We Must Have It — The Tunnel to P.E.I.
By Bird Bear Press, as found in a CBC online article
Prince Edward Island joined Confederation on the understanding that a reliable year-round mode of communication would be established between the island and the mainland.                                                      Ferry services turned out to be very unreliable, however, and P.E.I. was left isolated for long periods of time. Proposals were brought forward in the late 19th Century to install a steel and concrete tube on the floor of the Northumberland Strait to serve as a tunnel. This idea was abandoned by around 1900 in favor of a more conventional excavated tunnel.
Alfred Burke was a Prince Edward Islander, a Catholic priest, a self-trained agriculturalist, and an advocate for public works. He supported the construction of the tunnel and explained the whole background in a 1905 article entitled The Northumberland Tunnel, the Big Question in the Little Province. Following is his presentation.
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The Northumberland Tunnel, the Big Question in the Little Province
In the great game of land-grab which the provinces of Canada are now playing with such
proficiency, one at least of the component parts of the Confederation is not in the least concerned. We allude to the little province of Prince Edward Island. Just at present there is nothing in sight to excite her cupidity in the way of territorial expansion but this by no means predicates a state of perfect quiescence, on her part. Indeed, the opposite is the fact. Never in her history, not even in the stirring colonial days, when she settled, with wonderful wisdom the vital questions with which great nations have struggled for ages—the Land Question, the School Question, the Currency Question, etc., not even in the agitation for and against Confederation—has the country been stirred more thoroughly than it is at this moment over the all-important matter of Communication with the Continent.
Prince Edward Island entered the Canadian Confederation in 1873. She was ardently wooed by Macdonald, Cartier, Galt, Tupper, and McGee in 1864, but, whilst all the arrangements for the celebrated Quebec Conference which resulted in the union of the four great provinces of British North America,—Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,—were made within her borders; and, therefore, is she rightly called the "Cradle of Confederation," she did not enter the Federation herself until the date above given. This slowness to cast in her lot with the other provinces had its origin in various causes not the least of which was the Communication Problem. Naturally, the question foremost on the lips of Islanders was, "What have we to gain by Confederation?" An Island, small in area, entirely occupied with agriculture and the fisheries of the coast, what benefit was to accrue to her from a common union with the rest of British America? What advantages were likely to come her way by the enactment of a common fiscal policy? Should she help build up Continental trade and commerce; contribute to the construction of railways and canals and the other organized systems of Canada without a special assurance that in their beneficent results she would be able to fully participate? A line of railway she had built from end to end of the province for herself, but even if it were networked with railway lines the expenditure would be as nothing construction is so easy and cheap, compared to the amounts she would have to contribute to the great system of the continent. She hesitated; she refused the proffered terns; she went on house-keeping on her own account. She prospered wonderfully, too, under her low tariff, but she was not at peace. The seductive tunes of the suiter were ever in her ear; she listened; and in 1873, as we have said, entered the Union on special terms—she was to be put on an equality with the rest of Canada, to have an uninterrupted channel of communication through which the life of the nation would flow to her unerringly.
The terms of the union, as drawn up by the representatives of the Dominion and our own, contain this important condition:
"The Dominion Government shall assume and defray the charges for efficient steam service for the conveyance of mails and passengers, to be established and maintained between the Island and the mainland of the Dominion, winter and summer, thus placing the Island in continuous communication with the Intercolonial Railway and railway systems of the Dominion."
Sir George Etienne Cartier, Sir John A Macdonald's First Lieutenant and strong right arm, was particularly desirous that we should enter the Confederation; without doubt and for obvious reasons. Sir John himself was equally solicitous; but to Sir George Etienne the overtures were confided; and the zeal which he manifested had much to do with the result. "Come in, come in now" he entreated our representatives, promising them the most generous treatment. But they were suspicious—all small, independent states are; and so they required the most explicit assurances. As to communication, the vital matter, they could not see their way clear: how were they to get the continuous daily steam communication with the Mainland which would place them in close connection with the Intercolonial and other continental railway systems? Sir Etienne was equal to the occasion. "There is nothing impossible to the Privy Council of Canada" he insisted; "Trust us to do it." Under these influences; with these assurances; Prince Edward Island—prosperous, fertile, independent little colony that she was,—threw in her fortunes with the rest of Canada.
