Download or read book Close Ties written by Ken Cruikshank and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1991 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the historic controversies surrounding freight rates, Close Ties explores the ways in which Canadians tried to regulate the nation's first big business, the railways. Ken Cruikshank challenges earlier interpretations, concluding that the history of railway regulation in Canada is not a story of powerful business corporations using governments to subvert the people's interests, nor a tale of righteous people overcoming robber barons. Instead, he presents a more complex and engaging account of how governments tried to accommodate the equally selfish demands of divergent and conflicting interests in a competitive economy.