Emily P. Weaver
Canada and the British immigrant

The climate has honest heat in summer and honest cold in winter. The sun is seldom hidden, and men see many seasons, and are healthy, strong, and active.—The Marquis of Lorne, K.T.

PREFATORY NOTE

By the very writing of this book, I am in a measure offering myself as a guide to any prospective immigrant choosing to avail himself of my services. It is well, therefore, to explain that I myself came out from England, a good many years ago, as one of a large family, to settle in Canada, and so know something at first hand, of the difficulties, the trials and the pleasures that await the newcomer in the attempt to “make good” under unfamiliar circumstances.

My father had had no previous experience of farming, but fortunately one of my brothers had had a little training on a Cheshire farm. We settled ourselves on a good-sized farm in a fertile district of Ontario, and there we had an experience probably broadly resembling that of many new arrivals—sometimes amusing, sometimes vexatious, or worse. Of course we made some mistakes and had to pay for them; and we took, I am inclined to think, several years really to settle down. But in the end we all “believe in Canada,” though I dare not say we believe in everything we read about Canada.

After a number of years on the farm, there followed for some of us years in Toronto and in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I may claim, moreover, to know something, still at first hand, of many parts and of all the provinces of the Dominion (save one), while it has been my lot to give for many years much time to the study of Canadian history.

The purpose of this book is, however, neither to set forth the history of the Dominion, nor to relate our own individual experiences, whilst we were “feeling our way,” as a neighbour once expressed it. It is intended rather to give a general idea of the Dominion as a whole, and of each of the provinces a little more in detail, touching their history only as it seems likely to help to the understanding of what they now are, and of the attitude and ideals of the Canadian people.

I have written much of resources and opportunities, but have endeavoured also not to neglect mention of disadvantages, for Canada is no “earthly paradise,” but only “a good land and a large,” where there is scope for many types of human beings to develop physically, mentally and spiritually, as some of them have not room to do in the crowded centres of population in the Old World.

I should like to add that my thought always in every chapter has been of the British immigrant, present or to come; and this must be my excuse for dealing with such a familiar subject as Canada in a way that may seem to those who dwell therein to be marked both by sins of omission and of superfluity.

I have endeavoured to draw my facts and figures from reliable sources only. I have obtained them largely from government reports; but desire to acknowledge my indebtedness also to Mr. Frank Yeigh’s valuable statistical compilation, “Five Thousand Facts about Canada,” and to some of the special numbers of the Globe (Toronto) which, from time to time, publishes comprehensive reviews of conditions in the different provinces.

The black-and-white illustrations, supplementing Mr. Copping’s beautiful sketches in colour, are from photographs gathered from various sources. Not a few of them, however, I owe to the courtesy of the Department of the Interior, Ottawa, the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Northern, and the Grand Trunk Railway Companies.

Before the reader passes on to the book itself, I should like to add a word of warning. In the short interval between the writing of these pages and the revising of the proofs, conditions in Canada with regard to the demand for certain classes of labour have changed owing to the financial stringency of 1913. I believe the set-back is only temporary, and there is little probability of any decrease in the demand for men to work on the farms, for the prices of all agricultural products are high enough to warrant, if it were possible, a very largely increased output. Moreover, the harvest of the year just passed was extraordinarily bountiful and encouraging for the future.

But, for the next few months at least, persons who propose to seek work in the towns, at building and other constructive trades, or in shops or offices, would be wise to make very sure of employment in Canada, before giving up work at home. The cost of living (including house-rent, fuel, and food) is very high here; and the immigrant who arrives in slack times may have a long season of waiting for work. But he who comes out when work is plentiful is in an entirely different position, as he should be able to lay by something for a time of less general prosperity.

I would say to all prospective immigrants—make very particular inquiries as to conditions in the special line of work you intend to follow before leaving home, as this may save much disappointment and even hardship.

In the appendix are addresses of persons from whom further information may be obtained, notes on the government land regulations, and so forth, which it is hoped may prove of practical use to immigrants.

E. P. W.

Toronto, Ontario.

January, 1914.

I
WHY CANADA IS BRITISH

AFTER a pleasant voyage up the St. Lawrence, between the lines of the long French settlements on its banks, each having as its most important feature a tin-covered church spire, glinting in the sun, I remember very well coming at last through the channel between the Isle of Orleans and the northern bank to the point where, in full array, were visible the walls and towers surmounting the mighty Rock of Quebec. It was about sundown, on a glorious September evening, and the city, the river banks, and the shipping in the basin were here lit up with glowing light, there deep in warm shadow. It was in itself one of those scenes, which, for their beauty alone, fasten themselves in the memory.

But we English boys and girls, fresh from school, if we knew little else about Canada, had been thrilled by the brave story of Wolfe’s victory and death on the Plains of Abraham; and so that lovely sunset scene of rock and tower, and shining water, seemed to link the history of the land we had left with the promise of the all but unknown country whither we were bound.

Never again can we see Quebec as we saw it then; yet added knowledge of its place in the story of the Empire and of Canada does not lessen its interest; and there is no spot more suitable for the telling of the reasons why it came to pass that Canada is a British land than that beneath the shadow of Cape Diamond. I am sure that the question is of interest to many a newcomer, who has preferred to emigrate to Canada, just because it is British, rather than to the United States. If, however, he has already given his attention to the subject, it will be easy to pass over this brief sketch of one phase of Canada’s very interesting history to the chapters dealing more particularly with the Canada of to-day.

The name Canada, which now stands for half a continent, once belonged only to a small region, on the St. Lawrence; and at first the Canadians in general were of French race and language. A little over three hundred years ago Samuel Champlain founded Quebec, which for one hundred and fifty years was the capital of New France. Meanwhile the English colonies, which afterwards leagued themselves together to form the United States, were also growing gradually stronger through this century and a half; and almost from the beginning there was great rivalry between the French and English for the control of the eastern part of North America.

The English, neglected by their home government, and having to depend on themselves, proved the better colonizers; advancing gradually, step by step into the wilderness, and generally holding what they gained. The French, on the other hand, though excellent explorers and traders and fighters, pushed far afield, and the population of New France grew slowly compared to that of the English colonies. There was endless fighting between the representatives of the two races, both of which at times sought help from the Indians. The result was a peculiarly merciless warfare, in which women and children were murdered, prisoners tortured, and the little unprotected settlements on the frontiers constantly exposed to dreadful night attacks and the burning of their buildings and crops. The mother countries of both French and English colonists joined frequently in the struggles, and at last (as every British schoolboy knows) Quebec was taken and Canada was conquered.

But it is not so well-known by those who have made no special study of its history that the French in Canada had for years suffered sad misgovernment, many of the officials sent out from France being bent only on making money by fair means or foul. In contrast to these men, the British officers, whose duty it became, on the conquest, to govern the Canadians, seemed eminently fair and just; and the lower classes at least felt that the change was for the better. Many of the gentlemen left the country, but others remained, and the early British governors took great pains to conciliate them and the Roman Catholic priests. By the Quebec Act, which came into effect in 1775, the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was secured to the French Canadians as well as the retention of their old system of civil law; but in criminal cases English law was to be followed.

The Act was passed when the “Thirteen Colonies” to the south of Canada and Nova Scotia (which had become a British colony early in the eighteenth century) were on the eve of revolt, and before many months had gone by the United Colonies sent an invading army to try to force Canada to make common cause with them. But the leaders of the Canadian people proved loyal, and the invaders, though they kept up the siege of Quebec through the whole of one winter, were driven out of the country.

At that time the British inhabitants of Canada were very few, but the Revolutionary War was to do a great deal to make it strongly and positively British. Many of the people of the Thirteen Colonies were much averse from the breaking of the ties with England; and numbers of them took up arms on the royal side. When the fortunes of war went against them, many of these United Empire Loyalists were eager to leave a land which had thus cast off the old allegiance that they held dear; and the triumphant revolutionists, partly in fear of their strength, partly in hate born of the long and bitter warfare—in which both sides had been betrayed into many cruel and unjustifiable deeds—were just as eager to thrust them out.

The British government paid vast sums in compensating the Loyalists in some measure for their losses, and in settling them in new homes. Some of them went to England; but thousands made their way to Canada and Nova Scotia, and their coming forms the best answer to the question—“Why is Canada British?”

It is British because its older English-speaking colonies were founded on the idea of “Loyalty” as some of the New England colonies were founded on a demand for religious liberty. The two colonies of New Brunswick and Upper Canada (as Ontario was named at first) owe their existence as separate provinces to the influx of Loyalists towards the close of the eighteenth century; and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island all received large additions to their population. The number of settlers who thus came in from the former British colonies has been estimated at about 45,000.

It should not be forgotten, however, that these people, who had suffered so grievously for their adherence to their old allegiance, were not in the main blind and servile upholders of the throne for its own sake (as many of the royalists of the Stuart times had been), though unquestionably the severance of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain had been due in part to the efforts of George III. to become an autocratic monarch. The title bestowed on these Americans who settled in Canada—which is still a matter of pride to their descendants—was that of “United Empire Loyalists;” and always in their minds loyalty to country and empire and their ancient political institutions was associated with their loyalty to the throne.

