ly
designed, and soon on its magnificent harbour and most unpromising site
of rock and muskeg the new and scientifically planned city of Prince
Rupert began to rise.

As the main line ran far to the north of the St Lawrence lake and river
system, the original plan provided for the construction of branch lines
to Fort William, to North Bay, and to Montreal. Of these only the
first, aided by the Dominion and also by the Ontario government, was
built. For the connection with North Bay running rights over the
provincial road, the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario, sufficed.
Later, in 1914, the Dominion government itself decided to build the
Montreal branch. In Alberta and Saskatchewan over 1200 miles of branch
lines were begun, under guarantees of bonds by the provincial
governments. In British Columbia an independent {217} road, projected
by the contracting firm of Foley, Welch and Stewart--the Vancouver,
Pacific and Great Eastern--promised when completed to give the Grand
Trunk Pacific, by a traffic agreement, entrance into Vancouver.

The first contracts on the main line were let in 1905. For ten years
construction went on, at the rate of a mile a day, with occasional
slackening from scarcity of labour or financial stringency, but with no
complete halt. Last to be completed were the section to be built by
the company in the Central plateau of British Columbia and the section
built by the government west of Cochrane. Meanwhile, the prairie lines
had been in operation through to Edmonton since 1910, and grain reached
Fort William over the Lake Superior branch in the same year.

From the beginning it had been questioned whether the Grand Trunk
Pacific would carry out its bargain to operate the government section.
The management professed its intention to perform every promise, but
fulfilment was delayed. In 1915 the company demurred to assuming the
lease, on the double ground that the road was not definitely completed,
and that, since the change of government in 1911, the standard {218} of
construction agreed upon had not been maintained. Accordingly the
government took power to operate the road from Winnipeg to Moncton, and
to expropriate the company's branch from Superior to Fort William,
pending further negotiations.

The great Canadian railway companies are much more than railways. The
Grand Trunk system, in its new expansion, branched into every
neighbouring field which could be made to increase the traffi