And what is the story of her provincial struggles ever since? It is writ in one great word across her life "UNFULFILLED COMPACT," on the part of the strong partner.
Without the unit of communication all provincial life is paralyzed; the little industries even are killed out; agriculture languishes trade is unsteady and uncertain, subject to frequent crises. The country may be the best in the world—it is really the most fertile spot under the                                                      sun—but in such circumstances no adequate progress, no permanent prosperity, is possible. At best the buoyant influence of commercial activity can only reach us as the spent ocean billow rolls upon our beaches in listless wavelets and is done. There might be a plethora of products; there could never be a fortune for anybody in them; when lean years come, as come they must, there is no reserve to call on; and, consequently, distress is ever at the door; whereas equal or inferior effort elsewhere abundantly repays the husbandman's toil.
But how has Canada attempted to fulfil her obligations to Prince Edward Island? How has she satisfied the national honor, pledged in such clear terms, at the union? How has the little sea-girt province essayed to obtain her dearest rights?
Naturally, the first attempt to keep up communication with the Mainland, was by navigation. The people were used to that system in summer, whilst at or between the nearest points, a rude ice-boat service, which combined the nautical idea with the sledges of earliest transportation experience, was in vogue for many years. Then, in their disappointment, steam was invoked to fulfill the letter of the contract. It was of the rudest at first. Old flat bottomed, wooden, river hulks, like the Albert were tried; and. although they were a dismal failure, they gave perhaps the faintest ray of hope, that in this way the problem might ultimately be solved. Then came the Northern Light in 1877. The Government in 1888, impelled by the provincial authorities, sent a naval expert from the Department of Marine, Ottawa, to Sweden, to study winter navigation there. As a consequence the ice-breaker Stanley on the model of the Gottenburg, which plies across the Kattegat, was constructed on the Clyde. This was the first steel boat to attempt the navigation of the Georgetown-Pictou route, which has been regarded as the most suitable field of operation, owing to its width, which is supposed to save it from congestion. The Stanley has done all that could be expected from her. She fails, however to keep up continuous communication. In 1901 the Minto, a 2,400 horse power steel ship was launched in the Old Country, to take up this work with the Stanley. Needless to say, they have not been able to give us a service at all commensurate with our requirements as a province. We have been for whole months at a time—this winter 60 long days—without a crossing, except by the irregular, difficult and dangerous ice-boats at the Capes. Never, even under the most favorable weather conditions, have we enjoyed anything approaching continuous communication such as was assured to us at Confederation. Another and more powerful boat must now be built, not that this system can ever succeed perfectly, but to do the best that can be done till the remedy is applied in another way.
On the part of the province it is but right to say that at no time were the attempts of the General Government accepted as adequate; and that, time and again, protests were sent to Ottawa and claims made upon it for non-impletion of terms. In 1881 a Joint Address of the House here was sent to the Governor General on the subject; in 1883 a Minute of Council was passed declaring that nothing adequate had been done to improve our condition and calling for immediate relief; in 1884 another Joint Address was sent forward and with it a claim for $5,000,000 damages; in 1885 another Minute of Council on the same subject went forward, and later, a Joint Address of both Houses was transmitted to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, stating that, although assured continuous communication by the Terms of Union, the province was still dependent for months at a time upon the rude modes of our fathers, to the great hardship of the people; and praying that the matter be taken into her most gracious consideration. In 1886 a delegation from the Island Executive went to Downing Street, and Earl Granville, Colonial Secretary, remonstrated with Ottawa and suggested the necessity for another means of securing to the Island uninterrupted communication. In 1901 damages to the amount of a million of dollars were allowed to the province and thus its claim to that date satisfied. At this moment another Joint Address is before the Federal authorities.