Not a few of the leaders of the Loyalists had been men of great influence in the older colonies, and it is not surprising that almost from their arrival in what is now the Dominion of Canada, they began to agitate for representative government, and for the British institutions to which they had been accustomed. They were a liberty-loving people; and those who had settled on the St. Lawrence stoutly objected to being obliged to live under the French civil laws, which gave such satisfaction to their Gallic neighbours. They besieged the British government with petitions for a division of the Province, and for the benefit of British law; so in 1791 the old French Province was divided into Upper and Lower Canada. The newcomers thus gained the opportunity to build up a new province on British lines in the almost uninhabited western wilderness; and, having the opportunity, I think they did wonders with it.

In a hundred ways, besides the determination not to accept any limitation of their political liberty, they showed their force and energy of character. The task that faced Canada’s first British pioneers was more strenuous than that which has faced any pioneers since, though the opening and subduing of a new land to the uses of civilized man is always a task that tests to the utmost the manhood and womanhood of those who essay it.

The land was thickly covered with huge trees, and in many places the soil, which the sun’s rays could scarcely ever reach through the shadowy verdure of the woods, was cold and wet and swampy. When the Loyalists came, there were no roads in Upper Canada or New Brunswick. There were no steamboats on the lakes or rivers, no railroads even dreamed of. The monarchs of the forest appeared to those first settlers in the light of enemies, to be put out of the way by axe and fire as speedily as possible, and in many districts the land was savagely stripped bare of woods, in a fashion that those who have come after cannot help regretting. It was only the ashes of the majestic maples and beeches and walnuts which had any value in the eyes of the pioneers. Made into potash these would fetch a little ready money, hardly to be obtained in those early days for any other commodity. Even for wheat, only “store-pay” could usually be obtained, and but a small allowance of that, for the great world’s markets were utterly inaccessible to Canada’s early farmers, and the local demand was very small.

It was the age of home industries, when every man was by turns builder of his own log-house; cabinet-maker of such rude attempts at chairs and tables as he could turn out; farmer of patches of grain amongst the slowly rotting stumps of forest trees; roadmaker, of ways “slashed” through the bush and stretches of corduroy over the swamps.

Meanwhile his wife was not only dressmaker, but spinner and weaver of stout “homespun”; not only housekeeper, but maker of candles and soap; not only cook of the daily meals, but baker of bread, when flour could be got, and contriver of some substitute for it when pounded maize or Indian meal had to be used instead.

And these lists might be extended indefinitely. The people drank tea made from a wild plant growing along the edges of the swamps, and sweetened it with sugar made by boiling the sap drawn in the spring from their own maple trees. Such articles as spoons were cut from bass wood. Shoes were fashioned by the father of the family from the skins of the animals he killed. The arrival, or the making, of the first wheeled vehicle in some settlements was an event, the only kind of conveyance used at first being a rude “sled” drawn by oxen.

Chapters might be written on the means by which the Loyalists came to Canada. Often their journeys from their old homes took weeks. Many came by sea from New York to the Maritime Provinces, and a piteous sight they presented, on their arrival, in worn and often positively ragged clothing. Others came in canoes or heavier wooden boats, making long roundabout voyages up one stream and down another to Lake Ontario, but in places having to carry both boats and goods across a long “portage.” Yet others, of the more fortunate class, who had saved something from the wreck of their fortunes, travelled in big covered wagons, which served for tents at night for the women and children; and some brought in a cow or two as well as the horses or oxen that drew their vehicles.

Many of the Loyalists had lost all, and depended for their new start in life entirely on the bounty of the government. Others had some means of subsistence left, not a few having served as officers during the Revolutionary War and drawing half-pay. They were of all classes, from ex-officials of the revolted colonies, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, and merchants to private soldiers, labourers, Indians and even negro slaves.

Many of them were men and women of good education, and one of the most difficult problems to be faced in the new settlements was the education of the children. Soon many tiny log school-houses were put up, and the demand for teachers was so great that anyone who had a smattering of knowledge had a good chance to be put in charge of a little school. Often, however, it fell to the mother to give her boys and girls their first lessons in reading and writing by the hot light of the great fires that roared up the chimneys on a winter’s evening.

Books in the settlements were few, but generally well read, newspapers were non-existent, and there are traditions in more than one settlement of an obliging postmaster, who used to carry the whole “mail” of a district about with him in his hat, so that he might distribute the letters as occasion offered.

Amongst these pioneers laboured missionaries of different denominations, whose experience of toilsome journeys and perils by land and water resembled those of the Apostles. In canoes, on foot or on horseback they tried courageously to serve the needs of parishes that are now counties; and great was the rejoicing when at last some little log-church was built, though it might have no seats but rough boards set on short pieces of tree trunks.

In these years of hardship the courageous spirit and the useful experience of the Loyalists triumphed, and well and truly did they lay the foundation of a new British nation in the north. Some Americans of adventurous turn of mind, but not of their political creed, early found their way into the land; but when in June, 1812, there broke out between the young American Republic and England a war, which had grown out of the struggle of the last-named nation with Napoleon, it was the old spirit of the Loyalists which dominated Canada; and in a long three years’ conflict they again and again beat back the invaders across their frontiers. They were indeed well aided by the French of Lower Canada, and by newcomers from the British Isles; but, whoever might falter, the Loyalists were determined that their new country should remain British.

This, of course, tended to draw other immigrants loyal to the Empire to Canada. Of these later immigrants something will be said in dealing with the separate provinces; but Canada as a whole has never lost her heritage of loyalty, nor of the independence of spirit which has come to her from the descendants of the men who forced the Great Charter from the reluctant tyrant John, and of those who extorted the assent of King Charles to the Bill of Rights.

As the years went on, it was found difficult in practice to evolve a system by which the new British-American colonies should have the full liberty they demanded without weakening the tie binding them to the Mother-land. When Upper and Lower Canada were separated, Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe congratulated the former province on possessing a “transcript of the British constitution,” but the measure of self-government given was much less than that which the men of the British Isles had attained; and there was difficulty and blundering and heart burning, there was even an actual rebellion in the Canadas before a really satisfactory system of colonial government was worked out.

It is interesting that, to a large extent, the political institutions of Canada, like those of the Mother-land, are not what might be described as an invention of any statesman, or group of statesmen, but rather resemble a living organism, which, in order to survive and grow, has had to adapt itself to its environment. At first, after the rude shock of the secession from the Empire of the Thirteen Colonies, British statesmen were nervously apprehensive that the growth of the new colonies in wealth and power would inevitably result in their separation from Britain. Then there arose a school of statesmen, who were prepared to acquiesce with eagerness in any step on the part of the “overseas dominions” in the direction of independence. But after more than a century of dangers and vicissitudes the Canadian provinces are British still; and the politicians in England who wish to bid them farewell are no longer numerous.

That they are British (to return to the point whence we started) is due above all to the sturdy spirit of the brave old Loyalists who formed the earliest large accession of British immigrants to Canada. They had their faults; they were not free from the bitterness and cruelty with which they charged their victorious opponents. They were martyrs of a lost cause, and as a class were never remarkably patient sufferers; but they were undoubtedly fine material for the building of a new nation, and the debt that Canada owes to them is not to be lightly estimated.

When it appeared (as it soon did appear) that the form of representative government granted to the colonies was only a shadow of the popular government of the Mother-land, the liberty-loving colonists began a persistent and long-continued agitation for a change. The flaws in the colonial form of government were that at first the representatives of the people had no control over the finances of the several provinces; and that the government was administered by the officials of what was called the “Executive Council,” who were appointed, and could only be removed, by the royal governor representing the Crown, and were not in any way responsible to the electors of the colonial Assemblies. The executive councillors were in a position to bid defiance to the popular branch, especially as the Legislative Council, or Upper House, of the colonial legislatures, composed of men appointed by the governor, usually made common cause with them against the Assemblies. In fact, in the Canadas many men had seats in both councils; and in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick one council had both legislative and executive functions.

After a short period, even the governors sent out from England were at a great disadvantage compared with the councillors, many of whom had spent the greater part of their lives in the colony. A newly-arrived governor naturally looked to his councillors for advice and information. It was they and their families who formed the most important part of his little court, and if he did not speedily fall under their influence, he had many difficulties thrown in his way. In Lower Canada the political troubles were aggravated by the fact that almost all the members of the legislature and Executive Councils belonged to the small English-speaking Protestant minority.

For nearly half a century the disputes between the different branches of the government continued; but at last, after the rebellion of 1837-38, Lord Durham was sent as High Commissioner to Canada, and though his conduct of affairs was severely criticized at home, he managed to probe to the bottom the chronic state of discontent in the colonies; and the remedy he recommended was that the executive in the colonies should be made, as in England, responsible to the people, and that the body of officials in the several provinces should only continue to rule while they could command the support of a majority in the Assemblies. His advice was followed, and within a few years all the provinces had “Responsible Government.”

