The Question of State Aid--The Railway Commission--Progress in Service--The Unknown Builders When the pace of construction slackened in 1914, Canada had achieved a remarkable position in the railway world. Only five other countries--the United States, Russia, Germany, India, and, by a small margin, France--possessed a greater mileage; and, relatively to population, none came anywhere near her. Three great systems stretched from coast to coast. Need still existed for local extensions, but by a great effort the main trunk lines had been built. Not only in mileage were the railways of Canada notable. In the degree to which the minor roads had been swallowed up by a few dominating systems, in the wide sweep of their outside operations, in their extension beyond the borders of Canada itself, and in the degree to which they had been built by public aid, they challenged attention. While there were nearly ninety railway companies in Canada in 1914, the three {241} transcontinental systems controlled more than eighty per cent of the total mileage. The variety of the subsidiary undertakings--steamships, hotels, express service, irrigation and land development, grain elevators--has already been indicated. The control by Canadian railways of seven or eight thousand miles of lines in the United States, with corresponding, if smaller, extensions into Canada by American lines, was an outcome of geographic conditions, intimate social and trade connections, and a civilized view of international relations which no other countries could match.