What Armageddon did to North American railways is not yet appreciated by the millions who use them.

As the war worsened, the Canadian railway situation worsened with it. The penalties of overbuilding were felt on every side. There was extraordinary development of war industries; but the cessation of immigration, the attendant drag upon agriculture and commerce; and the curtailment of ordinary measures of maintenance and betterment made it inevitable that very heavy expenditures must be faced as soon as peace returned.

The war brought a grievous end to the Canadian Northern as a Mackenzie and Mann enterprise. It also demonstrated beyond a peradventure the hopelessness, from the beginning, of the Grand Trunk’s fathering of the Grand Trunk Pacific, by throwing that western system into the hands of the Government, under a receivership.

Then, as if these difficulties were not aggravating enough, the entry of the United States into the war, at a time when wages across the line had soared almost beyond trade unionist dreams of avarice, threw the railways into a Government pool, with a confounding result on Canadian railway administration. The McAdoo wages award on the railways which came under control of the Secretary of the Treasury raised expenses on all Canadian railways to a point which, though they compelled rate increases, still could not adequately be met by any charges which the Railway Board deemed fair to the public interest. The policeman’s lot in the Pirates of Penzance was indeed a happy one compared with the Canadian railway executives’ job towards the end of the war, and during the period of re-construction immediately following the armistice.

In such circumstances it was fated that we should carry through one of the strangest phases of the history of transportation—to change two great systems of privately projected and privately controlled railways, into public ownership properties, to join them with a network of Government railways already in existence; and to prepare the way for the speedy incorporation with these three main ingredients, of the senior system of Canadian railways—the Grand Trunk.

One had travelled a long way from the tiny line between Gladstone and Dauphin, although it was less than twenty-two years from the day I left the old Manitoba North Western to the period during which the new directors of the publicly-owned Canadian Northern Railway took over the Intercolonial and the National Transcontinental, and “Canadian National Railways” was first used as a name that was to represent the legal unity of the largest system in the world.

Perhaps, if we were hunting for records here, something unique might be discovered in one’s service. A little pioneer railway came into existence; grew to a system of nearly ten thousand miles, passed from private ownership to a national enterprise; carried on for four years under its former statutory identity, during which period there were associated with it, first all the Government railways whose building was fundamental to Confederation; and, secondly, the Grand Trunk Pacific, launched as a semi-public enterprise with the intention of dwarfing its existence. Only one general officer was concerned with every phase of that kaleidoscopic story.

His experience involved a multiplicity of responsibilities which, viewed from a comparatively restful contact with less exacting business, seem now to be chiefly remarkable for the fact that they did not entirely swamp his sense of personal identity. An advantage of being away from it all is that one may obtain a clearer perspective of what happened, and of the trend of its public importances, than was possible when one was encompassed by administrative labour.

There were eight years between the outbreak of war and the departure of my colleagues and myself from the Canadian National Railways. That fateful period seems naturally to divide itself into three distinct phases: the labour immediately attributable to the war; the measures required to make the best of the general situation left by the war, and the methods by which it was endeavoured to reconcile the efficiency of private management with the essentials of responsibility to Parliament. The last first.

As far as public policy was concerned, the situation into which a Board of Directors, newly appointed by the Government, entered was made for them by events which happily, perhaps, for them, were part of the war, as well as part of a railway problem of the first financial and administrative magnitude. We came into office when members of Parliament had something to think about besides jobs.

Even if the word “politics” were not used here, readers would use it; for, after all, you cannot have a revolution in a nation’s railway affairs which depends on Parliamentary action, without political considerations entering into it. Besides the great interest of the whole body politic, which is statesmanship, the pull of the hungry partisan is sure to be felt, sooner or later.

Except for the infinitesimal proportion of men to whom nothing in public service is so important as the chance to get their hands on some public post or property, I think the public sentiment west of Montreal was, and is, all for keeping politics out of all the railway administration for which Parliament became responsible by the taking over of the Canadian Northern, and the receivership of the Grand Trunk Pacific.

