ABSTRACT
He had good hopes of success. 'Though the economical fever is very strong upon John Bull at the moment,' he wrote to Elgin, 'the desire to promote emigration is also a reigning fancy of the day',3 The Cabinet seemed to prefer his plan to the alternative suggested by Russell and Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant, who looked at the matter as so many before them had done exclusively from the Irish point of view and proposed merely to empower Irish Poor Law Unions to borrow money for emigration.4 Hincks, the most active member of the Canadian Ministry, was also a warm supporter of the plan. Such public works, he thought, were the real solution of the problem of the destitute immigrant. Besides, Canada's greatest need was capital: Canadian investments-partly, it appears, owing to the fear that Canada might join the United States and then repudiateS-were not
nearly so much sought after by British capitalists as investments in the States. Hincks suggested that, as the Imperial Government would be supplying the money, it should also execute the work: the Canadian Government would accordingly be ready to transfer the public lands to a depth of ten miles on each side of the railway to Imperial control, and to purchase all the private property required for the construction of the line. To the increase in the colonial timber duty as security for the necessary loan he offered no objection.! Elgin pointed out the value of the scheme as a bond of union among the North American Provinces and between the Provinces and Great Britain: 2 Head of New Brunswick spoke of the effect it would have in breaking down narrow local jealousies within the Province.3 In April the Canadian Assembly promised an annual vote of £20,000 to meet a deficiency, should such occur, and offered the lands as Hincks had proposed. The Assemblies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did likewise. Yet the political difficulties in England were in the end too great. In January 1849 Grey had begun to be pessimistic:
Grey had hoped that the votes of the Colonial Assemblies might turn the scale, but they did not. In April he wrote to Elgin telling him that the plan must for the present be abandoned.
