of the soil, fond of amusement, rash and passionate, spending their gains as soon as made, too often in dissipation, many of them were true representatives of the coureurs de bois of the days of Frontenac. This class was numerous in 1869 when the government of Canada first presented itself to claim the territory of the {387} Northwest as a part of the Dominion. After years of negotiation the Hudson's Bay Company had recognised the necessity of allowing the army of civilisation to advance into the region which it had so long kept as a fur preserve. The British Government obtained favourable terms for the Dominion, and the whole country from line 49 degrees to the Arctic region, and from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains became a portion of the Canadian domain, with the exception of small tracts of land in the vicinity of the company's posts, which they still continue to maintain wherever the fur trade can be profitably carried on. In 1869 the Canadian ministry, of which Sir John Macdonald was premier, took measures to assume possession of the country, where they proposed to establish a provisional government. Mr. William McDougall, a prominent Canadian Liberal, one of the founders of confederation, always an earnest advocate of the acquisition of the Northwest, was appointed to act as lieutenant-governor as soon as the formal transfer was made. This transfer, however, was not completed until a few months later than it was at first expected, and the government of Canada appears to have acted with some precipitancy in sending surveyors into the country, and in allowing Mr. McDougall to proceed at once to the scene of his proposed government. It would have been wise had the Canadian authorities taken measures to ascertain the wishes of the small but independent population with respect to the future government of their own country. The British as well as French settlers resented the {388} hasty action of the Canadian authorities. The halfbreeds, little acquainted with questions of government, saw in the appearance of surveying parties an insidious attempt to dispossess them eventually of their lands, to which many of them had not a sound title. The British settlers, the best educated and most intelligent portion of the population, believed that a popular form of government should have been immediately established in the old limits of Assiniboia, as soon as it became a part of Canada. Some of the Hudson's Bay Company's employes were not in their hearts pleased at the transfer, and the probable change in their position in a country where they had been so long masters. Although these men stood aloof from the insurrection, yet their influence was not exercised at the commencement of the troubles, in favour of peace and order, or in exposing the plans of the insurgents, of which some of them must have had an idea. The appearance of Mr. McDougall on the frontier of the settlement, was the signal for an outbreak which has been dignified by the name of rebellion. The insurgents seized Fort Garry, and established a provisional government with Mr. John Bruce, a Scotch settler, as nominal president, and Mr. Louis Riel, the actual leader, as secretary of state. The latter was a French half-breed, who had been superficially educated in French Canada. His temperament was that of a race not inclined to steady occupation, loving the life of the river and plain, ready to put law at defiance when their rights and privileges were in danger. This restless man and his half-breed {390} associates soon found themselves at the head and front of the whole rebellious movement, as the British settlers, while disapproving of the action of the Canadian Government, were not prepared to support the seditious designs of the French Canadian Metis. Riel became president, and made prisoners of Dr. Schultz, in later times a lieutenant-governor of the new province, and of a number of other British settlers who were now anxious to restore order and come to terms with the Canadian Government, who were showing every disposition to arrange the difficulty. In the meantime Mr. McDougall issued a proclamation which was a mere brutum fulmen, and then went back to Ottawa, where he detailed his grievances and soon afterwards disappeared from public life. The Canadian authorities by this time recognised their mistake and entered into negotiations with Red River delegates, representing both the loyal and rebellious elements, and the result was most favourable for the immediate settlement of the difficulties. At this critical juncture the Canadian Government had the advantage of the sage counsels of Sir Donald Smith, then a prominent official of the Hudson's Bay Company, who at a later time became a prominent figure in Canadian public life. Chiefly through the instrumentality of Archbishop Tache, whose services to the land and race he loved can never be forgotten by its people, an amnesty was promised to those who had taken part in the insurrection, and the troubles would have come to an end had not Riel, in a moment of recklessness, characteristic of his real nature, tried {391} one Thomas Scott by the veriest mockery of a court-martial on account of some severe words he had uttered against the rebels' government, and had him mercilessly shot outside the fort. As Scott was a native of Ontario, and an Orangeman, his murder aroused a widespread feeling of indignation throughout his native province. The amnesty which was promised to Archbishop Tache, it is now quite clear, never contemplated the pardon of a crime like this, which was committed subsequently. The Canadian Government were then fully alive to the sense of their responsibilities, and at once decided to act with resolution. In the spring of 1870 an expedition was organised, and sent to the North-west under the command of Colonel Garnet Wolseley, later a peer, and commander-in-chief of the British army. This expedition consisted of five hundred regulars and seven hundred Canadian volunteers, who reached Winnipeg after a most wearisome journey of nearly three months, by the old fur-traders' route from Thunder Bay, through an entirely unsettled and rough country, where the portages were very numerous and laborious. Towards the end of August the expedition reached their destination, but found that Riel had fled to the United States, and that they had won a bloodless victory. Law and order henceforth prevailed in the new territory, whose formal transfer to the Canadian Government had been completed some months before, and it was now formed into a new province, called Manitoba, with a complete system of local government, and including guaranties with {392} respect to education, as in the case of the old provinces. The first lieutenant-governor was Mr. Adams Archibald, a Nova Scotian lawyer, who was one of the members of the Quebec conference, and a statesman of much discretion. Representation was also given immediately in the two houses of the Dominion parliament. Subsequently the vast territory outside of the new prairie province was divided into six districts for purposes of government: Alberta, Assiniboia, Athabasca, Keewatin, and Saskatchewan. Out of these districts in 1905 were erected the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, which were then given responsible government. In 1908, when the boundaries of the provinces were again defined, Keewatin was incorporated in the Province of Manitoba. In 1896 four new provisional districts were, marked out in the great northern unsettled district under the names of Franklin, Mackenzie, Yukon, and Ungava.