Thus was forged another link which bound the colonies to the Empire, for at last the people felt that the Mother-land could no longer be blamed for any blunders and wrong-doing in the administration of the governments on this side of the ocean; and the electors knew that if the government was not so good as it might be, it was at least as good as those who put it into power deserved to have. The system had also, like its British model, a flexibility and a capacity for readjustment to new situations or more advanced views, which made it peculiarly suited to a land where conditions are constantly changing.

The government has remained to this day essentially British in its underlying principle of the ultimate responsibility of the cabinet to the electors, though in some respects, since the confederation of the provinces, it has had in outward appearance a considerable resemblance to the government of the United States.

II
THE DOMINION OF CANADA

HISTORICALLY, the Dominion of Canada was evolved from the separate provinces; but it will be more convenient here to consider it as a whole before giving some account of each of the nine provinces separately. In this chapter, and generally throughout the book, when I speak of Canada, I mean the Dominion of Canada, though the name was first applied to the French province on the St. Lawrence, which was sometimes also called New France. Afterwards, for three-quarters of a century, from 1791 to 1867, the province now known as Quebec was called Lower Canada, or Canada East; and that now known as Ontario, Upper Canada, or Canada West.

The immense area of Canada is one of its most striking features. Its size is one of the reasons that it is a land of great opportunity; it is also the root of many of the most difficult problems of its government and development. In area it is over 3½ million square miles; that is to say, it is a little larger than the United States, or than Europe would be without France. It stretches from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the Pacific on the west, and from the United States boundary on the south to the Arctic Ocean on the north. The distance from Halifax in Nova Scotia to Vancouver in British Columbia is about 3,660 miles, whilst that from Halifax to Liverpool is only about 2,820; and the traveller, wishing to go from Victoria in Vancouver Island to Dawson in the Yukon District, has to make a journey by land and water of over 1,500 miles.

It is just as well for the intending immigrant to try to realize that Canada is a land of “magnificent distances”; otherwise, on his outward journey, perhaps to some point in the far west, it may seem that the distance he is putting between himself and his old home is interminable. With modern conveniences of travel, however, the immigrant of to-day can come from England and cross Canada to Vancouver in a shorter time than it took the Loyalists to go from New York to Toronto.

The most southern point of Canada, a little islet in Lake Erie, is only about the same distance from the equator as is Valladolid in Spain, whilst Toronto is in nearly the same latitude as Florence, and the new town of Prince Rupert, far up on the Pacific seaboard of the Dominion, is not much farther north than Liverpool.

The vast extent of country and the variety in its physical features cause considerable differences of climate; but generally the interior is rather colder than the same latitudes in the west of Europe, and the summer, though hot and dry, is shorter than in Europe. The climate in the region near the Atlantic is colder than the countries on the opposite side of that ocean, owing to a cold current which flows southward along its shores from the Arctic regions; but the Pacific Coast, which has the benefit of the warm Japanese current, has a climate very much resembling that of the British Isles.

Upon the whole, however, it may be said that one of the strongest points of the Canadian climate generally is its amount of sunshine and clear weather. Even in the high latitudes the summer, though short, is warm, and, of course, as one goes further north, the possible number of hours of sunshine in the day during the summer increases, so that growth is extremely rapid. Thus results the ripening of crops of grain and vegetables and certain kinds of fruit much farther north than a mere glance at the map would lead one to expect. There has as yet been little systematic experiment as to what crops can be grown in the higher latitudes; but for generations vegetables have been cultivated in the gardens of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s factors, and also at many a mission station in the northern wilderness; and it is an interesting circumstance that the imaginary line beyond which profitable farming has been supposed impossible has again and again been pushed farther north.

Till within the last half century, indeed, the “North-West Territories” were held by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and as agriculture and fur trading are hardly compatible industries, it was not to the interest of this powerful fur trading corporation to advertise the agricultural possibilities of the country, nor to set right the popular misconception of British North America as a land of nothing but snow and ice. It is quite true that it has snow and ice in plenty; but there is a golden side to the shield as well as a silver one; and Canada might just as fairly claim the title of “Our Lady of the Sun” as that of “Our Lady of the Snows.”

A feature of the Dominion, of which the ordinary small-scale map gives little idea, is the diversity of surface. Every map indeed suggests in the west the bold line of the Rocky Mountains, but even in that case scarcely hints at the fact that between the Pacific Ocean and the prairie regions, the mountain barrier is ranged rank behind rank, peak above peak.

In the ordinary map, moreover, the eastern provinces look as level as the prairies; but they are not so. The Maritime Provinces, Quebec and Ontario, may be described generally as a land of plains and valleys and hills, which, in some regions, rise to an elevation deserving the name of mountains—a word which is used somewhat freely in Canada.

The map usually does make clear to a careful student of it the fact that the Dominion upon the whole is a land of noble rivers and of lakes, some small, some large enough to deserve the name of inland seas, though they have neither the salt of the sea nor its tides; and that Canada does actually possess one great inland sea, a thousand miles long and six hundred miles broad, in Hudson Bay. This thrusts itself deep into the heart of the country, and for a couple of centuries was, as it may soon be again, a recognized gateway to the interior.

Of course, altitude and “the general lie of the land” have a great influence on climate as well as latitude. The prairie country is more correctly a series of plateaux than a great plain; and though one hardly realizes the fact when travelling across it, there is a great difference of level between the region about Winnipeg, and that where it approaches the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains. The altitude of Winnipeg is only seven hundred and fifty-seven feet above the sea-level, whilst that of Calgary is actually two hundred feet higher than the topmost peak of Sea Fell, England’s highest mountain; and perhaps the elevation of much of the country accounts not only for its being colder than some corresponding latitudes of the old world, but also for the buoyant atmosphere in the west, and for the characteristic hopefulness and eagerness and energy of the people.

A great part of northern Canada is still a wilderness, only partially explored; and at brief intervals comes news from east or west or north of some fresh discovery of minerals or water powers; or amazingly fertile soil, in some region where no one had dreamed hitherto of reaping a harvest.

This kind of thing gives a curious interest to life in Canada. No doubt it is akin (on a smaller scale) to the spirit of expectancy and readiness for adventure which reigned in Europe in the years immediately following the discovery of America.

But it has been proved over and over again that the gifts of the wilderness are only to be won at great cost of toil, and struggle, and loneliness; and few men or women are cut out for the rôle of pioneer. In Canada hundreds of people every year venture to undertake tasks for which they are not fitted either by knowledge or previous experience or natural tastes, and the result is a vast amount of unnecessary suffering and disappointment, and often loss of health and even life; but I shall have more to say on this matter when dealing with the subject of the opportunities for immigrants. Here I would only add that there are numerous openings for people willing to work in the more settled communities as well as on the very frontiers of civilization; and that Canada has a great variety of opportunities to offer on easier conditions than actual pioneering.

If any one is attempting to obtain a true idea of the resources and opportunities of the Dominion, he should be very particular to bear in mind exactly what part of the country his informant is discussing. It is so large a country that persons talking loosely of what there is or is not “in Canada,” though their remarks may be perfectly accurate with regard to one district, may be totally misleading with regard to another. For example, in the Eastern Provinces, ivy and holly and broom are never seen growing in the open air, though the first-mentioned plant is often grown in pots as a house plant; but in Vancouver and Victoria ivy-covered buildings are as common as in England, and so are hedges and bushes of glossy holly. It is the same in matters other than vegetation. There are differences of manner and custom in different localities. French Canada is a quaint old-world land—how old-world the visitor must penetrate into the country to discover. But the “habitants,” speaking their French patois, scarcely differ more in many of their characteristics from the “go-ahead” English-speaking “Westerners” and the stalwart Nova Scotian fishermen, than do these two latter types differ from each other. You may find that your copper coins will not pass current in a new prairie town, but even a little further east a “cent” will buy a few things, including an enormous morning newspaper, excepting on the train.

It is not indeed surprising that there are many cases in which you cannot judge fairly or accurately of one place by another two thousand miles or more distant, even if both happen to be in Canada. Perhaps, indeed, one of the most general characteristics of the country is what some people might call its incongruities. Take a few instances at random. Canada has cities, where its richer folk live in luxury, and its poorest inhabit genuine slums (more’s the pity). It has, too, small villages and backwoods settlements and country communities, where class distinctions are of little account. In some towns you may see a smart up-to-date motor car, cheek by jowl with an ox wagon. It has a goodly list of well-equipped hospitals, but there are many remote settlements where a doctor is hardly to be had in direst emergency for love or money.

