From the 1890s into the Edwardian era the city enjoyed a gilded age. Stephen Leacock recalled, "the rich in Montreal enjoyed a prestige in that era that not even the rich deserve". The men of the CPR retired in the 1890s, having created "the world's greatest transportation system," selling a package of cheap land (their land holdings were equal in size to the Province of Alberta) with a cheap ticket from Britain through to the Canadian West. Together they had built a nation, seeing over a million immigrants settle in the west, and by exploiting the mineral resources included in their land grants, they and their shareholders would see their net earnings grow year on year to $46 million in 1913. Unprecedented amounts of capital now flowed in from Britain to build Western Canada, and Montreal, where every major company had its headquarters, was once again at the centre of this latest web of prosperity - "those who thought that the government of Canada was in Ottawa were mistaken, it was "here"".