Lake St. Peter between Montreal and Quebec was improved by the harbour
commissioners of the former city, aided by the government. Before the
LaFontaine-Baldwin cabinet left office, it was able to see the
complete success of this thoroughly Canadian or national policy. The
improvement of this canal system--now the most magnificent in the
world--has kept pace with the development of the country down to the
present time.

It was mainly, if not entirely, through the influence of Hincks,
finance minister in the government, that a vigorous impulse was given
to railway construction in the province. The first railroad in British
North America was built in 1837 by the enterprise of Montreal
capitalists, from La Prairie on the south side of the St. Lawrence as
far as St. John's on the Richelieu, a distance of only sixteen miles.
The only railroad in Upper Canada for many years was a horse tramway,
opened in 1839 between Queenston and Chippewa by the old portage road
round the falls of Niagara. In 1845 the St. Lawrence and Atlantic
Railway Company--afterwards a portion of the Grand Trunk
Railway--obtained a charter for a line to connect with the Atlantic
and St. Lawrence Railway Company of Portland, in the State of Maine.
The year 1846 saw the commencement of the Lachine Railway. In 1849 the
Great Western, the Northern, and the St. Lawrence and Atlantic
Railways were stimulated by legislation which gave a provincial
guarantee for the construction of lines not less than seventy-five
miles in length. In 1851 Hincks succeeded in passing a measure which
provided for the building of a great trunk line connecting Quebec with
the western limits of Upper Canada. It was hoped at first that this
road would join the great military railway contemplated between Quebec
and Halifax, and then earnestly advocated by Howe and other public men
of the maritime provinces with the prospect of receiving aid from the