The observation that is true in some well-settled districts may not hold in the depth of its unbroken unexplored woods. One may know “Canada” as a land of quiet hills and valleys, but perhaps the name stands to his brother for a “sea of mountains,” with hundreds of “unconquered peaks” luring the Alpine climber to triumph or disaster. It may be that your Canada is the wide, open prairie country far inland, beautiful in its season, with a wealth of bright flowers or square miles of waving wheat; while the name for me means a rugged coast, where the great Atlantic rollers beat on cliffs of granite, or toss the white-sailed fishing boats in too-rough jest or fury.

“Canada” means all these things and many more. Its life is too complex, its resources too various to be presented satisfactorily in a single sketch; and yet behind all diversity the name does stand for a real unity and a growing national consciousness.

III
CONFEDERATION

NOW and for many a year past the whole vast country has been under one government, and this is a fact that is of a good deal of importance outside merely political circles. Unlike the Federal Government of its great neighbour, the several states of which united to resist pressure from the mother country without, “Confederation” in the case of the Dominion resulted largely from troubles within the provinces.

After the rebellion of 1837-38, the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada were united under one government, with one legislature in which, though the population of the latter province was considerably larger than that of the former, each province was represented in the House of Assembly by forty-two members elected by the people, and in the Legislative Council by ten councillors appointed for life by the governor. The French naturally objected to this arrangement. They also objected to the assumption by the new province of the debts of both older ones, when the debt of Lower Canada was much smaller than that of Upper Canada; for, though part of the debt of the latter had been incurred in making canals and other improvements likely to be of advantage to the country generally, the French Canadians had, of course, never been consulted about the spending of the money.

In process of time, however, the relative position of the uneasily-yoked-together provinces altered.

In 1853 a bill was brought in, increasing the number of members of the Assembly from forty-two for each province to sixty-five. By this time the population of Upper Canada had outstripped that of the Lower Province, and there arose a demand amongst the English-speaking people for representation in proportion to population.

It is not surprising that the French Canadians, who had at first been the party to suffer by the forced equality of membership, resented and resisted the agitation for “Rep. by Pop.,” as it was often called. At that time it seemed as if the long-desired boon of responsible government were going to prove a failure in Canada, for the representatives of the people were split up into so many different groups—French and English; Reformers and Conservatives, both moderate and extreme, none of whom could arrive at any means of working harmoniously together. Any one of the numerous parties, standing alone, was sure to be outvoted; and it sometimes happened that opponents would unite to drive a third party from power, but not to give strength to any government.

The rivalry between the representatives of the French and English provinces was most dangerous to the principle of responsible government, for it could, and did happen, that measures affecting only one of the provinces were forced upon it by a majority drawn chiefly from the other province; and this caused very bitter and angry feeling. For instance, in this way a number of separate public schools for the Roman Catholics were firmly established in Upper Canada. Some people asserted, therefore, that it was the duty of a government to resign office if outvoted on a particular measure by the representatives of the province chiefly concerned, even though the majority of the whole House might be with it.

Another grave difficulty was that it led to grievous waste of the public money, for if money were voted for some public work in one province, an equal amount, whether needed or not, was usually voted for the other. These complications absolutely paralysed the working of the system of Party Responsible Government. Ministers rose and fell; dissolution of parliament succeeded dissolution; but there was no sign of any end to the confusion.

In different parts of British North America the plan of a Confederation of the Provinces, with one central government to control matters common to all, and provincial legislatures to manage local affairs, was advocated from time to time. The Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island had their own problems and difficulties, and in 1864 their statesmen agreed to meet at Charlottetown, in Prince Edward Island, to discuss the question of a union amongst themselves.

By that time affairs in United Canada (was there ever a greater misnomer?) had reached a positive deadlock. At the beginning of the year, in succession to a reform ministry, which had only weathered the political tempests for a few months, Sir Etienne Taché and Mr. (afterwards Sir) John A. Macdonald had formed a Conservative government. Even at first they had a bare majority and presently they were outvoted by a majority so narrow that there was not any reasonable ground for hope that if they resigned, their opponents would be less helpless, or that if parliament were dissolved parties would be less evenly balanced. A dissolution seemed inevitable, however, when there arose a sudden light in the darkness.

George Brown, the leader of the English-speaking reformers, came to the rescue and promised the support of himself and his party to the ministers, if they would seriously set themselves to find a way out of the difficulty. Macdonald and his coadjutors met their old opponents half way. A coalition government was formed, and it was decided to try to form a federal, in place of a legislative, union, including all the provinces or the two Canadas alone. It is needless here to dwell on the delays and difficulties with which the project was beset. In October, 1864, representatives of Upper and Lower Canada, and of the Maritime Provinces, including Newfoundland, met at Quebec to formulate a scheme of confederation; but neither of the two island provinces made part of the Dominion of Canada, as it commenced its existence on July 1, 1867. Prince Edward Island came into the union six years later; but Newfoundland stands aloof to this day.

The British North America Act of the Imperial parliament, which finally gave effect to the desire of the provinces for union, embodied, with little alteration, the scheme agreed upon at Quebec in 1864. The act provided for the admission into confederation of other provinces besides the original four, and, as has already been mentioned, the Dominion of Canada now consists of nine provinces besides some large tracts of unorganized and sparsely populated territory in the north.

The Dominion parliament has power to make laws for “the peace, order and good government of Canada,” except with regard to certain matters put under the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures. The parliament consists of the King (represented by the Governor-General), an Upper House, or Senate, and a Lower House, or House of Commons.

The Senate consists of eighty-three members, who are appointed for life by the Governor-in-Council, but no man who is under thirty years of age, or not by birth or naturalization a British subject, is eligible for appointment. He must also be possessed of real or personal property worth $4,000 (£800), and must be, and continue to be, a resident of the province for which he is appointed.

The House of Commons consists (at present) of two hundred and fourteen members, elected with regard to a fair representation of the relative population of the different sections of the country by the following plan:—The province of Quebec has always sixty-five members, and the other provinces have a number of members bearing the same proportion to their populations as sixty-five bears to the population of Quebec. The representation is adjusted after every decennial census—the last census being taken in 1911. The population of the West naturally increases much faster than that of the older provinces, and consequently every census requires a readjustment in favour of the West. For instance, during the decade following the census of 1891, Ontario had ninety-two members and Manitoba had only seven, but since 1901 the number of Ontario’s members has dropped to eighty-six, while that of Manitoba has risen to ten, and the next readjustment, which is already overdue, will show an even greater change in the balance of population.

In the Dominion, as in the provincial parliaments, the principle followed is that of responsible cabinet government; and in this important respect it resembles the British system, and differs from the government of the United States. In the latter country, the appointment of all the chief executive officers rests with the President, subject to the consent of the Senate. Thus, as Professor Goldwin Smith puts it, “instead of a ministry responsible to the legislature and dependent for existence on its vote, America has a ministry independent of the legislature and irremovable during its term of four years.” But, in Canada, when a man takes office in the ministry he must go back to his constituents for re-election; and though the normal life of the House of Commons is five years, it may be dissolved at any time by the Governor-General on the advice of his ministers. Of course, if a cabinet is defeated it must resign and give place to one which has the confidence of the House. In this way, the will of the people (or it would be more correct to say of the men, for women have as yet no voice in the election of members to parliament) is supreme in Canada; and they must, in the last resort, hold themselves responsible for the doings of the men whom they put or retain in office.

The qualifications entitling persons to vote are the same with regard to the Dominion House of Commons and the provincial legislatures. Women are excluded from voting on any but municipal elections, and males must be of the age of twenty-one years and be British citizens by birth or naturalization. In Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia the vote is given after a term of residence varying from six to twelve months (practically to every adult male citizen, though he may be utterly illiterate and ignorant of either the English or French tongues). In the Maritime Provinces even an adult male citizen cannot vote, unless he has been resident for twelve months in the province, and has qualifications “based” on ownership of real property, position as teacher or clergyman, personal property or income. The same applies to Quebec, except that in that province the would-be voter may qualify in one month’s residence.

By the British North America Act, the Dominion parliament has control of all matters not specially assigned to the provincial legislatures. This is another respect in which the Canadian constitution differs from that of the United States, where “the residuum of power” was retained by the States which entered into the Federal Union. In other words, in the United States all matters not specially put under the jurisdiction of the central authority remain to be dealt with by the individual states; while in Canada the authority of the Dominion parliament extends to all affairs not specially reserved to the jurisdiction of the provinces.

In general terms, the Dominion parliament has power to make laws regarding affairs that concern all the provinces, but a number of matters are specially enumerated as being within the jurisdiction of the central government. These are as follows:—Public debt and property; trade and commerce; taxation (any system) and the borrowing of money on the public credit; the postal service; the census and statistics; militia, military and naval service and defence; the fixing of salaries for government officers; lighthouses and coast service; navigation and shipping; fisheries; quarantine; currency and banking; weights and measures; interest; legal tender; bankruptcy, and the general financial and commercial system; patents and copyrights; Indians and reserves for Indians; naturalization; marriage and divorce; the criminal law and penitentiaries; the territories not within the boundaries of any province and the establishment of new provinces.