In the course of a few years a handsome, well-built city arose on the site of old Fort Garry, and with the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway—a national highway built with a rapidity remarkable even in these days of extraordinary commercial enterprise—and the connection of the Atlantic sea-board with the Pacific shores, villages and towns have extended at distant intervals across the continent, from Port Arthur to Vancouver, the latter place an instance of western phenomenal growth. Stone and brick buildings of fine architectural proportions, streets paved and lit by electricity, huge elevators, busy mills, are the characteristics of {393} some towns where only yesterday brooded silence, and the great flowery stretches of prairie were only crushed by the feet of wandering Indians and voyageurs.

Fourteen years after the formation of the province of Manitoba, whilst the Canadian Pacific Railway was in the course of construction, the peace of the territories was again disturbed by risings of half-breeds in the South Saskatchewan district, chiefly at Duck Lake, St. Laurent, and Batoche. Many of these men had migrated from Manitoba to a country where they could follow their occupation of hunting and fishing, and till little patches of ground in that shiftless manner characteristic of the Metis. The total number of half-breeds in the Saskatchewan country were probably four thousand, of whom the majority lived in the settlements just named. These people had certain land grievances, the exact nature of which it is not easy even now to ascertain; but there is no doubt that they laboured under the delusion that, because there was much red-tapeism and some indifference at Ottawa in dealing with their respective claims, there was a desire or intention to treat them with injustice. Conscious that they might be crowded out by the greater energy and enterprise of white settlers—that they could no longer depend on their means of livelihood in the past, when the buffalo and other game were plentiful, these restless, impulsive, illiterate people were easily led to believe that their only chance of redressing their real or fancied wrongs was such a rising as had taken place on the Red River in {394} 1869. It is believed that English settlers in the Prince Albert district secretly fomented the rising with the hope that it might also result in the establishment of a province on the banks of the Saskatchewan, despite its small population. The agitators among the half-breeds succeeded in bringing Riel into the country to lead the insurrection. He had been an exile ever since 1870, and was at the time teaching school in Montana. After the rebellion he had been induced to remain out of the Northwest by the receipt of a considerable sum of money from the secret service fund of the Dominion Government, then led by Sir John Macdonald. In 1874 he had been elected to the House of Commons by the new constituency of Provencher in Manitoba; but as he had been proclaimed an outlaw, when a true bill for murder was found against him in the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench, and when he had failed to appear for trial, he was expelled from the house on the motion of Mr. Mackenzie Bowell, a prominent Orangeman, and, later, premier of the Canadian Government. Lepine, a member also of the so-called provisional government of Red River, had been tried and convicted for his share in the murder of Scott, but Lord Dufferin, when governor-general, exercised the prerogative of royal clemency, as an imperial officer, and commuted the punishment to two years' imprisonment. In this way the Mackenzie government was relieved—but only temporarily—of a serious responsibility which they were anxious to avoid, at a time when they were between the two fires: of the people of Ontario, {395} anxious to punish the murderers with every severity, and of the French Canadians, the great majority of whom showed a lively sympathy for all those who had taken part in the rebellion of 1869. The influence of French Canada was also seen in the later action of the Mackenzie government in obtaining a full amnesty for all concerned in the rebellion except Riel, Lepine, and O'Donohue, who were banished for five years. The popularity enjoyed by Riel and his associates in French Canada, as well as the clemency shown to them, were doubtless facts considered by the leaders in the second rising on the Saskatchewan as showing that they had little to fear from the consequences of their acts. Riel and Dumont—the latter a half-breed trader near Batoche—were the leaders of the revolt which broke out at Duck Lake in the March of 1885 with a successful attack on the Mounted Police and the Prince Albert Volunteers, who were defeated with a small loss of life. This success had much effect on the Indian tribes in the Saskatchewan district, among whom Riel and his associates had been intriguing for some time, and Poundmaker, Big Bear, and other chiefs of the Cree communities living on the Indian reserves, went on the warpath. Subsequently Battleford, then the capital of the Territories, was threatened by Indians and Metis, and a force under Big Bear massacred at Frog Lake two Oblat missionaries, and some other persons, besides taking several prisoners, among whom were