r about a hundred miles
of constructed line. Soon afterwards the Legislature of the United
Provinces of Quebec and Ontario passed the measure which is now known
as the Guarantee Act. Under this enactment Government aid was given to
railways of not less than seventy miles in length; and it was with this
aid that the great development of the Grand Trunk system began. In
1854 the Grand Trunk line from Toronto to Montreal was opened. By 1856
Toronto was connected, _via_ Sarnia, with the State of Michigan. In
1859 Toronto was brought into railway communication with Detroit; and
by 1869 the Grand Trunk had leased the International Bridge across the
Niagara River, and by this means {417} its system was connected with
the State of New York and the numerous centres of population in the
Eastern States, which are reached _via_ Buffalo.

Most of this development of the Grand Trunk system had preceded
Confederation; but at Confederation the greatest need of the Dominion
was easy means of communication between the provinces heretofore known
as Upper and Lower Canada. One of the first undertakings of the new
Dominion Government was the construction of the Intercolonial Railway,
the object of which was to connect the maritime provinces with each
other and with Quebec, and the building of which by the Government was
one of the conditions on which the maritime provinces had consented to
Confederation. It still remained to push out a railway to the far
west, and in 1881 work was begun on the Canadian Pacific Railway. In
four years this great highway across the continent was ready for use,
and in 1887 the Canadian Pacific Railway established a line of
steamships across the Pacific in connection with its Pacific terminals.

With the opening of the great North-west and the creation of the new
provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905,[1] the railway
communication was found to be insufficient, and a new line to the
Pacific was begun by the Grand Trunk Railway, which had been the
pioneer in railway work in Ontario, and which before the beginning of
the new line had already over 3,000 miles of road. {418} The Grand
Trunk Pacific Railway is divided into two sections. The eastern runs
from Moncton to Winnipeg, a distance of 1,875 miles, and is being built
by the Government. On its completion it is to be leased to the Grand
Trunk Railway Company for fifty years. The western section runs from
Winnipeg to Prince Rupert on the Pacifi