The matters put under the control of the provinces are:—The amendment of the provincial constitutions (except as to the lieutenant-governor); direct taxation and borrowing of money on the provincial credit for provincial purposes; provincial officials; management and sale of provincial public lands and forests; regulation of asylums, hospitals, charities, reformatories and jails; municipal institutions; shop, tavern and other licences; solemnization of marriage; property and civil rights; constitution and maintenance of provincial courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction; the appointment of magistrates and justices of the peace; education, with certain exceptions as to the separate schools of religious minorities; and local works and matters of a merely private nature in a province.

With regard to immigration and agriculture, both Dominion and provincial parliaments may legislate, but in case of conflicting legislation the Dominion Act overrules the provincial. The Governor-in-Council of the Dominion may disallow an Act of a provincial parliament, within one year of its passing, and the Imperial government in like manner may disallow an Act passed by the Dominion parliament within two years after its receipt by the Secretary of State for the Colonies; but the power of disallowance is used very rarely. If an Act passed by the Dominion or a provincial parliament exceeds, as sometimes happens, the powers given under the British North America Act, the courts may declare it ultra vires—that is, “beyond the powers” of the legislature which enacted it. The provinces may neither organize nor maintain a provincial military force; and here again the constitution of Canada differs from that of the United States, under which each State may have a military force.

The revenue of the Dominion is obtained from taxation (largely in the form of duties on imported goods), “from receipts from the sales of the crown lands, from the post office, from railways, canals and other sources.” Upon their entrance into confederation each of the provinces resigned its right to levy indirect taxes; and in place of this each province receives a subsidy from the Dominion.

The Dominion at the time of Confederation took over the public debts of the several provinces; and further debts have been incurred in the building of canals, railways, and other public works. To set against these the Dominion possesses immensely valuable assets in her millions of acres of ungranted lands and in her state-owned railways, canals, and public buildings for various purposes.

Since Confederation the provinces have also incurred public debts, largely in constructing works to improve communication, and in the erection of public buildings.

The capital of the Dominion is the city of Ottawa, beautifully situated on the right bank, or Ontario side, of the Ottawa river, which forms a considerable part of the boundary between the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

Ottawa was founded by a gallant English officer, Colonel John By, after whom the original little village built at the point where the Rideau river falls into the Ottawa, was called Bytown. The name—quaintly suggestive of the Pilgrim’s Progress—would not have been as euphonious a title for the metropolis of the Dominion as is Ottawa; but one cannot help regretting that this tribute to By should have been swept from the map, for he certainly deserves remembrance. He came to Canada in 1802, when he had just reached manhood, and was stationed for nine years in the picturesque old capital of Quebec. He was recalled to serve in the Peninsular war, but in the spring of 1826 received orders to go again to Canada to superintend the construction of the Rideau canal. The experiences of the war of 1812 had made the authorities desirous to open another route for the transportation of troops and supplies to the upper country than that by the St. Lawrence, which was much at the mercy of the Americans, and so it was decided to construct a system of canals and dams and locks to connect and improve the natural waterways and give communication between the Ottawa river and Kingston on Lake Ontario.

The task was a difficult one. The country was then scarcely inhabited, and the work had to be carried through tracts of swamp and morass, where the surveyors and workmen frequently contracted fever and ague; but By refused to be discouraged. For six years his stalwart, soldierly figure, often mounted on a coal-black charger, was a familiar sight in the mushroom village which sprang up on the southern bank of the Ottawa or Grand river.

Besides civilian workmen, he had at his command a company of sappers and miners, a fact recalled to-day by the name of the “Sappers’ Bridge” at Ottawa; and traditions still linger of his perseverance, his determination to accept no scamped work, and his kindness of heart. One all but completed dam went down before an ice-jam, and a new bridge was swept away by a spring flood; but the indomitable colonel took these disasters merely as a challenge to build more strongly, and at last the whole waterway, one hundred and twenty-six miles in length, with its twenty-four dams and its forty-seven locks, was open for navigation.

In the same year the colonel was called home, not to receive praise and honour for his achievement, but to serve, it has been said, as “a scapegoat” for the government, which had been attacked for spending public moneys without the authority of parliament. The blow was crushing, and falling into “low spirits,” the gallant gentleman could no longer triumph over misfortunes, but died a few months later in his fifty-third year.

But Bytown prospered. Till the St. Lawrence canals were completed the whole trade between Upper and Lower Canada passed through the rough little village, and to visitors it seemed that Bytown folk were too busy to pave their streets or to think of gardens or flowers. The Upper and Lower towns on either side of the hill, then crowned by the barracks, now by the parliament buildings, were separate villages. Then, as now, it was a great lumbering centre, and there were wild doings when gangs of lumber-jacks came down from the woods for business or pleasure. Whiskey was deplorably cheap, and the woodsmen often fought savagely amongst themselves, or with the Irish “shiners” who rafted the lumber down the river; and sometimes they made “felonious assault” on unoffending citizens. But despite the rude accompaniments of the lumber trade, it was building up Bytown, which was incorporated as a town with six thousand inhabitants fifteen years after the completion of the Rideau canal. Eight years later it became a city, and changed its name to Ottawa.

In the fifties, there was an inconvenient arrangement, by which the cities of Toronto and Quebec served alternately for four years each as capital of Upper and Lower Canada (then united), but in 1857 Queen Victoria was asked to name a permanent capital. On account of its central position with regard to the two provinces, its distance from the international boundary line; and above all, perhaps, because of descriptions which she had heard of the striking beauty of its site, Her Majesty made choice of Ottawa. The erection of the beautiful parliament buildings was soon afterwards begun, and at Confederation the city became the capital of the Dominion, whilst the rank of provincial capital was restored to the larger city of Toronto.

Ottawa, with its suburbs, now has about one hundred and twenty-five thousand people and its chief interests are still lumber and legislation. A little army of its breadwinners finds employment, in some capacity or other, in connection with the business of government. Each of the departments of state has, of course, a large staff, from experts of various descriptions down to clerks and office boys.

The official residence of the Governor-General is Rideau Hall. This long, low, rambling erection is hardly picturesque, though it is decidedly old-fashioned. It stands in pleasant grounds, and its nucleus, “the Castle,” as it was called, was built in 1838, by a Scottish member of parliament, named McKay. The original house had a score of rooms, but the present-day Hall has over a hundred, which have been added from time to time to suit the convenience of its noble occupants. For instance, the great ballroom dates from Lord Dufferin’s time; while the racquet court was built by the Marquis of Lorne, a studio by the artistic Marchioness, and the chapel by the Earl of Aberdeen.

Other places at Ottawa of national interest, either for what they are or for what they may become, are its museums, its National Art Gallery, its Royal Mint and the Archives Building, which houses a collection of extremely valuable historical documents.

IV
LANDS AND THE PEOPLE

IN my last chapter I mentioned the ungranted public lands as amongst the assets of the Dominion. Apart from the vast area of land north of the limits of the provinces, the Crown, according to a recently published official estimate, still holds the title to many millions of acres of “ungranted, surveyed public lands in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in addition to a vast quantity of good land yet unsurveyed.” The public lands in the Eastern Provinces are owned by the provinces, but in every section of Canada lands may be obtained by the bonâ fide settler, either as free grants, or at a very small rate of payment. This matter will, however, be referred to again later.

Lands offered for settlement in the provinces of the middle west are laid out in blocks six miles square, called townships. Each of these townships is divided into thirty-six sections of one mile square. The sections are again divided into quarters; and the homesteads offered as free grants by the Dominion government on certain conditions as to residence upon and improvement of the land; each contain one-quarter section, or one hundred and sixty acres. (For the land regulations as to free grants and pre-emptions, see Appendix, Note B, p. 297.) Within a certain area two sections in each township have been allotted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, two are reserved for the support of schools, sixteen are held for sale or have been given as land grants in aid of colonization railways, and the remaining sixteen are, or have been, open to homesteaders.

During the fiscal year of 1911-12, over thirty-nine thousand heads of families, or single men, made homestead entries, taking up over six and a quarter millions of acres. In the same year the railway companies and the Hudson’s Bay Company sold between eighteen and nineteen million acres of land; and it is predicted that before another decade has gone by “Canada’s balance of population will be west of Lake Superior.” This may or may not be true, for there is no province in Canada that is not well able to support a much larger population than it has at present; and in every province new opportunities are offering themselves.

In connection with its ownership of the crown lands, the Dominion government assumed at Confederation the guardianship of the Indians, descendants of the ancient lords of the soil. In the drama of Canadian history, especially in its earlier scenes, the Indians play a part that is tragically interesting, whether regarded from the point of view of the settlers, or from that of the wild people themselves, as they were driven deeper into the wilderness, and sank gradually from the position of being reckoned with and feared into that of a comparatively feeble folk, bewildered by the necessity of adaptation to new conditions.