During private ownership, the few attempts which were made to influence appointments by friends of Governments which had given guarantees had failed ignominiously. When the Canadian Northern became a National liability altogether, the war was almost at its worst. The acquisition of the system meant so much obligation that few supporters of the Government felt like making a party holiday out of the transaction. The war had for three years been the universal preoccupation, when, in 1917, party considerations were subordinated to the formation of a Union Government. From the point of view of starting with a clean slate, as far as the attentions of old-fashioned machine politicians were to be apprehended, conditions could not be more favourable for nationalizing thousands of miles of railway, hitherto privately directed. Indeed, the Government exercised its authority over the Canadian Northern, before the Union Government arrived, by appointing as directors: Mr. W. K. George of Toronto, Mr. William Christie of Winnipeg, and Mr. Harry Richardson of Kingston. This happened almost without Parliamentarians or the public waking up to its significance.

Mr. Richardson was appointed to the Senate. Senator Nicholls of Toronto had been a director of the Canadian Northern from the beginning. While the final transfer to the Government was still in the future, certain legislation was pending affecting the railway, and these two senators resigned their directorships so as to avoid every appearance of political advantage being associated with the railway.

It was in the spring of 1918 when the complete surrender of the Canadian Northern to the Government was announced. On May 15th Sir Robert Borden described to the House of Commons the administrative policy of the Government:

“As to the immediate future, I have already said that we do not intend to operate the Canadian Northern system directly under a department of the Government. It is our intention to operate it at present through the corporate machinery by which it has been operated in the past. There will be a reconstituted Board of Directors. We shall endeavour to get the best men we can; and we shall not interfere with them. We shall leave the administration and operation of the road to be carried on absolutely under that Board of Directors, and we shall use every means available to the Government (and, if necessary, we shall come to Parliament for that purpose) in order that anything like political influence, political patronage or political interference—I am using the word ‘political’ in its narrowest sense—shall be absolutely eliminated from the administration of that road.”

This was the only policy which could be laid down with adequate appreciation of the magnitude of our task. It would be less than justice to Sir Robert Borden to refrain from saying that he and his Government lived up to that declaration. The same is true of his successor, Mr. Meighen. Neither directly nor indirectly did either of these Prime Ministers make a single communication to me, or intended to reach me, as far as I have the slightest inkling, with a view to influencing any decision likely to affect any man’s good will towards the Government.

Up to that time Government railways to the north of the St. Lawrence, had not been operated on the basis of political advantage which had affected the Intercolonial management from the beginning. The National Transcontinental, between Quebec and Winnipeg, except for the grain traffic to Fort William, was a sort of waif, with so scanty a revenue that, with the war occupying everybody’s mind, nobody interested in votes seemed to pay it any attention. It found practically nothing for idle political hands to do. Satan was busy elsewhere.

Between the Ottawa and the Pacific, members of Parliament had not all their lives seen the section men of the only railway in their region changed with every change of Government, because they were friends of the departing Administration, and friends of the incoming Government had been promised their jobs.

The election of December, 1917, was followed by limitations of patronage which the old-style politicians did not like; but which they knew it was futile then to attempt to revoke. Sir Robert Borden’s declaration was received without vociferous enthusiasm and without audible complaint from his supporters.

Parliament prorogued eight days after the Premier notified the politicians to keep off the track. In September the complete new Board of Directors of the Canadian Northern was appointed. Not one of them knew anything of his contemplated appointment until he received the direct offer of a place. Not one of them was considered because he had any political influence. Every one of them was chosen for his potential value to the board as a man of wide experience in business, in most cases as a large shipper of freight; and in one case because he was of the foremost financiers in the Dominion. Every man hated the idea of political influence being injected into the railway business. If it be of interest to such as love to look minutely into such matters, it was found later that a majority of the Board were old-time Liberals.

