was
powerful. Massachusetts {53} had guaranteed bonds of local roads to
the extent of eight millions, without ever having to pay a cent of the
interest; and though New York's experience had been more chequered, the
successes were stressed and the failures were plausibly explained away.

The eight or ten years which followed 1849 are notable not only for a
sudden outburst of railway construction and speculative activity
throughout the provinces, but for the beginning of that close
connection between politics and railways which is distinctively
Canadian. In this era parliament became the field of railway debate.
Political motives came to the front: 'statesmen' began to talk of links
of Empire and 'politicians' began to press the claims of their
constituencies for needed railway communications. Cabinets realized
the value of the charters they could grant or the country's credit they
could pledge, and contractors swarmed to the feast. 'Railways are my
politics,' was the frank avowal of the Conservative leader, Sir Allan
MacNab.

Three names are closely linked with this new policy--those of Howe in
Nova Scotia, Chandler in New Brunswick, and Hincks in Canada.

Francis Hincks, merchant, journalist, and {54} politician, moderate
reformer, and Canada's first notable finance minister, took the
initiative. As inspector-general in the second Baldwin-LaFontaine
Cabinet, he brought down the first instalment of his railway policy in
1849. In the previous session a committee of the House had considered
the demand of the Great Western and of the St Lawrence and Atlantic for
assistance, and had discussed the less advanced proposals for railways
from Montreal to Toronto and from Quebec to Halifax. Allan MacNab, as
chairman of the committee, had listened sympathetically to the plea of
Allan MacNab, president of the Great Western, and the committee had
reported in favour of guaranteeing the stock of the two companies to
the extent of a million sterling. No action was taken at this session.
Meanwhile Hincks, by instruction of his colleagues, had drawn up two
memoranda--one suggesting that the crown lands in the province might be
offered as security for the capital necessary to build the road within
the province, and the other urging the Imperial government to undertake
the road from Halifax to Quebec. Capitalists gave no encouragement to
the first suggestion, and the British government had not replied to the
{55} second by the