Mrs. Delaney and Mrs. Gowanlock, widows of two of the murdered men, who were released at the close {396} of the rising. Fort Pitt, on the North Saskatchewan, thirty miles from Frog Lake, was abandoned by Inspector Dickens—a son of the novelist—and his detachment of the Mounted Police, on the approach of a large body of Indians under Big Bear. When the news of these outrages reached Ottawa, the government acted with great promptitude. A French Canadian, now Sir Adolphe Caron, was then minister of militia in Sir John Macdonald's ministry, and showed himself fully able to cope with this, happily, unusual, experience in Canadian Government. From all parts of the Dominion—from French as well as English Canada—the volunteers patriotically rallied to the call of duty, and Major-General Middleton, a regular officer in command of the Canadian militia, led a fine force of over four thousand men into the Northwest. The Canadian Pacific Railway was now built, with the exception of a few breaks of about seventy-two miles in all, as far as Qu'Appelle, which is sixteen hundred and twenty miles from Ottawa and about two hundred and thirty-five miles to the south of Batoche. The Canadian troops, including a fine body of men from Winnipeg, reached Fish Creek, fifteen miles from Batoche, on the 24th of April, or less than a month after the orders were given at Ottawa to march from the east. Here the insurgents, led by Dumont, were concealed in rifle-pits, ingeniously constructed and placed in a deep ravine. They checked Middleton, who does not appear to have taken sufficient precautions to ascertain the position of the enemy—thoroughly trained marksmen who were able to shoot down a considerable {397} number of the volunteers. Later, at Batoche, the Canadian troops, led with great bravery by Colonels Straubenzie, Williams, Mackeand, and Grassett, scattered the insurgents, who never made an attempt to rally. The gallantry of Colonel Williams of the Midlanders—an Ontario battalion—was especially conspicuous, but he never returned from the Northwest to receive the plaudits of his countrymen, as he died of fever soon after the victory he did so much to win at Batoche. Colonel Otter, a distinguished officer of Toronto, had an encounter with Poundmaker at Cut Knife Creek on Battle River, one of the tributaries of the North Saskatchewan, and prevented him from making any hostile demonstrations against Battleford and other places. Riel's defeat at Batoche cowed these Indians, who gave up their arms and prisoners to Otter. Elsewhere in the Territories all trouble was prevented by the prompt transport of troops under Colonel Strange to Fort Edmonton, Calgary, and other points of importance. The Blackfeet, the most formidable body of natives in the Territories, never broke the peace, although they were more than once very restless. Their good behaviour was chiefly owing to the influence of Chief Crowfoot, always a friend of the Canadians.



When the insurrection was over, an example was made of the leaders. Dumont succeeded in making his escape, but Riel, who had been captured after the fight at Batoche, was executed at Regina after a most impartial trial, in which he had the assistance of very able counsel brought from French Canada. Insanity was pleaded even, in his defence, not only {398} in the court but subsequently in the Commons at Ottawa, when it was attempted to censure the Canadian Government for their stern resolution to vindicate the cause of order in the Territories. Poundmaker and Big Bear were sent for three years to the penitentiary, and several other Indians suffered the extreme penalty of the law for the murders at Frog Lake. Sir John Macdonald was at the head of the Canadian Government, and every possible effort was made to force him to obtain the pardon of Riel, but he felt that he could not afford to weaken the authority of law in the west, and his French Canadian colleagues, Sir Hector Langevin, then minister of public works, Sir Adolphe Chapleau, then secretary of state,—now lieutenant-governor of Quebec—Sir Adolphe Caron, then minister of militia, exhibited commendable courage in resisting the passionate and even menacing appeals of their countrymen, who were carried away at this crisis by a false sentiment, rather than by a true sense of justice. Happily, in the course of no long time, the racial antagonisms raised by this unhappy episode in the early history of confederation disappeared under the influence of wiser counsels, and the peace of this immense region has never since been threatened by Indians or half-breeds, who have now few, if any, grievances on which to brood. The patriotism shown by the Canadian people in this memorable contest of 1885 illustrated the desire of all classes to consolidate the union, and make it secure from external and internal dangers, and had also an admirable influence in foreign countries {400} which could now appreciate the growing national strength of the Dominion. In the cities of Ottawa, Toronto, and Winnipeg, monuments have been raised to recall the services of the volunteers who fought and died at Fish Creek and Batoche. On the banks of the Saskatchewan a high cairn and cross point to the burial place of the men who fell before the deadly shot of the half-breed sharpshooters at Fish Creek:

