account for in no other way.
From what I have thus said, you will see that all my confidence in the ability of Sir William to save the Company has gone, and it is to you alone that I look, if disaster is to be avoided.
In Paris, the weather may have been raw and wet, but at least Van Horne could visit the Louvre, hobnob with art dealers, and dine with friends at the famous restaurant Joseph’s. There, “the most famous cook in the world” attended to him and his party in person. The weather continued to disappoint in Italy. In a desperate search for warmth, Van Horne persevered through a snowstorm to Naples and travelled on to Sorrento, the seaside resort across the bay from Naples. Notwithstanding the bitter cold, Van Horne was so captivated by Sorrento’s picturesque charm that he admitted in a letter to Addie that he liked Italy and its people. “Both are better than I expected,” he wrote.
Addie, meanwhile, was holding the fort in frigid Montreal. There she had to contend with Governor General Lord Aberdeen and his entourage, who arrived on her doorstep shortly after her husband’s departure for Europe. Although accustomed to orchestrating countless dinners and weekends for all manner of guests, Addie at times rebelled openly against the role of dutiful wife. And this was one such occasion. In a letter to Van Horne, she let her pent-up frustration boil over. “I am sorry that you could not see more of London. How I wish you could go once & not be obliged to meet ‘High Commissioners’ & others on business. Let us plan to enjoy life a little before we get too old or infirm. We are always waiting on other people & I am tired of it.”
In May 1894, Lord Aberdeen informed Van Horne that an honorary knighthood could be his for the taking — the third time he had been offered this honour. Previously, in 1891 and 1892, he had turned down Queen Victoria’s proposal. Explaining his refusal in 1892, Van Horne told Prime Minister Sir John Abbott that he felt it would be a great mistake for him to accept a knighthood in the near future. He had reached this conclusion after considering several factors, “the chief one being the probability of renewed attacks on the CPR in the United States.” He would not, he said, countenance any honour that might cost the CPR “an ounce of advantage.” Nevertheless, when the offer was made the third time, almost six years after he had become a naturalized British subject, Van Horne accepted it. As a result, the Queen’s birthday list of honours in May 1894 announced his appointment as an Honorary Knight Commander of the order of St. Michael and St. George.
Van Horne was at first uncomfortable with his new title. Walking to his Windsor Station office on the morning his knighthood was announced, he was repeatedly accosted by friends and acquaintances offering hearty congratulations. When his elderly office attendant, who for years had greeted him with a friendly salute, now made a servile bow and intoned, “Good morning, Sir William!” Van Horne could only mutter, “Oh Hell,” and beat a hasty retreat.
Not surprisingly, Van Horne’s acceptance of a knighthood buttressed a widely held belief that he had lost all love for his native country, the United States, and had become one of its most intractable opponents. This attitude riled the railway magnate, and he went to great lengths to squelch the idea and make it clear that, when he acted against American interests, it was simply because of his loyalty to the CPR. When the vehemently anti-CPR New York Sun described him as “originally an American but now a fierce Tory hater of all things American,” he dispatched a bristling letter of protest to the editor.
Canada was still in the grip of the depression when Van Horne returned to Montreal from his Mediterranean vacation in January 1895. Although relieved to be cured of his bronchitis, he felt only dismay and anxiety as he contemplated the trials now confronting him. The economic climate was so grim that, in February, Stephen dispatched a coded cablegram to Van Horne suggesting that the CPR suspend payment on its proposed dividend.
For some reason — perhaps because he had lost all faith in Van Horne’s management or because he wanted to advance the interests of the Great Northern, with which he was still associated, or for both — Stephen also began advising CPR shareholders to sell their shares. He was joined in undermining confidence in the railway by Thomas Skinner, who was also supposedly a friend of Van Horne. Their comments seemed to support wild rumours that were circulating about certain actions by company directors, and, as a result, CPR shares plummeted to an all-time low. They would have skidded even lower but for some German capitalists, who, advised by Van Horne’s friend Adolph Boissevain, a Dutch financier, purchased a large number of shares. Fortunately, by the fall of 1895, business had recovered. The following year, gross and net earnings had almost returned to their 1892 levels. The CPR had reeled under the weight of hard times, but it had not collapsed. It had weathered the storm and, just as Van Horne had foreseen, would soon return to profitability.
The return of the CPR to financial prosperity helped to improve Van Horne’s outlook on life. So, surprisingly, did the federal Liberal Party’s accession to power in 1896. Given his past performance, Van Horne might have been expected to intervene directly in this campaign, but he did not. In the 1891 federal campaign, when reciprocity with the United States was the Liberal Party’s central plank, Van Horne had vehemently denounced this policy to end the protection of Canadian industries and introduce free trade. Unrestricted reciprocity would bring “prostration and ruin” to Canada, he wrote to Conservative Senator G.A. Dandurand. Much to Van Horne’s horror, the letter was later printed in the Montreal Gazette. The CPR president considered damage control, but Shaughnessy immediately shot down this suggestion. The company had already been tarred with a political brush, he argued, and it should now give all the assistance it could to the Conservatives, who opposed reciprocity. In his own personal politics, Van Horne had always leaned towards the Conservatives, and he and Shaughnessy now set about throwing the massive weight of the CPR and its purse behind the party.
In the 1896 contest, by contrast, Van Horne and the CPR remained on the sidelines. Nevertheless, observers found it difficult to believe his repeated denials of CPR intervention. Van Horne told a Globe reporter, “We were somewhat in the position of a girl who had once been whoring, but who had reformed and was trying to lead a correct life — it was difficult to make everybody believe it.” As it turned out, the railway’s reform was not complete: in Winnipeg, CPR personnel actively supported the Conservative candidate.
Although he was not directly involved in the 1896 election, Van Horne was still vitally interested in the outcome and what it would mean for several issues that were important to him. Immigration was one of them. He dismissed the Conservative government’s work in this area as “hardly visible” and, as seen in chapter 6, he devised an ambitious settlement scheme of his own. Regrettably, the government never adopted it. He expected the new Liberal government led by Wilfrid Laurier to give immigration the same short shrift, but the dynamic Clifford Sifton, the new minister in charge of immigration, worked tirelessly to revamp the lacklustre immigration service he had inherited and to fill the empty prairies with suitable agriculturalists.
As much as he respected Sifton, however, Van Horne took strong exception to his choice of immigrants, many of whom came from eastern and central Europe. In typically blunt fashion, Van Horne outlined his concerns to newspaper editors. One of these was Sir John Willison, the long-time editor of the Globe. Van Horne bombarded him with letters about the growing anti-Chinese agitation sweeping the Pacific coast which, he feared, would culminate in increasingly restrictive legislation against Chinese immigration. Like other Canadian industrialists, he wanted access to a plentiful supply of cheap, hardworking labour, and the Chinese filled the bill admirably. “We must have in British Columbia a good supply of digging machines which, unlike steam shovels, can climb hills and go down into mines. These can be most cheaply and readily had from China,” he informed Willison.
From time to time in these years, Van Horne was asked to serve in a semi-diplomatic role because of his friendship with leading American political figures. He became a quasiambassador to Washington for the new Laurier government, which frequently asked him to probe the Yankee frame of mind during a period of tension between Canada and the United States. Tariffs and the
