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The Pacific Scandal was a political scandal in Canada involving allegations of bribes being accepted by 150 members of the Conservative government in the attempts of private interests to influence the bidding for a national rail contract. As part of British Columbia's 1871 agreement to join Canadian Confederation, the government had agreed to build a transcontinental railway linking the Pacific Province to the eastern provinces. The proposed rail project, when completed, was the most intensive and ambitious of its kind ever undertaken to date. However, as a new nation with limited capital resources, financing for the project was sought after both at home and abroad, naturally attracting interest from Great Britain and the United States. The scandal ultimately led to the resignation of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and a transfer of power from his Conservative government to a Liberal government led by Alexander Mackenzie. One of the new government's first measures was to introduce secret ballots in an effort to improve the integrity of future elections. == Background == For a young and loosely defined nation, the building of a national railway was an active attempt at state-making,〔''The National Dream: The Great Railway, 1871-1881'', by Pierre Berton, Anchor Canada 1970〕 as well as an aggressive capitalist venture. Canada, a nascent country with a population of 3.5 million in 1871, lacked the means to exercise meaningful ''de facto'' control within the ''de jure'' political boundaries of the recently acquired Rupert's Land; building a transcontinental railway was national policy of high order to change this situation.〔''John A. Macdonald: The Old Chieftain'', by Donald Creighton, Toronto 1965, The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd., p. 120〕 Moreover, after the American Civil War the American frontier rapidly expanded west with land-hungry settlers, exacerbating talk of annexation. Indeed, sentiments of Manifest Destiny were abuzz in this time: in 1867, year of Confederation, US Secretary of State W.H. Seward surmised that the whole North American continent "shall be, sooner or later, within the magic circle of the American Union."〔''The National Dream: The Great Railway, 1871-1881'', by Pierre Berton, Anchor Canada 1970, p. 10〕 Therefore, preventing American investment into the project was considered as being in Canada's national interest. Thus the federal government favoured an "all Canadian route" through the rugged Canadian Shield of northern Ontario, refusing to consider a less costly route passing south through Wisconsin and Minnesota. However, a route across the Canadian Shield was highly unpopular with potential investors, not only in the United States but also in Canada and especially Great Britain, the only other viable source of financing. For would-be investors, the objections were not primarily based on politics or nationalism but economics. At the time, national governments lacked the finances needed to undertake such large projects. For the First Transcontinental Railroad, the United States government had made extensive grants of public land to the railway's builders, inducing private financiers to fund the railway on the understanding that they would acquire rich farmland along the route, which could then be sold for a large profit. However, the eastern terminus of the proposed Canadian Pacific route, unlike that of the First Transcontinental, was not in rich Nebraskan farmland, but deep within the Canadian Shield. Copying the American financing model whilst insisting on an all-Canadian route would require the railway's backers to build hundreds of miles of track across rugged shield terrain (with little economic value) at considerable expense before they could expect to access lucrative farmland in Manitoba, which then was part of the newly created Northwest Territories. Many financiers, who had expected to make a relatively quick profit, were not willing to make this sort of long-term commitment. Nevertheless, the Montreal capitalist Sir Hugh Allan, with his syndicate Canada Pacific Railway Company, sought the potentially lucrative charter for the project. The problem lay in that Allan and Sir John A. Macdonald highly, and secretly, were in cahoots with American financiers such as George W. McMullen and Jay Cooke, men who were deeply interested in the rival American undertaking, the Northern Pacific Railroad.〔''John A. Macdonald: The Old Chieftain'', by Donald Creighton, Toronto 1965, The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd., p. 120〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pacific Scandal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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