But just imagine the hardship and loss to the people, the paralysis of trade, the deadening effect on agriculture and the fisheries, inflicted by a complete tie-up such as we have just come through, when for some 60 days we were shutout from the mainland, unable to get a pound of freight and only receiving letters at irregular intervals, by the little, frail, ice-boat                                                      sledges, over the floes, at the Capes! Indeed, not even the letters were available, not even                                                      the registered ones, as one mailed at Stanstead on Feb. 7th and received at Alberton, on March 21st proves. The sick and the dead were held up at the ports of departure, and the poor learned more of misery than could be gleaned in a lifetime elsewhere. Four hundred carloads of freight blocked the Intercolonial railway for miles and miles, and the hay purchased in Quebec, to relieve the cattle distress, could not be had by any effort man is capable of making. The business interests involved suffered immensely goods could not be delivered; drafts were dishonored; orders were cancelled; many firms were forced into liquidation.
It is not wonderful, then, that the people, menaced in their very lives, took the drastic course of calling a popular convention together, which protested in the strongest manner against the course, up to the present, pursued by the Dominion; pointed out how the Terms of Confederation could be completed in the most satisfactory manner, and at reasonable cost, and sent a strong delegation to Ottawa to lay their plaint and its remedy before the Privy Council. Impossibility could not be pleaded until everything had been tried. There was one way at least which promised complete physical connection and all the advantages from it flowing,—the construction of a tunnel under the straits. The distance between New Brunswick and P. E. Island at the nearest points—Money Point, in the former, and Carleton Head, in the latter, is only six and a half miles. This tunnel project was not infrequently talked of, agitated for, and again permitted to go in to abeyance. The late Senator, afterwards Governor Howlan, had put it prominently before Parliament and the people from 1884 to 1894, when he took office. The great leaders had spoken guardedly about it, as was to be expected, but hopefully, if declared practicable. Most people thought it would cost a greater sum than could be reasonably exacted. Tunnelling was then in its infancy. It is now as common as the streets.
Sir John Macdonald, Sir Charles Tupper, and Sir John Thompson, from the Conservative side, at various times and places, held out hope of ultimate relief through a tunnel; Sir Wilfred Laurier in 1892, when plain Wilfrid Laurier and leader of the Opposition, crossed to the Island by way of the Capes, and suffered sufficiently to put him into complete sympathy with us. On his return, he wrote from Athabasca to the editor of one of our papers, who espoused the Tunnel cause, as follows:—
"I hardly would have thought an expression of opinion as to the construction of a Tunnel to connect the Island of Prince Edward with the mainland, necessary from me. Every man who has given any attention to the condition of things and the necessities involved by the entering of the Island into Confederation, must admit that such a Tunnel must be constructed if the thing is reasonably practical. The first requisite is to have an accurate survey and reliable estimates; I am only sorry that these were not obtained long ago."
The geologists, Francis Bain, Sir William Dawson and Dr. Ellis, had made a thorough examination of the locale; they had declared it a splendid tunnel bed, offering practically no engineering difficulties. A consulting member of the great house of Fox & Fox, at the instance of Sir Douglas himself, was engaged to make a survey as a basis of report for his distinguished chief. The water soundings were made by the Admiralty Survey under Capt. Maxwell and F.G. Jonah, of Ottawa. To confirm the opinion of the geologists a number of borings into the strait bed, some 65 feet below the bottom were ordered; and, in the summer of 1892, ten of them were made on the alignment of the Tunnel, 6 on the New                                                      Brunswick and 4 on the Island side. Advantage was also taken of a shaft 400 feet deep, on the Island, to examine the structure therein exposed. The cores from these borings are preserved at Ottawa, in the Geological Bureau, and verify splendidly the work of the geologists. Other borings might be made, it is true, for greater accuracy and to ensure closer competition in contracting; but, to all intents and purposes, enough data is at hand to justify Sir Douglas Fox, in his report of 1891, in saying that absolutely no difficulty menaced the work of a submarine tunnel; that the structure through which it must pass, undisturbed by upheaval, is eminently suitable for tunnelling, and that, in five years, and for ten millions of dollars such tunnel could be built easily. Since that report tunnelling has cheapened at least 40%; the time necessary for construction has been decreased by half.
