Governor Haldimand had, from 1779-1782, constructed a very simple temporary system of canals to overcome the rapids called the Cascades, Cedars and Coteau, and some slight improvements were made in these primitive works from year to year until the completion of the Beauharnois Canal in 1845.  The Lachine Canal was completed, after a fashion, in 1828, but nothing was done to give a continuous river navigation between Montreal and the west until 1845, when the Beauharnois Canal was first opened.  The Rideau Canal originated in the experiences of the war of 1812-14, which showed the necessity of a secure inland communication between Montreal and the country on Lake Ontario; but though first constructed for defensive purposes, it had for years decided commercial advantages for the people of Upper Canada, especially of the Kingston district.  The Grenville canal on the Ottawa was the natural continuation of this canal, as it ensured uninterrupted water communication between Bytown—­now the city of Ottawa—­and Montreal.

The heavy public debt contracted by Upper Canada prior to 1840 had been largely accumulated by the efforts of its people to obtain the active sympathy and cooperation of the legislature of French Canada, where Papineau and his followers seemed averse to the development of British interests in the valley of the St. Lawrence.  After the union, happily for Canada, public men of all parties and races awoke to the necessity of a vigorous canal policy, and large sums of money were annually expended to give the shipping of the lakes safe and continuous navigation to Montreal.  At the same time the channel of Lake St. Peter between Montreal and Quebec was improved by the harbour commissioners of the former city, aided by the government.  Before the LaFontaine-Baldwin cabinet left office, it was able to see the complete success of this thoroughly Canadian or national policy.  The improvement of this canal system—­now the most magnificent in the world—­has kept pace with the development of the country down to the present time.

It was mainly, if not entirely, through the influence of Hincks, finance minister in the government, that a vigorous impulse was given to railway construction in the province.  The first railroad in British North America was built in 1837 by the enterprise of Montreal capitalists, from La Prairie on the south side of the St. Lawrence as far as St. John’s on the Richelieu, a distance of only sixteen miles.  The only railroad in Upper Canada for many years was a horse tramway, opened in 1839 between Queenston and Chippewa by the old portage road round the falls of Niagara.  In 1845 the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway Company—­afterwards a portion of the Grand Trunk Railway—­obtained a charter for a line to connect with the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway Company of Portland, in the State of Maine.  The year 1846 saw the commencement of the Lachine Railway.  In 1849 the Great Western, the Northern, and the St.