d for public aid.

[Illustration: Railroads and Lotteries. An Early Canadian Prospectus]

With these local roads under way or actively promoted, still larger
projects loomed up. A line from Montreal to Toronto, paralleling the
St Lawrence, and thus for the first {49} time competing with water
transport instead of merely supplementing it, began to be talked of as
possible. The need of bringing the Maritime Provinces into closer
touch with the Canadas lent support to plans of a road from Halifax to
Quebec. But for these extensive schemes public aid was even more
indispensable.

Hitherto the government of British North America had framed no definite
or continuous railway policy. There had been general agreement that
railway building should be left to private enterprise. In 1832, when
the charter of the Champlain and St Lawrence was under discussion in
the legislature of Lower Canada, some members advocated government
ownership, but Papineau, the French-Canadian leader, protested against
the jobbery that would follow. In the forties the government of Canada
was selling its highways to toll-companies, and was not likely to
embark on railway construction. In several later charters provision
was made for state purchase, after a term of years, at cost plus twenty
or twenty-five per cent. Control of private companies in the interest
of the shipper was sometimes sought. In the charter of the Champlain
and St Lawrence a maximum rate was prescribed {50} at 3d. a mile for
passengers and 9 3/4d. a mile per ton of freight, subject to reduction
when profits exceeded twelve per cent. In Upper Canada the earlier
charters set no maximum, though the governor in council was given power
to approve rates. It appeared to be held that different forwarding
companies would make use of the iron way, and afford sufficient
competition to protect shippers and passengers against extortion. New
Brunswick in 1836 revealed the not modest expectations of profit which
prevailed. It provided, in the St Andrews and Quebec charter, that
after ten years tolls, if excessive, might be reduced to yield only
twenty-five per cent profit. The same sanguine expectations were
reflected in the provision made in eight charters issued by Lower
Canada between 1845 and 1850, that half the profits over a minimum
varying from ten to twenty-four per cent were to go to the state.

The prevalent belief in the great profits to be obtained influenced
public opi