At once a struggle began for the control of this fund. The Montreal merchants who had bought experience in building the St Lawrence and Atlantic, John Young, Luther Holton, and D. L. Macpherson, with A. T. Galt of Sherbrooke, were first in the field, and pressed for a charter to build from Montreal to Kingston, intending later to extend this road to Toronto. Then the most noted firm of contractors in railway history, Peto, Brassey, Betts and Jackson (the forms of the firm name varied), who had built one-third of the railways of Britain, and also roads in France and Spain and Italy and Prussia and India, were attracted to this fresh field by Howe's campaign in England. They sent an agent to Toronto in 1851 to offer to construct all the roads needed, and to find all the capital required, with partial government guarantees. Hincks, with whom the decision lay, was {71} eminently an opportunist. In 1849 he had argued against government ownership; now he argued for it. Yet he did not close the door against retreat. The new Act, passed in April 1852, marked the second or Grand Trunk phase of his gradually shaping policy. Besides providing for the Canadian share of the Halifax to Quebec road, the Act contemplated three alternative methods of continuing this Trunk line westward. The province was to build it if the guaranteed loan could be stretched far enough; failing this, the province, together with such municipalities as wished, could undertake the extension; should both modes fail, private companies might be given the privilege, with a provincial guarantee of half the cost, covering both principal and interest. No roads except those forming part of the Trunk line and the three already under way were to be aided. The Montreal and Kingston Railway, in which Holton, Galt, and Macpherson were prime movers, was chartered, and also the Kingston and Toronto, but in both charters a suspending clause was included preventing the charters from taking effect until special proclamation was made--after the other plans had failed. The next move was to arrange terms with {72} the other provinces and secure the promised Imperial guarantee. How Hincks and Chandler's mission failed has already been told. Hincks then made another sharp curve and decided for company control. Before leaving Canada he had made up his mind that the construction should be entrusted to British contractors, and was authorized to negotiate with the Brassey firm. Now that the Imperial guarantee had faded away, capital was needed more than contractors. The Brasseys promised both, offering, if given the contract, to organize a company in England which would provide all the capital not guaranteed by the province.