"Not in the quiet churchyard, near those who loved them best; But by the wild Saskatchewan, they laid them to their rest. A simple soldier's funeral in that lonely spot was theirs, Made consecrate and holy by a nation's tears and prayers. Their requiem—the music of the river's surging tide; Their funeral wreaths, the wild flowers that grow on every side; Their monument—undying praise from each Canadian heart, That hears how, for their country's sake, they nobly bore their part."



One of the finest bodies of troops in the world, the Mounted Police of Canada, nearly one thousand strong, now maintains law and order throughout a district upwards of three hundred thousand square miles in area, and annually cover a million and a half miles in the discharge of their onerous duties. The half-breeds now form but a very small minority of the population, and are likely to disappear as a distinct class under the influence of civilisation. The Indians, who number about thirty thousand in Manitoba and the Northwest, find their interests carefully guarded by treaties and statutes of Canada, which recognise their rights as wards of the Canadian Government. They are placed on large reserves, {402} where they can carry on farming and other industrial occupations for which the Canadian Government, with commendable liberality, provide means of instruction. Many of the Indians have shown an aptitude for agricultural pursuits which has surprised those who have supposed they could not be induced to make much progress in the arts of civilised life. The average attendance of Indian children at the industrial and other schools is remarkably large compared even with that of white children in the old provinces. The Indian population of Canada, even in the Northwest territory, appear to have reached the stationary stage, and hereafter a small increase is confidently expected by those who closely watch the improvement in their methods of life. The high standard which has been reached by the Iroquois population on the Grand River of Ontario, is an indication of what we may even expect in the course of many years on the banks of the many rivers of the Northwest. The majority of the tribes in Manitoba and the Northwest—the Crees and Blackfeet—belong to the Algonquin race, and the Assiniboines or Stonies, to the Dacotahs or Sioux, now only found on the other side of the frontier. The Tinneh or Athabaskan family occupy the Yukon and Mackenzie valleys, while in the Arctic region are the Eskimo or Innuits. In British Columbia[1] there are at least eight distinct stocks; in the interior, Tinneh, Salish or Shuswap; on the coast, Haida, Ishimsian, Kwakiool (including Hailtzuk), Bilhoola, Aht, {403} or Nootka, and Kawitshin, the latter including several names, probably of Salish affinity, living around the Gulf of Georgia. The several races that inhabit Canada, the Algonquins, the Huron-Iroquois, the Dacotah, the Tinneh, and the several stocks of British Columbia, have for some time formed an interesting study for scholars, who find in their languages and customs much valuable archaeological and ethnological lore. The total number of Indians that now inhabit the whole Dominion is estimated at over one hundred thousand souls, of whom one-third live in the old provinces.



[1] Dr. Geo. M. Dawson, F.R.S., has given me this division of Indian tribes.



{404}

XXVII.

COMPLETION OF THE FEDERAL UNION—MAKERS OF THE DOMINION.

(1871-1891.)

Within three years after the formation of the new province of Manitoba in the Northwest, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia came into the confederation, and gave completeness to the federal structure. Cook and Vancouver were among the adventurous sailors who carried the British flag to the Pacific province, whose lofty, snow-clad mountains, deep bays, and many islands give beauty, grandeur, and variety to the most glorious scenery of the continent. Daring fur-traders passed down its swift and deep rivers and gave them the names they bear. The Hudson's Bay Company held sway for many years within the limits of an empire. The British Government, as late as 1849, formed a Crown colony out of Vancouver, and in 1858, out of the mainland, previously known as New Caledonia. In 1866 the two provinces were united with a simple form of government, consisting of a lieutenant-governor, and a legislative council, partly appointed by the Crown and partly elected by the people; but in 1871, when it entered into the Canadian union, a {406} complete system of responsible government was established as in the other provinces. Prince Edward Island was represented at the Quebec conference, but it remained out of confederation until 1873, when it came in as a distinct province; one of the conditions of admission was the advance of funds by the Dominion government for the purchase of the claims of the persons who had held the lands of the island for a century. The land question was always the disturbing element in the politics of the island, whose history otherwise is singularly uninteresting to those who have not had the good fortune to be among its residents and to take a natural interest in local politics. The ablest advocate of confederation was Mr. Edward Whelan, a journalist and politician who took part in the Quebec conference, but did not live to see it carried out by Mr. J. C. Pope, Mr. Laird, and others.