We were a real Board of Directors, and I think no more harmonious body of business men ever worked together—I don’t mean in the sense that there were no differences of opinion; but in the sense that there was unity of aim, and a single-minded desire to do the best that was in us for vast properties, in the success of which the national prosperity was very heavily at stake.

The Board had not been at work very long before it discovered that it had been given the task of fusing ancient and modern, and that one of the elements in the projected fusion was not in love with the operation. There was, indeed, some temptation to feel that the situation was expressed by:—

Our appointment as the Board of Directors of the Canadian Northern system was followed by an order-in-council appointing us to administer all the Canadian Government Railways, and to that extent removing them from the immediate oversight of the Minister of Railways and Canals, who was liable to be changed as some section men were.

It is as well to copy here the letter which Dr. Reid, the Minister of Railways, wrote to me when he had parted with the direct responsibility for administering the Government lines:

“Now that the Board of Directors has been appointed for the Canadian Northern Railway and that the Transcontinental Railway and the Intercolonial Railway and all other branch lines of railway owned by the Dominion Government are being placed under your Board for the management and operation, I wish to impress on you the understanding that I had with you here last week, namely: The Board must operate the railways without any interference or influence from anyone connected with this Department or any influence outside of it.

“The future of the Government ownership of railways in my opinion, depends entirely on their operation being carried on free from any political or other influence. The operation should be carried on the same as a private corporation, keeping in view at all times economy and the interests of the shareholders who of course, are the people of Canada.

“If you desire any information from the Government or consideration of any matters in connection with the Government Railways, then I ask that you submit it in writing, so that I can lay all matters before the Governor-in-Council in the proper way. I shall then forward you the reply officially. In this way a proper record will be on file.

“This in my opinion, is the way to carry out the operation of the road, and if you agree with me, I hope you will see that this is done.”

The name Canadian National was used, as already said, for general convenience, but legal identities were then in no way affected. The Board’s first duty was to see the property it was to manage. There was a trip to the Pacific coast and then one to the Atlantic seaboard.

Since before the war the West had known the disadvantages of hampered operation and delayed completion of branches that were urgently required. It wanted service; and it had no hoary traditions, practices, or hopes to recover or maintain. No old war horses had been running loose for ten years expecting that when next the fortune of political battle turned out a Minister of Railways they would be turned into the paddock.

The East was as different from the West as chalk is from cheese—it could not be otherwise. For nearly fifty years the Government railway had been an unquestioned engine of political patronage. The oldest inhabitants when they gazed at a time-table saw in it the covenants of Confederation. The attitude of many men who are not so grey was and is: (1) That the Intercolonial being named in the British North America Act, and projected and promised as a political link between eastern and central Canada, must so remain; (2) That, taking not the most direct route from Montreal to Halifax, and therefore giving rates to shippers based sometimes less on mileage haul than on the shippers’ desire, the Intercolonial must not be treated as a commercial railway; but as a sort of douceur to induce the maritime provinces to remain confederated with the Canadas.

This view has been advocated with great fervour by deputations that have come to protest against the ruthless administration that had its head and offending in Toronto. It is not unanimously held, down east. Even some politicians have said openly to their friends that there is nothing worth fighting about in the views of the departed fathers of Confederation, and that the East must look for business connections with the West only on businesslike bases.

A few days after the armistice the Board reached Moncton for a Saturday afternoon and Sunday acquaintance with the Intercolonial headquarters. It found the atmosphere as chilly indoors as out, after the President had given to a representative meeting the Board’s assurance of goodwill, and appreciation of the need for the local officers to have large jurisdiction; and had sketched the possibilities of interchange between Eastern and Western officers with a view to broadening the experience of the whole staff.

A gentleman of much ability and intense local patriotism presented us with a picture of an Ontario we had never seen before; and generally left the impression that something like a Western pirate was determined to prey on an Eastern victim.

