 In 1873, when Parliament opened, Liberal MP Lucius Seth Huntington charged that government ministers had been bribed with large, undisclosed political contributions to award the charter.Documents soon came to light which substantiated what came to be known as the Pacific Scandal.The Allan-led financiers, who were secretly backed by the United States's Northern Pacific Railway, had donated $179,000 to the Tory election funds, they had received the charter, and Opposition newspapers began to publish telegrams signed by government ministers requesting large sums from the railway interest at the time the charter was under consideration.