At Confederation the destinies of old Canada were virtually in the hands of three men—the Honourable George Brown, Sir George Cartier, and Sir John Macdonald, to give the two latter the titles they received at a later time. Mr. Brown was mainly responsible for the difficulties that had made the conduct of government practically impossible, through his persistent and even rude assertion of the claims of Upper Canada to larger representation and more consideration in the public administration. No one will deny his consummate ability, his inflexibility of purpose, his impetuous oratory, and his financial knowledge, but his earnestness carried him frequently beyond the {407} limits of political prudence, and it was with reason that he was called "a governmental impossibility," as long as French and English Canada continued pitted against each other, previous to the union of 1867. The journal which he conducted with so much force, attacked French Canada and its institutions with great violence, and the result was the increase of racial antagonisms. Opposed to him was Sir George Etienne Cartier, who had found in the Liberal-Conservative party, and in the principles of responsible government, the means of strengthening the French Canadian race and making it a real power in the affairs of the country. Running throughout his character there was a current of sound sense and excellent judgment which came to the surface at national crises. A solution of difficulties, he learned, was to be found not in the violent assertion of national claims, but in the principles of compromise and conciliation. With him was associated Sir John Macdonald, the most successful statesman that Canada has yet produced, on account of his long tenure of office and of the importance of the measures that he was able to carry in his remarkable career. He was premier of the Dominion from 1867 until his death in 1891, with the exception of the four years of the administration of the Liberals (1873-1878), led by the late Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, who had raised himself from the humble position of stonemason to the highest place in the councils of the country, by dint of his Scotch shrewdness, his tenacity of purpose, his public honesty, and his thorough comprehension of {408} Canadian questions, though he was wanting in breadth of statesmanship. Many generations must pass away before the personal and political merits of Sir John Macdonald can be advantageously and impartially reviewed. A lawyer by profession, but a politician by choice, not remarkable for originality of conception, but possessing an unusual capacity for estimating the exact conditions of public sentiment, and for moulding his policy so as to satisfy that opinion, having a perfect understanding of the ambitions and weaknesses of human nature, believing that party success was often as desirable as the triumph of any great principle, ready to forget his friends and purchase his opponents when political danger was imminent, possessing a fascinating manner, which he found very useful at times when he had to pacify his friends and disarm his opponents, fully comprehending the use of compromise in a country of diverse nationalities, having a firm conviction that in the principles of the British constitution there was the best guaranty for sound political progress, having a patriotic confidence in the ability of Canada to hold her own on this continent, and become, to use his own words, a "nation within a nation,"—that is to say, within the British Empire—Sir John Macdonald offers to the political student an example of a remarkable combination of strength and weakness, of qualities which make up a great statesman and a mere party politician, according to the governing circumstances. Happily for the best interests of Canada, in the case of confederation the statesman prevailed. But his ambition at this crisis {410} would have been futile had not Mr. Brown consented to unite with him and Cartier. This triple alliance made a confederation possible on terms acceptable to both English and French Canadians. These three men were the representatives of the antagonistic elements that had to be reconciled and cemented. The readiness with which Sir Charles Tupper and Sir Leonard Tilley, the premiers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, co-operated with the statesmen of the upper provinces, was a most opportune feature of the movement, which ended in the successful formation of a confederation in 1867. Although the Liberal leaders in Nova Scotia, Mr., afterwards Sir, Adams Archibald, and Mr. Jonathan McCully, like Brown, Howland, Mowat, and McDougall in old Canada, supported the movement with great loyalty, the people of the province were aroused to a passionate opposition mainly through the vigorous action of the popular leader, Mr. Joseph Howe, who had been an eloquent advocate of colonial union before it assumed a practical shape, but now took the strong ground that the question should not be forced on the country by a legislature which had no mandate whatever to deal with it, that it should be determined only by the people at the polls, and that the terms arranged at Quebec were unfair to the maritime provinces. Mr. Howe subsequently obtained "better terms" for Nova Scotia by every available means of constitutional agitation—beyond which he was never willing to go, however great might be public grievances—and then he yielded to {412} the inevitable logic of circumstances, and entered the Dominion government, where he remained until he became lieutenant-governor of his native province. The feelings, however, he aroused against confederation lasted with some intensity for years, although the cry for repeal died away, according as a new generation grew up in place of the one which remembered with bitterness the struggles of 1867.



