"Newman, Peter C. - Company of Adventures 03 - Merchant Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Peter C)

stovepipe hat awkwardly hammering home the last spike of the Canadian
Pacific Railway at Cralgellachie, a hastily erected caboose-town in Eagle
Pass of the Monashee Mountains on November 7, 1885.
But from there the fuzzy public memory ends.
He had, after all, been neither head of the CPR (that was George Stephen)
nor the railways builder (William Van Horne), and the reason for his
prominence during that improvised ceremony was as mysterious at the time
as it appears in retrospect. Typically, he said not a word at this most
memorable of his life's occasions; he Just bashed in that big nail.
Although he spent considerable energy cultivating the myth of being an
eniginatic presence in crowded landscapes of his own choosing (or even
making), in retrospect, there was nothing very profound or mystical

3
 4 LABRADOR SMITH

about Smith-or the faith he worshipped: his own pocketbook. The
institution he served during an astounding seventy-five-year association
was the Hudson's Bay Company, which he transformed from a haphazardly
linked collection of wilderness outposts into a profitable commercial
enterprise.
In terms of modern Canadian history, Smith was there at the creation. His
roster of accomplishments, self-serving as they ma~ have been,
distinguishes him as a giant among the decision-makers who transformed
Canada from colony to nation. Preferring to dominate events from behind
the scenes rather than directly confront rivals, Smith staged a dazzling
sequence of commercial and political toups d'itat that made him the
richest and most powerful Canadian of his day. He became the role model
for his peers. Smith won every available public honour, including two
university chancellorships, the close confidence of four Canadian prime
ministers (each of whom he betrayed), the friendship of two British
monarchs, a knighthood and a barony for which he chose the
tongue-paralyzing title: "Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, of Glencoe,
co. Argyll, and of Mount Roval, Quebec, Canada."
No one felt neutral about Smith. "As a Canadian," proclaimed the Very
Reverend Daniel M. Gordon, viceChancellor of Queen's University, "I am
grateful to God for the large service He has enabled Lord Strathcona to
render for Canada." In contrast WT.R. Preston, then chief Liberal
organizer for Ontario and a close observer of his methods, wrote: "The
Smith syndicate was entirely responsible for using [the] Canadian
Parliament for the most improper purposes that ever became operative
among a free people."
Smith's catlike career enjoyed endless reincarnations. Each move
irrevocablv led to another opening, with
 THE MAN WHO BECAME A COUNTRY 5

Smith propelling himself from one opportunity to the next without a touch of
diffidence or back-ward glance:

The last of the great historic,il figures associated with governance of