The Canadian Indians, though of many different tribes, have been placed by ethnologists in three or four chief groups. The largest group numerically, and the most widespread, was the Algonquin, to which belong the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Ottawas and Ojibways of Central Canada, the Crees of the Middle West, and many other tribes.

A second group—the Huron-Iroquois—was, in many respects, remarkable. The Iroquois tribes are notable for having entered into a confederation from which they were often called “The Five Nation Indians.” This alliance gave them a vast advantage over isolated tribes in their savage warfare; and made them for the best part of a century a menace and a terror to the French. They occupied a very advantageous position in what is now New York State, upon a “Height of Land” from which flowed streams in every direction, serving as waterways for their canoes and enabling them to descend with ease and rapidity into the enemy’s country. They were usually friendly to the English colonists; but again and again during the early days did their utmost to destroy the infant settlements of the French and to annihilate the latter’s Indian allies.

Many years later the famous Mohawk, Brant, and others of the Iroquois sided with the English in the Revolutionary War, and at its close were granted lands like other loyalists in Canada. The city of Brantford, on the Grand River, was named after the chief, and near to it is the “Mohawk Reserve,” comprising over forty-three thousand six hundred acres, where some four thousand Indians still dwell.

Akin in race and language to the Iroquois, but in a constant state of hostility to them, were the Hurons, living near the Georgian bay. Amongst them, in the seventeenth century, the Jesuit fathers from France established, at great sacrifice of ease and comfort, a flourishing mission, but in 1648-49 the mission villages were swept out of existence by hordes of Iroquois; many of the missionaries were martyred, and the Hurons, utterly broken, were driven to seek refuge near the French towns.

The Iroquois and Hurons were in some respects more advanced than the Algonquin tribes. They had the art of making strong palisades about their towns, of several concentric rows of tree trunks planted upright in the ground, and they used shields of skin and a curious armour of twigs interwoven with cords, which formed a great protection against arrows. They also cultivated the ground to some extent, grew maize and sunflowers, and kept hogs. The Algonquins, on the other hand, trusted for food entirely to hunting and fishing, and to what they could gather in the woods.

None of the Indians had a written language, but some practised picture-writing, that is, making rude drawings on bark or skins for the conveyance of information; and they used also to weave shell beads, called “wampum,” into collars and belts of curious devices, which represented certain ideas. These belts were used as mementoes and records of matters of importance, such as a treaty made with another tribe; and were given into the custody of old men who were expected to remember and explain their signification.

In this connection it is interesting to recall that about the middle of last century, a Methodist missionary, Evans, invented a method of writing the Indian languages, which can be learnt by an Indian of ordinary intelligence in a very few lessons. The signs represent syllables, not letters to be combined into syllables. This system of reducing the languages to writing has made possible a very large circulation of the Bible, or parts of it, amongst Indians, who would have had no opportunity of learning to read by such methods as our own. Liberal provision, however, has been made for the education of the Indians dwelling in the more settled regions.

A third great group of the aborigines of Canada comprises the Indians of the western mountains and the Pacific Coast and islands. These tribes were generally fierce and warlike; and were remarkable for their huge canoes, each made from the trunk of a single tree; for their enormous, grotesquely-carved totem poles; and for many singular customs.

Scattered along the thousands of miles of Canada’s northern coasts are the Eskimos—“eaters of raw flesh”—or Innuits—“the People” as they call themselves. From a consideration of some of the resemblances in their implements and ornaments, made of bone and antlers and teeth of animals, and decorated with spirited drawings of men and beasts—some scientists believe them to be akin to “the Cavemen,” of whom traces have been found in France and Great Britain. Their hovels (often half underground) of earth and turf resemble caves; but they have been known to turn bones to account for building material, and everyone knows of their habit of making a temporary shelter of snow built up in blocks into a curious beehive-like shape. They are a stout, sturdy people, who, living under conditions which the white races find almost unendurable, are remarkable for cheerfulness and good humour.

In 1871, when the first Dominion census was taken, it was estimated that the Eskimo and Indian population numbered a little over 102,000. In 1912, the number of Indians was returned at 104,956, an increase of nearly 1,300 since the census taken in the previous year. In some districts the Indian population is decreasing; in the older provinces, where the Indians are more civilized, there is an increase. That it is very difficult to form an exact estimate of the numbers of the wild people of the Dominion is shown by the very recent discovery of a hitherto unknown tribe of Eskimo, in the Coppermine River district, east of the mouth of the Mackenzie.

Upon the whole the early French settlers and rulers treated the Indians with more consideration and generosity than did the English colonists. In many instances, indeed, the French bushrangers and their leaders (though the latter were not infrequently of gentle birth and education) carried their complacency to the Indians so far as to adopt their manners and habits of life, sinking themselves almost to a state of savagery. The better aspect of the situation, however, appealed to the men who conquered Canada, and the British government of the country has, in the main, like its predecessor, treated the Indian with consideration and justice.

As the land has been required for white settlement, the government has entered “into treaty” with its Indian possessors, setting apart reserves for them and making allowances of money for their support and education. The Indians of the Dominions are in very different stages of civilization; in fact, a small minority are still pagans, practising polygamy, and various heathen rites. There are in different parts 325 Indian schools, having on their rolls the names of 11,300 pupils. A few of the more progressive Indians have taken advantage of provisions in the law by which they may obtain the electoral franchise; but many are still content to remain “the Wards of the Nation,” a position which some people think not wholly desirable for adults of any race.

From the consideration of the ancient people of the land, it is a natural transition to the newcomers. In the history of the Dominion there has been a recurrent high and low tide in the coming of settlers. But its flood has never before reached such proportions as within the last decade; and the most recent year for which the figures are attainable shows an immensely larger number of new arrivals than ever before. Of the total number of immigrants in the sixteen years ending March 31, 1912, nearly three-quarters were English-speaking people from the British Isles and the United States; but the remaining quarter represents an amazing number of nations, peoples and languages, the absorption of whom is one of the most difficult problems which Canada has to face. In the year of 1911-12, 82,406 foreigners came into the country.

In every large city it is coming to pass that there is a markedly foreign quarter; and many of the older people remain foreigners to all intents and purposes. The women especially, mixing less with their neighbours than the men, are usually slow to learn English; but the children pick it up quickly, and with it some at least of the ideas (good and bad) of the new land. Some of the foreigners come to Canada with the hope of making money and returning to their native countries; but many are anxious to remain. An alien, before making entry for a free grant of land, must declare his intention of becoming a British subject; and is obliged to be naturalized before he can receive a legal patent to the land upon which he has done homestead duties. But he must live three years in Canada before he can be naturalized.

The American immigrants are usually of a class which the Dominion particularly needs, many of them being farmers, who have had experience under somewhat similar agricultural and climatic conditions in the north-western States. They frequently bring not only experience, but a considerable amount of capital and stock; and altogether, being in a position to make the best of the country, they win success for themselves and demonstrate the capabilities of the land, in a fashion which the man from the “Old Country,” especially if he be town-bred, can rarely at once attain. Their methods have the advantage also of giving an object-lesson to other less experienced immigrants, which save the intelligent and those willing to learn from making blunders.

As to the political view of the matter, the coming of these farmers from across “the line” does not as a rule give much anxiety to Canadians with regard to its effect on the permanence of the British connection, for the newcomers generally are satisfied that they have as much liberty under the Canadian system of government as under the American; and the most restless of them are more keenly occupied with money-making than with politics. Sometimes, however, the galling of the protective tariff, which presses unequally on different classes, provokes loud protests from the agricultural populations, particularly in the West; and there are signs that these protests will grow more vigorous and insistent with time.

The city-bred British immigrant is distinctly at a disadvantage with regard to experience, but if he is willing to take measures to learn before embarking in farming or any other enterprise with the details of which he is unfamiliar there is no reason why he, too, should not succeed. If the British immigrant has the appearance of being likely to “make good,” no one is more gladly welcomed than he; but no immigrant of any nationality unlikely to succeed gets a welcome at all.

The question, “Are Canadians loyal?” with reference to such matters is sometimes much discussed. From long experience in the country, I should answer the question broadly in the affirmative. I should be even inclined to think that the Canadians value the British connection more highly to-day than twenty or thirty years ago; and that the strength of sentiment towards the British sovereign and “the Empire” has increased with the increase of the liberty granted by the Mother-land to the Dominion to work in her own way towards her ideal of nationhood. Whatever may have been the case in the past, at present I firmly believe that that ideal is one of a free nation within an Empire, bound together by those ties of kinship and similarity of ideal and sentiment (let us not blush to use the word) without which the coarser ties of common governmental institutions and commercial enactments become very brittle and often vexatious.

As a nation, Great Britain has long ceased the attempt, which ended so disastrously with her older American colonies, to exploit her “possessions” in the interests of her merchants and shipowners, and, of late years, she has adopted a very sympathetic attitude towards the natural desire of the free-born British peoples in the “overseas dominions” to be permitted to come of age nationally, and to have at least some control over their connections with the outside world. That this desire for control of their own affairs should involve responsibility for their own defence, Canadians are beginning to realize; but what direction the acceptance of this responsibility will take is yet undecided.