Mr. George Brown died from the wound he received at the hands of a reckless printer, who had been in his employ, and Canadians have erected to his memory a noble monument in the beautiful Queen's Park of the city where he laboured so long and earnestly as a statesman and a journalist. Sir George Cartier died in 1873, but Sir John Macdonald survived his firm friend for eighteen years, and both received State funerals. Statues of Sir John Macdonald have been erected in the cities of Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, and Kingston. In Ottawa on one side of the Parliament building we see also a statue of the same distinguished statesman, and on the other that of his great colleague, Sir George Cartier. It was but fitting that the statues of these most famous representatives of the two distinct elements of the Canadian people should have been placed alongside of the national legislature. They are national sentinels to warn Canadian people of the dangers of racial or religious conflict, and to illustrate the advantages of those principles of compromise and justice on which both Cartier and Macdonald, as far as they could, raised the edifice of confederation.



{413}

XXVIII

CANADA AS A NATION: MATERIAL AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT—POLITICAL RIGHTS.

Up to the dissolution of the 1904 Parliament in October, 1908, the Dominion had had ten Parliaments. During the first thirty years the Conservatives were almost continuously in office. They were defeated in the general election of 1874, owing to some grave scandals in connection with the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway; but were again returned to office in 1878. In the election of 1878 they were returned on a platform of protection for Canadian industry, and in 1879 Parliament enacted a National Policy Tariff, which was at once vehemently attacked by the Liberal Opposition. Seventeen years, however, elapsed before the Liberals had the opportunity of revising the tariff, and it was not until 1897 that there was any modification in the protective duties. In 1896, however, after several years of profound depression in trade in the Dominion, the Liberals succeeded in obtaining a large majority, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier succeeded to {414} the premiership, which after the death of Sir John Macdonald had been held successively by Sir J. J. C. Abbott, Sir John Thompson, who died at Windsor, where he had gone to take the oath of office of privy councillor, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and Sir Charles Tupper.



The following year (1897) the Liberal Government revised the tariff, retaining the protective features, and enlarging the system of bounties for the encouragement of industry which had been commenced in 1883. The tariff was modified, however, by the establishment of a preference for Great Britain, which, beginning at a reduction of one-eighth from the general tariff, was increased to one-fourth, and finally in 1900 to one-third. This reduction remained in force until 1906-7, when the tariff was again revised and arranged in three lists—general, intermediate, and British preference. The intermediate tariff was intended as a basis of negotiation whereby Canada might obtain concessions from foreign countries. After the concession of the British preference in 1897, Great Britain, at the request of Canada, denounced her commercial treaties with several foreign countries, under the terms of which concessions granted by the colonies to the mother country would have had to be extended to the treaty countries. Germany was one of these countries, and on the expiration of the treaty Germany showed her resentment by applying her maximum tariff to Canada. Canada retaliated by the imposition of a surtax on German goods, and a tariff war ensued, which resulted in a much higher degree of {416} protection for Canadian manufacturers whose products came into competition with imports from Germany. The British preference was extended by Canada to other British colonies, which in return granted advantages to Canada, and in 1908, with the consent of Great Britain, Canada negotiated a commercial treaty with France on the basis of the intermediate tariff, though with numerous further concessions.

Railway building in Canada had begun as far back as 1836, when a short length of line from La Prairie to St. John's, in the Province of Quebec, was opened for traffic. The first link in what is now known as the Grand Trunk Railway was constructed in 1845, when Montreal was connected with the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway, now the Portland (Maine) Division of the Grand Trunk System. In 1851 the Grand Trunk Railway Company was incorporated, and took over about a hundred miles of constructed line. Soon afterwards the Legislature of the United Provinces of Quebec and Ontario passed the measure which is now known as the Guarantee Act. Under this enactment Government aid was given to railways of not less than seventy miles in length; and it was with this aid that the great development of the Grand Trunk system began. In 1854 the Grand Trunk line from Toronto to Montreal was opened. By 1856 Toronto was connected, via Sarnia, with the State of Michigan. In 1859 Toronto was brought into railway communication with Detroit; and by 1869 the Grand Trunk had leased the International Bridge across the Niagara River, and by this means {417} its system was connected with the State of New York and the numerous centres of population in the Eastern States, which are reached via Buffalo.

