Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

1867 TO 1901 83Dunclas branch, the office of the general manager of the GreatWestern Railway Company and his own home. The Boardwas cautious, however, for it specified that the cost of theexperiment should not exceed the annual expenditure for cabhire, livery charges and telegraph messages, which thesetelephones would render unnecessary in future.In 1879 the era of hard times drew to a close.The harvestof that year was an excellent one, and there were signs ofreturning prosperity for the lumber industry. The Mackenzieadministration had been defeated in the previous September,largely because of the financial depression which prevailedalmost continuously and which increased steadily throughits five years of office. Sir John A. Macdonald hadcarried the elections on what he termed a "National Policy,"involving the principle of protectionof home industries.The advent of a new administration and of a new policy hadroused a spirit of optimism in the country, and signs of thenew era are apparent even in the deliberations of the directorsof The Canadian Bank of Commerce. A project which was tohave an even greater bearing on the future of Canada thanthe adoption of the National Policy was at last under waythe construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, whichopened the West for settlement. The new enterprise firstappears in the records of The Canadian Bank of Commerceon March 7,1879, when the Board had under consideration aproposal from the late Alexander Manning, 1of Toronto, thatthe bank should issue a deposit receipt in favour of theReceiver-General at Ottawa as security for the performance ofa contract awarded to Fraser,Pitblado and Company, withwhom Mr. Manning was associated, for the construction of asection of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This request wasAlexander Manning (1819-1903), contractor, was bora in Dublin, and played alarge part in the municipal life of Toronto for over thirty years, serving as Mayor in1873 and again in 1885. He was connected with a number of important projects,including the erection of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, destroyed by fire inFebruary, 1916, and the construction of the Welland Canal.