But to return to the immigrant. Strenuous efforts are made to bar the Dominion’s doors against undesirables, including the physically and mentally unfit, and those so poor as to be in danger of becoming a burden on the community. Some people feel that the immigration regulations are too stringent, and are sometimes applied to individuals in an over-drastic fashion. It may be that in the anxiety to avoid possible burdens, the doors are sometimes shut against those who, given a chance, would prove a source of benefit to the new land, whose vast, empty acres cry aloud for people.

But whether or not the existing regulations could be improved upon, while they are in force, no wise man intending to settle in Canada will neglect to find out before starting what they are, and whether he can satisfy the requirements.

Many Canadians view the rapid influx of immigrants with anxiety, lest the Dominion should fail to assimilate these streams of new arrivals pouring in annually; and in a measure the severe restrictions on immigration are due to this anxiety. It is true in every land that the mistakes or successes of one generation may profoundly affect the well-being of generations to come; but in a country like Canada the public-spirited feel that blunders of to-day, possibly only affecting a mere handful of people, may be bringing misery on populations multiplied a thousandfold to-morrow. Happily it is not only blunders that are subjected to the process of multiplication and magnification; and in quietness and patience (scarcely noticed amidst the buzz of advertising and boasting of the great things to be) some people are earnestly labouring to begin the building of the new nation well; and perhaps are actually building better than they know. In the social freedom of the new lands, men and women of strong character count for much in either good or evil.

Upon the whole, the people of the Dominion are law-abiding. Unlike the republic to the south, the punishment of criminals has been made a matter of Dominion (instead of provincial) concern. The criminal law is one for the whole country, and justice is administered with a steady hand. In the prairie provinces, the North-West Mounted Police force, organized in 1873, has proved its efficiency in maintaining law and order through leagues of wilderness, in the lumber camps, and in the mines which draw together the roving and adventurous from every part of the globe. In 1913 the force consisted of some 50 officers and 576 men, distributed in 73 detachments in Alberta, 83 in Saskatchewan, 8 in the Yukon and several in the North-West Territories.

Compared to many European nations, Canadians are a temperate people, and in many municipalities there is “prohibition.” Setting the present situation with regard to drunkenness against the state of things sixty or seventy years ago, the comparison is immensely in favour of the present day; for, in that early time, whiskey was manufactured in rude distilleries all over the country, and could be bought by the gallon for a few cents. Strong drink was expected by men working in the harvest fields or coming together in a threshing or raising “bee”; and many were the tragedies which resulted from this pernicious custom. Gentlemen counted drunkenness no disgrace, and it was a common fault of the officers of the garrison at Halifax and elsewhere.

In comparison, however, with conditions a few years ago, the showing is not satisfactory. In fact, it has been stated recently that “Canada’s drinking and criminal record is increasing faster than the population.” Some observers think that this is owing in part at least to the number of newcomers from less temperate countries, and “to the concentration of population in the large cities of the Dominion,” but, at the same time, “progress towards the general adoption of prohibition is certain and rapid.”

Taking Canada as a whole, excellent provision is made for education. The systems vary a little in the different provinces, but the common schools are everywhere free; and there are comparatively few native-born Canadians who cannot at least read and write.

In 1910-11 Canada had over 1,197,000 pupils in her schools, and a small army of thirty-four thousand teachers, a very large proportion of whom are women. The schools are the chief of all the forces for the Canadianizing, if not of this generation of adult foreign immigrants, at least of their children. The central government spends hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on the education of the Indians, and in each province a very considerable proportion of all money devoted to public uses is spent for education. In the prairie provinces millions of acres of land have been reserved by the Dominion government to be sold gradually for the support of schools. All schools below the grade of High Schools are free to children between the ages of five and fifteen; and High Schools in all the cities and large towns are free to resident pupils. The number of children for whom a school district can be organized in the western provinces varies from eight in Alberta to twenty in British Columbia.

With the exception of Prince Edward Island, which can take advantage of the universities in neighbouring provinces; and of British Columbia, which has colleges at Vancouver and Victoria affiliated with McGill University, and has recently set apart two million acres of public land for the endowment of a provincial university—each province has one or more universities. The University of McGill at Montreal is the richest of Canada’s universities; and that of Toronto, with over 4,100 students in 1913, is the largest.

An interesting fact in connection with all Canadian universities is that a large proportion of their students are drawn from classes by no means wealthy; and numbers of the undergraduates are “putting themselves through,” as it is sometimes called. Many of these, having been engaged as teachers or in some business, have saved a sum of money for the payment of the expenses of part of their course. To eke this out, they seek employment in the long summer vacation, which, happily for them, coincides with the busy season, when men are in demand for every form of work; and a resolute student usually finds something to do. If he is not of the physique to go into the harvest fields, he may find employment as a timekeeper over a gang of foreign labourers, a waiter in a summer hotel, or a teacher in some scattered settlement which can only aspire as yet to a summer school. Given reasonably good health, a determined man will usually find or make a way to earn something in the summer; and such are the men who make the most of what can be gained from their hard-won courses of instruction in the winter.

At intervals people lift up their voices in protest over the readiness with which poor men’s sons can rise into the professional classes, and imagine that it accounts, in part at least, for the continuous movement townward from the country districts; but there would surely be more loss than gain to Canadian life in general if any class of young people could be shut up by lack of wealth or other disability to the vocation of their fathers. Canada, though it has a growing wealthy class, and, alas, a growing submerged one, is a long way yet from the fixed “caste” idea.

The healthier recognition of a possible connection between the aspiration for college education amongst country-bred youths and the deserted farms in some of the older provinces, is the attempt made to lift agriculture to its true position amongst the great industries as a scientific profession. For long years agricultural societies have been working to stimulate the ambition of farmers in their own line of work. But this was not enough. It is possible for a dullard and an ignoramus to pick a meagre living from amongst the weeds of a neglected farm; but it takes not only brains, but cultivated brains, to farm well. No man is too good, whatever a “smart” lad may think, for the foundation industry of the world; and no farmer can have a too good educational equipment for this work. Perhaps the people of the Dominion, when reviewing what has been done in this country for education, have a reasonably good right to look with pleasure on the effort to bring well-trained minds to bear on agriculture. At sixteen different points in the Dominion, there are Government experimental farms, and the result of their work in testing seeds and methods suitable to various soils and conditions, finding out good stock and so forth, are at the free service of the farmers. Nor is this all. For nearly forty years Ontario has had in the Agricultural College at Guelph, a school, at once practical and scientific, for farmers; and this is only one of several agricultural colleges, while in the new University of Saskatchewan, one of the first departments to be organized was that of agriculture.

In connection with the colleges and universities are short courses—in England they would probably be called “University Extension” lectures—on agriculture and subjects related to the farm, especially designed for the benefit of dairymen, threshermen, housewives, beekeepers, etc., etc. The imparting of the special knowledge to make a scientific instead of a blundering amateur “thresherman” fits in oddly at first sight with one’s preconceived notions of a university; but why should the extension downward in such utilitarian directions—the striking deep of its roots into the common earth—prevent a great educational institution flowering freely in the higher realms of science and art and philosophy?

There is another aspect to the case. I was much interested, a few months ago, on a chance conversation in a train with an old western farmer of rugged aspect, by his remark that the institution of college and university courses in agriculture would tend to raise the young fellows of the farming classes in their own eyes and in those of other people, and would also enable them better to hold their proper place in the country. (I give the substance of his remarks, not his words.) Now, it is a fact that the Canadian farmer is, as a rule, a much less self-assertive and a more retiring being than his brother—the doctor, the merchant, the manufacturer, the lawyer or the politician, as the case may be; and sometimes his interests suffer on account of his modesty. Nevertheless, there are not a few men amongst the farmers who are of excellent intellectual capabilities. They are men who think, moreover, and some day, now that they are beginning to organize themselves, the result of their thinking will have considerably more effect on the public life of the Dominion than it has had hitherto.

In the various provinces there has been a widespread movement of late years in the direction of the formation of farmers and country-women’s clubs or institutes, which not only serve as a means for the dissemination of information, but give a much-needed stimulus to the social life of thinly settled districts, where hitherto (in the case of the women especially) the churches have been the chief social factor.