Plainly, we were not as welcome as the flowers in May. The archangel Gabriel could not have become popular down by the sea if he had undertaken the job of co-ordinating the services of the railways which the Dominion of Canada now possessed. With all the good will in the world, it can be said that it was too much to expect that excellent men, habituated to party control of a railway, would discern the least beneficence in the revolution which had come upon the ancient institution.

There never was anything substantial in the objections to control from Toronto, as compared with the former conditions. Actual conduct of the Intercolonial centred in Moncton, as much as it always did. What really happened was that Toronto was substituted for Ottawa; and a President and Board of Directors succeeded a Minister. The local superintendents’ proposals for the year’s betterments, as passed upon by the general manager, formerly reached Ottawa, and were there approved by the Minister or rejected, in readiness for the estimates to come before Parliament. Now, by the like process, proposals reached Toronto, before being incorporated in Parliamentary estimates. Fundamentally, that was the change. But, there was the difference that existed between the President and the Minister—as to coming into office and going out, they weren’t both subject to the same powers as determined the choice of the section men.

It would have been vain to look for the instantaneous disappearance of a temper which, during two generations, had been deeply embedded in the political consciousness of three provinces and of half of a fourth. Sir Robert Morier, who was regarded as the ablest British ambassador of the later Victorian era, used to say it was the business of the statesman to be five per cent. ahead of public opinion. How far Sir Robert Borden’s policy was ahead of public opinion in the maritimes—or rather the opinion of the party stalwarts—one cannot say. But as session succeeded session it became clearer and clearer that, in the East, the administration of the National Railways would be regarded from a very different point of view from that which actuated the West.

In the House of Commons there were criticisms of my former relation to the Canadian Northern, and demands for more plentiful financial details of our work. Nothing was ever alleged, or could be alleged, on the first count, of which dignified notice could be taken. The second criticism did raise a question of public policy; and it is as well to say one or two things about it.

Against Parliament’s right to control the expenditures of Parliamentary money no word can be said. But there are limitations, for instance, when competitive contracts and commercial services are concerned. There is, indeed, a question of the use of ordinary common sense, which must not be jettisoned by a railway president, and ought not to be abandoned by a politician.

Look at imperial naval defence for a minute. The House of Commons is asked to vote say two million pounds for a battleship to be built by Vickers-Maxim. Every member of the House, therefore, has the right to inquire into everything relating to the contract. But honourable, experienced, trusted servants of the Crown have been employed to formulate a proposal on which their character, skill and experience are staked. Suppose one member, not to say twenty, began to inquire meticulously into the prices for all sorts of materials—the House would become tired of and then furious with him, and he would be suppressed as a nuisance.

Parliament’s attitude to a national railway must be based on one of two assumptions—that the management is worthy or is unworthy of confidence. The efficiency of its management, like that of any other public management, is to be judged from the methods employed to carry on its business. The first test of these methods belongs to the known character of the administrative chiefs of the railway. On this point I have nothing further to say. The second is in the processes by which financial demands reach Parliament. What were these processes?

In the old days, I believe, the estimates for the Intercolonial were well sifted, first through district officers, and finally by the Minister with whom a committee of the Cabinet was associated. But, based on too abundant experience, there was always the fear, in the railway officials, of political interference from the constituencies; and always the possibility that somebody with a real or fancied grievance would get access to the Minister.

The Board’s method was for the local superintendents’ suggested appropriations to be refined by the officers above them, passed on by the President, submitted by him to the directors; revised by them, and then by the President carried to the Minister and a strong and, as I can testify, a vigilant committee of the Cabinet. Finally they were brought to the House by the Minister, with whom sat his deputy, who was also a director of the railways. Then they were open to the criticism of two hundred and thirty-five members, and were entirely subject to the approval of the House of Commons, which could demand all our reports.

