While the building of the Grand Trunk was the main achievement of the period, it was by no means the only one. The fifties were the busiest years in the railway annals of older Canada. In 1850 there were only 66 miles of road in all the provinces. In 1860 there were 2065, of which over 1700 had been added in the Canadas alone. The Great Western and the Northern were pushed forward under the provisions of the earlier Guarantee Act; roads of more local interest were fostered by municipal rivalry. Their building brought unwonted activity in every {85} branch of commerce. A speculative fever ran through the whole community; fortunes were made and lost in the provision trade, and land prices soared to heights undreamed of. This mood was the promoter's happy chance, and still more charters were sought. The pace quickened till exhaustion, contagious American panics, poor harvests, and the Crimean War--which first raised the price of the wheat Canada had to sell, but later raised the price of the money she had to borrow--brought collapse in 1857. In this boom period jobbery and lobbying reigned to an extent which we rarely realize in our memory of the good old times. Railway contractors were all-powerful in the legislature, and levied toll at will. The most notable 'contractor-boss' of the day was able, dealing with the Great Western, to hold up a bill for double-tracking until assured of the contract himself; dealing with the Grand Trunk, to force from the English contractors a share in the enterprise before consenting to help their schemes through; with the Northern, to collect $100,000 as a condition of securing from the government the guarantee bonds before they had been rightly earned. Municipal officials were bribed to help bonuses {86} through. Existing roads were blackmailed by pedlars of rival charters. Glaringly fraudulent prospectuses were issued. On a smaller scale, the excitement and the rascality which had marked the beginning of the great railway eras in the United Kingdom and the United States were reproduced in Canada. Of the other roads completed in this period, the two which had been aided by Hincks's first Guarantee Act were most important. The Great Western had a promising outlook. It ran through a rich country and had assured prospects of through western traffic. The road was completed from Suspension Bridge to Windsor in January 1854. An extension from Hamilton to Toronto was built in 1856, and a semi-independent line from Galt to Guelph absorbed in 1860. The Great Western came nearest of any early road to being a financial success; alone of the guaranteed roads it repaid the government loan, nearly in full. But after a brief burst of prosperity, from 1854 to 1856, it, too, was continually in difficulties. In 1856 it paid a dividend of 8 1/2 per cent, but three years later it paid nothing, and in the next decade averaged less than three per cent.