nd
the provincial governments, and threats of aid in building a parallel
line forced the Grand Trunk to relinquish control to its great rival.
Not yet content, the Canadian Pacific sought winter ports at St John
and Halifax. It secured control of the South-eastern Counties in
Quebec, built a short line through Maine to Mattawamkeag with the aid
of a large Dominion subsidy, acquired running rights or control by
lease over part of the old European and North American, and thus
entered St John. In 1890 its eastern development was completed for
{175} a time by the lease of the New Brunswick Railway, which had
recently absorbed nearly all the small lines in western New
Brunswick.[2]

Meanwhile the management had been equally aggressive in obtaining
feeders in central and western Ontario, the very heart of the Grand
Trunk's territory. In 1881 the Ontario and Quebec was chartered, by
interests friendly to the Canadian Pacific, to build a line from Ottawa
to Toronto, by way of Smith's Falls. Two years later this company
acquired leases for 999 years of three important lines, and transferred
them, along with its own road, to the Canadian Pacific. The first of
these lines was the Toronto, Grey and Bruce, the narrow-gauge railway
which ran north to Georgian Bay; the second was the Credit Valley,
extending from Toronto to St Thomas; the third, the Atlantic and
North-West, a road with little mileage but most useful charter powers,
used for the seaward extension. Later, a railway was built from St
Thomas to Windsor. Thus the Canadian Pacific secured access to {176}
Lake Ontario, Georgian Bay, and the Detroit river. Not yet content, it
built a branch to Sault Ste Marie. Here connection was made with the
'Soo' lines, giving outlet to St Paul and Minneapolis, and with the
several roads later combined to form the Duluth, South Shore and
Atlantic. Both of these lines shortly afterwards came definitely under
its control.

In the prairie West the Canadian Pacific had been promised in 1880 a
monopoly of through traffic for twenty years. The Dominion government,
it will be remembered, had agreed not to charter, nor to permit the
territories to charter, any lines between the Canadian Pacific and the
United States border, running south or southeast. Going beyond these
terms, the Dominion endeavoured also to prevent Manitoba from
authorizing the construction of any such road, and disallowed one
chartering act after another.

From