The Northumberland Tunnel would be pushed through a stratum of clay and shale easily perforated, and impervious to water. Prince Edward Island is the centre of a great Geo-synclinal basin, and the course of its anticlinal, which makes between Tryou and Tormentine, happily gives the tunnel this clay and shale stratum of 200 feet, for the most part; and the easiest gradients to be found on any road, 1 in 100, much easier than the N.B. or P.E.I. roads. The approaches on the N.B. side are practically done away with, and on the Island side, 1½ miles will be the outside length. That the mechanical side of the problem is not appalling may be gleaned from the fact that, at Ottawa the other day, M.J. Haney, a great contractor, well acquainted with the structure of the Island, having done large works here, and believing in the sufficiency of the reports already available, went before the Government with the Island Delegation; and, advised by Mr. Butler, of the G.T.P. staff, made a bona fide offer to put up the necessary security and build the tunnel in six years, for ten million dollars. The writer was one of that delegation and knows whereof he speaks. We are confident, too, that this tunnel is paying contract at a million a mile, i.e., a fraction over 8 million in all.
Now, then, besides the moral obligation imposed upon the Dominion to give us continuous                                                      communication as contained in the bond, what have we as a province to say in the way of justifying such expenditure from the purely business viewpoint? We have a right to the tunnel as the only fulfillment of the terms of union, everyone knows; but we would hesitate to exact it, perhaps, on purely moral grounds. But it will pay the Dominion splendidly and save us as a province from further loss and ultimate extinction. It is a grand bargain at the outside figure of ten million dollars.
When the third winter steamer is constructed, which has to be now undertaken, even with the tunnel agreed on; for the life of the province cannot be jeopardized during the five or six years necessary to get ready for through railway communication, we will have in steamers an investment of one million dollars. The account will then stand somewhat like this:— [deleted]
But who can exaggerate the benefits to the province of an unimpeded artery of trade such as the tunnel will surely afford? Just now we are threatened with the decimation of our population. In 1890 it was 109,000 souls; in 1900 it was but 103,000. We have therefore lost of our normal population 6,000 souls and the 12,000 natural increase, in a decade—18,000 in all. No other province has lost any of its normal population. And we have had our representation retrenched on account of this loss. Population, as everyone knows, means everything to a country; without it the best in the world must languish and die. What matter either, if our loss was the gain of other parts of Canada. It has gone to the United States. The lowest valuation put upon immigration—a valuation traceable to American slavery days—is $1,000 per head. If the poorest of European immigrants is worth $1,000, a Prince Edward Islander, with his agricultural training, his civic and moral virtues, his pluck and intelligence, is easily worth ten times as much, on our plains. But even at $1,000 per head we have lost of our flesh and blood our most precious asset, EIGHTEEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS—the price of two tunnels—in ten years! And just at present the greatest exodus ever known in the province is in full swing. The tunnel alone can correct it.
Agriculture cannot flourish where there is no industrial life; an active consumption makes good markets; good markets improve the price of products; paying products increase land value—everything is dependent upon the quick and profitable interchange of commodity. We must have access to the consumers of our agricultural produce by means, at least, of accurate and reasonable communication, or competition will drive us from the field. Not only is the Island capable of sustaining another hundred thousand people on the land, but with the unit of communication assured, another hundred thousand can be employed in industrial pursuits. At the present every industry in sight is either dead or dying; with the tunnel they will quickly revive, increase, prosper, as in few other lands.
Just now Prince Edward Island contributes at least $1,400,000 to the General Revenue annually; and receives scarcely one half of that sum in return. 300,000 people would treble that amount; and, apart from the annual subsidy, exact little more than the present expenditure. What a Federal investment! Just now we pay an intolerable toll on everything we produce and everything we consume; the tunnel would give us the same facilities, at the same cost, as on the continent; and enable us to enter the provincial markets on equal                                                      footing with our competitors. What this would mean to our Island, who can overstate? Through communication too, should ensure to us the tourist traffic of Canada. This is the "Garden of the Gulf," the Paradise of the tourist, without any doubt. There are millions in this business for us. The tunnel would at once bring up our land values immensely and thus add to the provincial wealth; it would develop our fisheries amazingly; it would stimulate to the full every activity in the land; and, having added to our happiness and prosperity, it would place us without the painful necessity of making angry protests or begging appeals to the Central Government. With it we can easily work out our destiny,—the happiest and most prosperous of the provinces—and add our full part to the general development of Canada. To put us in this position, in view of all the circumstances here exposed whose helping bond will be withheld, in this hour of our urgent need.
A.E. Burke
Alberton, Prince Edward Island
March 31st, 1905