The negotiations for the construction of an intercolonial railway having failed for the reasons previously stated, (p. 100), Hincks made successful applications to English capitalists for the construction of the great road always known as the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.  It obtained a charter authorizing it to consolidate the lines from Quebec to Richmond, from Quebec to Riviere du Loup, and from Toronto to Montreal, which had received a guarantee of $3,000 a mile in accordance with the law passed in 1851.  It also had power to build the Victoria bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal, and lease the American line to Portland.  By 1860, this great national highway was completed from Riviere du Loup on the lower St. Lawrence as far as Sarnia and Windsor on the western lakes.  Its early history was notorious for much jobbery, and the English shareholders lost the greater part of the money which they invested in this Canadian undertaking.[13] It cost the province from first to last upwards of $16,000,000 but it was, on the whole, money expended in the interests of the country, whose internal development would have been very greatly retarded in the absence of rapid means of transit between east and west.  The government also gave liberal aid to the Great Western Railway, which extended from the Niagara river to Hamilton, London and Windsor, and to the Northern road, which extended north from Toronto, both of which, many years later, became parts of the Grand Trunk system.

In accordance with its general progressive policy, the Hincks-Morin ministry passed through the legislature an act empowering municipalities in Upper Canada, after the observance of certain formalities, to borrow money for the building of railways by the issue of municipal debentures guaranteed by the provincial government.  Under this law a number of municipalities borrowed large sums to assist railways and involved themselves so heavily in debt that the province was ultimately obliged to come to their assistance and assume their obligations.  For years after the passage of this measure, Lower Canada received the same privileges, but the people of that province were never carried away by the enthusiasm of the west and never burdened themselves with debts which they were unable to pay.  The law, however, gave a decided impulse at the outset to railway enterprise in Upper Canada, and would have been a positive public advantage had it been carried out with some degree of caution.

The government established a department of agriculture to which were given control of the taking of a decennial census, the encouragement of immigration, the collection of agricultural and other statistics, the establishment of model farms and agricultural schools, the holding of annual exhibitions and fairs, and other matters calculated to encourage the cultivation of the soil in both sections of the province.  Malcolm Cameron became its first minister in connection with his nominal duties as president of the executive council—­a position which he had accepted only on condition that it was accompanied by some more active connection with the administration of public affairs.