Now let us take a concrete case, not of permanent betterment, but of contracts for one of the most important operating supplies. In 1922 we were summoned before the Public Accounts Committee. What took place is on the record. Inquiry was made by a member for the current cost of a commodity for the supply of which known friends of his were also in the field. I took the position that it would be against the national interest to disclose prices, which, I knew from experience, were apt to be taken by certain firms desiring to get the business, the duty and freight added, and a tender put in for a few cents per ton below the price obtained by absolutely strict competition. I instructed my subordinate not to bring the information demanded.

The member demanding the information is one of the most expert in all the forms of the House. When we pointed out that the subject of his demand had to do with the current year’s expenses, with which Parliament was concerned only as estimates; and did not touch the year’s business then before the Public Accounts Committee, no further effort was made to get the information. It would be inaccurate to say no further effort was made to get me. The episode was typical of many things, as to which men of affairs will need no further elucidations.

Heaven preserve me from expressing political opinions; but there is a temptation to say that the Conservative party may regard itself as fortunate in the Borden Government’s double experience of war and railway administration. From the point of view of observing the conditions which Sir Robert laid down in May, 1918, the war stress, and the necessity for respecting the non-partisan avowals of the Union Government helped greatly to wean old fashioned politicians from the ancient customs. Whatever their private feelings about the loss of patronage and the helplessness of pull, they could not launch bitter complaints to Mr. Speaker without harming their own side of the House. Some of them had the mortification, though, of seeing their traditional opponents making attacks, which, naturally, were received with intense interest and favor by some of the folks back home.

During the session of 1921, strong attacks on us were made; and were continued in the campaign that preceded the election on December 6th of that year. The Board was assailed on the ground of interlocking directorates. Intimation was given that there would be an alteration if the Government were changed. Evidently we were to be the section men to retire with the Minister of Railways.

One of the most vehement critics of our administration was Mr. Kennedy, of Windsor, who became Minister of Railways. There is no reason why I should not tell of my first meeting with Mr. Kennedy.

Naturally, I had taken note of what had been said in the House by Mr. Kennedy. When he sent for me I took along the Hansard report of his speech. Though I had heard good accounts of how he was shaping as a railway administrator, it seemed best to be ready to let humility wait upon candour.

We had never met. As soon as I entered his room, and before there was time to say anything, Mr. Kennedy opened with a speech of which this is a fair summary: “Mr. Hanna”, he said, “before we begin our official relations I want to say something to you. You know, politicians in opposition often make criticisms and say things which, if they bore the responsibility of office, they wouldn’t say. You may have read some pretty strong things I said about you. I want you to forget them entirely, if you will. I know nothing about the railway business; and you have spent your lifetime in it. I want your help in mastering my job, as freely as you care to give it me.”

To such frankness only one reply was possible. I offered to prepare for him a survey of the work we had done since 1918, the head of each department setting forth its activities.

When that had been done Mr. Kennedy was extremely appreciative of a very voluminous document, all of which, I came to know he had read. Mr. Kennedy won my entire respect, for the speed and comprehensiveness of his grasp of whatever was put before him; for his desire to give the Board all the support to which we had become accustomed, and for the openness and confidence with which he treated me personally and officially.

It is characteristic of an old politician that he cannot believe his fellow on the other side has changed his habit. The persistence of the partisan attitude towards the Intercolonial manifested itself speedily after the election of 1921. It must have been assumed by many veterans of hustings and committee rooms that all the talk inside and out of Parliament about the abolition of political considerations from the National Railway management was so much bunkum. Letters soon began to arrive from Parliamentarians the substance of which was “Now that we are in power, of course, our friends will have consideration.” Hundreds of such letters went on file, some of them from men high in the nation’s service. Surprise was great when it was found that the talk about political eliminations wasn’t merely gas.

In July, 1922, the resignation of the whole Board of Directors was asked for by the Minister, I believe with sincere regret. It was made known that besides myself, Mr. A. J. Mitchell, the vice-president in charge of finances, would be forgotten when the new executive was formed. We carried on until October, when the execution was publicly performed, and one life, at least, was appreciably lengthened.