The churches will continue, both in town and country, to be of account in the social side of life, apart from their primary importance as definite religious agencies. According to the latest census there were in Canada over 2,833,000 adherents of the Roman Catholic church, which gains immense strength from its solidarity. The Protestants, on the other hand, though stronger numerically, are split up into numerous divisions, and in hundreds of little villages throughout the Dominion, there are three or four churches of different denominations, whilst numberless other places have no church at all. This over-lapping adds immensely to the toils, and perhaps detracts from the efficiency, of the country ministers and missionaries as a body. But projects of union are in the air, and there is hope that the several great Protestant churches may devise some plan of working together much more than has been done hitherto, even if they do not accomplish the corporate union which many of their adherents desire. In numerical strength the Protestant churches come in the following order:—Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, and a large number of smaller organizations. Apart from definite efforts by the churches themselves to arrive at some basis of union, there are numerous inter-denominational associations which are tending towards unity. One of the most notable of these is the organized effort, known as the “Laymen’s Missionary Movement,” to arouse the interest of business men in missions. This organization, first started in the United States, has resulted in largely increased giving for missionary purposes.

The immense immigration to Canada of foreigners and others necessitates constantly increasing effort on the part of the churches to keep abreast of their duties and opportunities; and amongst the numbers of newcomers there is much call to foreign missionary work within the borders of the Dominion, if it is to remain, in anything more than name, a Christian country. For instance, Montreal and Toronto each have thousands of Jewish citizens, many of them from Russia and other foreign lands. Galicians, adherents of the Greek Church, are numerous in the prairie provinces; and there are over fifteen thousand Mormons in Canada, chiefly in Alberta and Ontario. As farmers they are said to be excellent settlers; whether or not they will be equally successful in sowing the seeds of their distinctive tenets, so degrading to women and to the sanctity of home life, yet remains to be seen. It is, however, only fair to add that the Mormons in Canada do not, as in Utah, practise polygamy openly.

In British Columbia, and to a less extent throughout Canada, are to be found numbers of quiet, industrious Chinamen, working on the railways, in the hotels of the West, in the canning factories of the Pacific Coast, and in laundries from Victoria to Halifax. Despite the heavy head tax of $500 (£100) on each newcomer, no less than 6,083 Chinamen came to Canada in a recent year. Amongst them are very few women; but a number of young boys have recently been brought out by their relatives to attend the public schools, with a view to their learning English and the “Western learning” that goes with it.

The records of the British and Foreign Bible Society are suggestive in connection with the influx of foreigners into the Dominion. In 1912 sales were made of the Bible, or portions of it, in 44 languages in Toronto alone; and of 110 languages in all Canada. The earliest foreign version of the Scriptures issued by the Bible Society in its first year—1804—was, by the way, that intended for the Mohawk Indians in Canada. Many organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations and the Salvation Army are doing their useful work all over Canada. There is indeed great scope for such organizations, for the Dominion is full of young people and friendless strangers, who in their loneliness are in great need of a helping hand.

But constantly fresh districts open beyond the reach of the churches and philanthropic agencies, and here the need is for individuals whose Christianity is deep enough to stand the hard test of isolation. Many immigrants (so-called Christian), when deprived of church services and the influences of old days, seem to forget their faith. But to those who hold fast their religion under the new trials may come the reward of giving an uplift to, and stamping a Christian character upon, a whole community. Indeed, a neighbourhood often reflects for years the type of its earlier settlers.

V
INDUSTRIES AND TRANSPORT

THE most important industry of Canada is, of course, agriculture, which employs nearly twice as many people as any other class of industries, and has a greater annual product. With comparatively few exceptions, the farmers of Canada own their own land. Considered from the point of view of its returns, the greatest crop is wheat. Saskatchewan ranks first as a wheat-growing province; Manitoba and Alberta coming respectively second and third. In the older provinces the farmers are going in to a great extent for mixed farming, and for the raising of apples and other fruit. British Columbia is also giving much attention to the fruit industry. At present many of the prairie farms are devoted solely to the growing of grain; but already the leaders of the agricultural world of the Dominion are urging the extension of “mixed farming,” for the sake of saving the fertile soil from exhaustion and for the simplification of the labour problem, which is aggravated by the crowding of all the work of the farms into a few brief weeks of summer.

The second great industry of those depending directly on natural resources is lumbering. When the French settled on the St. Lawrence, they perceived at once the value of the forest wealth of the land, reporting to the home government that the colony would prove a rich source for the supply of masts and spars for the royal navy; and soon “stringent regulations were issued for the preservation of the standing oak.” The early British governors were also instructed to take measures for the preservation of lumber likely to be useful for the navy.

The export of Canada’s forest products began, it is said, in 1667, when the first shipload of lumber was sent to Europe. For years forest products came first in value on the list of exports. During the earlier part of the nineteenth century, Canada’s lumber went chiefly to Great Britain; but during the last forty years much has been exported to the United States. This has, however, been offset in part by considerable imports of American lumber into Canada.

In Canada there is, of course, an immense domestic demand for wood. Over half the people live in wooden houses, immense quantities of wood are still used as fuel, our thousands of miles of railway tracks are laid on wooden ties or “sleepers;” fleets of wooden ships and boats still ply on our coast and inland waters—in fact, it has been said that “our civilization is built on wood. From the cradle to the coffin in some shape or other it surrounds us as a convenience or necessity.” Our childhood’s toys, our furniture, the very paper on which the news of the day is printed, are forest products strangely transmuted. No sane person would dispute the value of the forests, and Canada is richly endowed in this respect; though, perhaps, hardly so richly as some estimates would lead us to believe.

In time past there has been most reckless waste of the Dominion’s forest wealth. In early pioneering days, perhaps it was unavoidable that the immigrants, far from markets, and hemmed in by great woods, should treat the trees as natural enemies, and clear them off the face of the earth as rapidly and as thoroughly as they could. So, in Ontario, were destroyed millions of magnificent trees; in many instances of kinds that would now be of immense value for the making of the better kinds of furniture; but black walnut trees were used to make fences of, and beeches and maples, too heavy to raft down the lakes to the seaports, as was done with the pine, were drawn together and burned in great heaps so that the settler could plant his first little crops of corn and vegetables amongst their stumps, and could turn an honest penny by selling the potash he made from their ashes.

Not only the pioneers, however, have been responsible for the destruction of trees. The Indians and hunters of game in the woods, the lumbermen, leaving their great heaps of dry brush and other inflammable refuse, only needing a chance spark from the lighting of a pipe, or a camp fire carelessly left burning, to turn it into kindling, ready laid for a great conflagration; the railways with the unguarded smoke stacks of their engines, have all had their share in the destruction of the forests; and it has been estimated that more timber has been destroyed in the Dominion by fire than by the axe. The nation is, however, awakening to the seriousness of the situation. For the last fourteen years the Canadian Forestry Association, with branches all over the Dominion, has been doing excellent work in disseminating information and rousing public interest concerning the preservation of the forests, and a new governmental policy has been inaugurated. Large areas of land have been set apart in Ontario and other provinces and by the Dominion government, where it has direct control, as “Forest Reserves.”

In 1909 there was established the non-partizan “Conservation Commission,” upon which each province is represented in the person of the cabinet minister most definitely connected with the administration of natural resources. Ontario’s representative, for instance, is the Minister of Lands and Mines. The several universities of Canada are also represented. The functions of the Commission are advisory and educational, and its members are carefully studying the various natural resources. But it is recognized that the people are the greatest asset the country possesses; and while the Commission endeavours to devise plans for avoiding wasteful methods in lumbering and mining, to prevent the depletion of the fish in the waters and the game in the woods, it is concerned above all to discover means of stopping the fearful waste of human life by industrial accidents, unhealthy conditions, preventable diseases, and the ignorant treatment of infants and young children, which last results in such appalling mortality in the first five years of life.

It must not, however, be inferred from this reference to infant mortality that the climate of Canada is by any means unhealthy. The experience of immigrants from the British Isles and from all European countries shows that it is well fitted for Europeans; and, as a general rule, the children especially enjoy the cold months, finding delight in the sports that winter brings. Often the snow is too firm and powdery for that favourite sport of British youngsters—snowballing! But little ones who have not long learned to toddle alone can find amusement with their small sleighs, and for bigger children and young boys and girls there are the endless delights of “coasting” and toboganning and skating and snow-shoeing and ski-ing.

Of course, here the country children have the best of it. But if one wants to realize the delights offered by a brisk winter’s day, he cannot do better than visit some open hilly spot within the limits of one of Canada’s cities—especially on a Saturday afternoon when the fathers have time to join in the fun. Then the white hillside is fairly alive with children in gay blanket-coats (often of scarlet) and knitted French-Canadian “tuques” ending in saucy bobs on the top, or long bag-like arrangements finished with dangling tassels; but it is the eagerness of the children and their quaint attitudes which give the picture its chief interest. A favourite way of making the descent is prone on the little sleighs, head foremost, legs stuck stiffly up from the knees, or trailing out behind, as an excellent rudder. Sometimes two “bob-sleighs,” connected by a long board, form a more ambitious vehicle for half a dozen boys and girls at once, and loud are the shrieks and the laughter, as the “bobs” jolt over some rough bit of the track or shoot their passengers off at last into some heap of snow. As a rule, the mothers see that the youngsters are warmly clad in woollen garments from head to heel, and then no one is hurt by a roll in the soft snow.

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