Most of this development of the Grand Trunk system had preceded Confederation; but at Confederation the greatest need of the Dominion was easy means of communication between the provinces heretofore known as Upper and Lower Canada. One of the first undertakings of the new Dominion Government was the construction of the Intercolonial Railway, the object of which was to connect the maritime provinces with each other and with Quebec, and the building of which by the Government was one of the conditions on which the maritime provinces had consented to Confederation. It still remained to push out a railway to the far west, and in 1881 work was begun on the Canadian Pacific Railway. In four years this great highway across the continent was ready for use, and in 1887 the Canadian Pacific Railway established a line of steamships across the Pacific in connection with its Pacific terminals.

With the opening of the great North-west and the creation of the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905,[1] the railway communication was found to be insufficient, and a new line to the Pacific was begun by the Grand Trunk Railway, which had been the pioneer in railway work in Ontario, and which before the beginning of the new line had already over 3,000 miles of road. {418} The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway is divided into two sections. The eastern runs from Moncton to Winnipeg, a distance of 1,875 miles, and is being built by the Government. On its completion it is to be leased to the Grand Trunk Railway Company for fifty years. The western section runs from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert on the Pacific, a distance of 1,480 miles, and is being constructed and equipped by the Company, the Government granting a subsidy, and guaranteeing the Company's bonds up to 75 per cent. of the cost of construction. The first stretch of the new line to be completed was that from Winnipeg to Wainwright, a distance of 666 miles. It went into service in September, 1908, and was completed by the end of 1915.

At the same time, the Great Northern began to push out to the North-west, for the sake of the immense trade in grain which the opening up of the new provinces had created. A little later work was also begun on the Hudson's Bay Railway, which was intended to connect the more northern waters with Ontario and the Great Lakes. In 1908 the Dominion had twenty-two thousand miles of railway completed, in addition to the long stretches then under construction. In 1918 it was 38,879 miles.

Almost as important to Canada as her railways are her canals and her waterways. In 1897, on the accession of the Liberal Government to office, it was determined to deepen the St. Lawrence canals and enlarge the locks sufficiently to allow the passage from the great lakes to the sea of vessels {419} drawing not more than fourteen feet of water. These canals afford a through water route, with a minimum depth of fourteen feet, from Montreal to Port Arthur on Lake Superior, a distance of 1,223 miles, 73 of which are by canal. The total expenditure of the Dominion on canals up to 1919 amounted to over $127,000,000.

Alongside the improvement in the means of communication—railways and canals—has gone a considerable growth of Canadian manufacturing industries. The iron and steel industry was scarcely in existence at Confederation. The Marmora plant at Long Point, Ontario, and a smaller plant at Three Rivers, Quebec, had been in existence since the forties; but the iron and steel industry, as it exists to-day in Canada, is largely the creation of the national policy of protective tariffs and bounties. The bounty system was instituted in 1883, chiefly for the benefit of a blast furnace of 100 tons capacity at Londonderry, Nova Scotia, which was then in difficulties. Besides this furnace, only two others—charcoal furnaces with an aggregate capacity of fifteen tons, at Drummondsville, Quebec—came on the bounty list in 1884. In 1897, when the Liberals came into office, furnaces had also been erected at New Glasgow, Radnor, and Hamilton, and the aggregate daily capacity of the furnaces of the Dominion was then 445 tons.

At the revision of the tariff in 1897 the bounty system was greatly extended, and under its aegis two great modern iron and steel plants—one at Sydney, N.S., and one at Sault Ste. Marie, O., came {420} into existence. Modern furnaces have also been established at North Sydney, Hamilton, Welland, Midland, and Port Arthur, and in 1908 the output of pig-iron from all these plants was a little over 600,000 tons. A large proportion of this pig-iron is converted at the Sault Ste. Marie and the Sydney plants into steel rails, for which the constant extension of the railways furnishes a steady market.

Next to iron and steel the most important manufacturing industries are the textiles. Both woollens and cottons were manufactured in Canada in small quantities before Confederation. A small woollen mill was established at Coburg, Ontario, in 1846, and even earlier than this there were woollen mills in Nova Scotia which had made the province notable for their Halifax tweeds. In 1908, however, the woollen industry generally was not in a flourishing condition. Of the 157 mills in existence when the census of 1901 was taken, 28 had disappeared before 1908, and several of the 129 that remained were closed either permanently or temporarily. The value of the woollen goods produced in 1908 did not exceed seven million dollars.

The cotton industry, which is well organised and financially strong, has its largest centres at Montreal and Valleyfield, Quebec. The mills, of which there are about twenty-three, are large, modern, and well-equipped, and the value of their output is more than double that of the woollen mills of the Dominion.

