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The following is part of an article which appeared in the Toronto globe under the heading of "The Greatest Railway in the World:"
"President Hays, of the National Transcontinental railway is a thorough going optimist about the future of Canada and in his latest interview gives good reasons for his hopeful forecast. The exultant tone of this remarkable pronouncement is all the more notable because Mr. Hays has, during the whole of his management of the Grand Trunk system, been the very reverse of communicative in his relations with the public at large.
"His statement of what has been accomplished in the construction of the National Transcontinental railway and the contagious cheerfulness with which he faces the future will put a permanent stop to the wretched attempts of political partisans to damage a great national undertaking for the sake of injuring their political opponents.
"The railway that is financed jointly by the Rothschilds of London and Speyes of New York can never be injured by slander, if it fails, its want of excess will be due to long continued mismanagement, not to groundless and malevolent aspersions.
"The most interesting part of Mr. Hays’ statement is that in which he deals with the character of the western division of the railway for the construction of which his own company is entirely responsible. From Winnipeg to Prince Rupert there is not a gradient steeper than 26 feet to the mile, over which a single engine can draw a train with a freight tonnage of more than 2,000. The very best that any other transcontinental lines can do with a single engine is to haul less than 600 tons over a grade of 116 feet to the mile. This is a startlng assurance, but it is made in the such terms as to preclude scepticism on the part of those who receive it.
"No wonder Mr. Hays ventures to predict that a large part of the wheat of the Canadian west will be sent to Europe by the Pacific ocean and Panama canal, to say nothing of what will go direct to the orient to supply the Chinese and Japanese with food. Mr. Hays classes Prince Rupert, in Canada, and Sydney, in Australia as the two very finest harbours in the world, and on the strngth of trustworthy information he feels inclined to award the palm to the Canadian terminus.
"As if in reply to the senseless report that the proprietors of the Grand Trunk railway system are becoming discouraged with the magnitude and difficulty of their undertaking. Mr. Hays announces the fact, learned from personal observation, that rapid progress is being made in the grading of the first hundred miles east of Prince Rupert. The line westward from Winnipeg is rapidly approaching the Rocky mountains, and he sees no reason to doubt that by the autumn of 1911 their first train will break through to the tide water, passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In other words, what will, beyond all controversy be the greatest railway in the world, will be completed within the advertised time and without the slightest financial uncertainty.
"Such a record is absolutely without precedent, and it is sure to greatly enhance the already high reputaion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for Statesmanship that enabled him to plan such a project and force of character that enabled him to have carried it to completion.