The industry which ranks next in importance is probably the manufacture of farm implements and {421} machinery, which is located at Brantford and Hamilton. Hamilton is also the centre of the manufacture of electrical equipment, stoves, wire, steel castings, hardware, and many other products of metal. At Montreal are the Angus shops, which rank with the finest on the North American Continent, at which locomotives are built for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in 1908 the Grand Trunk Railway established similar shops on a correspondingly modern scale for locomotive building at Stratford, Ontario.

Shipbuilding was an important industry in the maritime provinces and Quebec in the old days of wooden sailing ships; but with the incoming of steamships of iron and steel the maritime provinces entirely lost their old pre-eminence and world-wide reputation for shipbuilding. It was July, 1908, before a steel ocean-going vessel was launched in the maritime provinces. This was a three-masted schooner of 900 tons burden, the James William, which was built in the Matheson Yard, at New Glasgow, N.S. Steel vessels had, however, been built for lake service at Toronto, Collingwood, and Bridgeburg from 1898 onward. At Collingwood and Bridgeburg the largest and finest types of lake freighters and passenger vessels are built. In 1908 a new steel shipbuilding yard was installed at Welland, and plans were completed for the establishment of a large yard at Dartmouth on Halifax Harbour.

Until the development of the prairie provinces, all manufacturing in the Dominion was carried on {422} east of the great lakes. With the opening out of the great wheat-growing regions of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, however, Winnipeg is gradually becoming a great manufacturing city, and many miscellaneous industries on a factory scale have been established there. The most western iron plant—puddling furnaces and a rolling mill—is situated on the outskirts of the city.

According to the figures of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, as given by Mr. E. J. Freysing, President of the Toronto Section, in July, 1908, there were in Canada at that time 2,465 firms which were either members of the Association or were eligible for membership. These firms employed either on salary or wages 392,330 men, women, and children. This number includes 80,000 engaged in the lumbering business—the largest number engaged in any one trade. Lumbering is carried on in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the annual value of the product is over one hundred million dollars—a value only exceeded by the food products of the Dominion.

More important than all other industries put together is farming. The extent of this industry may be judged from the fact that each year from 1900 to 1908 from 20,000 to 40,000 homesteads were taken up. The usual size of these homesteads is 160 acres, and the acreage thus newly under cultivation varied during the eight years from one to twelve million square miles a year. In 1907 alone the new farms represented an immigration {423} of 105,420 persons. The total number of farms in the Dominion in 1908 was estimated at 600,000, representing a population directly dependent upon farming of over three millions. The principal crops in the prairie provinces are oats, wheat, and barley. The total crop of wheat in 1908 was about 130,000,000 bushels, of oats 270,000,000, and of barley 50,000,000.

In Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces, dairying, fruit-growing, hog-raising—for bacon and ham—and mixed farming have taken the place of grain crops. In 1908 Canada had gained a strong position in the markets of Great Britain for cheese, butter, and canned goods, a position which was largely due to the work of the Dominion Agricultural Department in providing cold storage for farm products on the railways and steamers, and also to the educational work which the Department had been steadily pushing among the farmers.

The Dominion is rich in metals and minerals, and mining is an important industry in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and British Columbia. The largest coal-fields of Canada are in Cape Breton and in Pictou and Cumberland Counties, Nova Scotia, from which over five million tons of coal are mined each year. There are no coal measures between New Brunswick and Manitoba, and the lignite beds of Manitoba yield a much less valuable coal than that of Nova Scotia. The coal area of the Rocky Mountains, though not so large as that of the maritime provinces, yields the best coal so far found in the Dominion. The centre of this formation is at the Crow's Nest Pass. {424} There is another coal area on the Pacific Coast in the neighbourhood of Nanaimo and in Queen Charlotte's Island. The total amount of coal mined in the Dominion in 1908 was 10,510,000. Besides coal, there are in Canada rich deposits of iron ore, lead, nickel, copper, silver, and gold, and the non-metallic minerals include petroleum, asbestos, and corundum. Diamonds have been found in Quebec in a formation not unlike the diamond fields of Kimberley. Gold is found chiefly in the Klondike country and in British Columbia; but some gold is also obtained from Nova Scotia, and a fair amount from Ontario and Quebec.

Ever since the settlement of the maritime provinces fishing has been an important industry on their shores, and many of the disputes with the United States have arisen out of the privileges granted to United States fishermen in the treaty of 1818. These disputes have, however, concerned Newfoundland more closely than the Dominion, and the final settlement of all questions between the sister colony and the great republic is hardly yet in sight. A modus vivendi pending settlement was again signed in August, 1908. The fishing industry is not confined to the maritime provinces. River and lake fishing are carried on in Ontario, Manitoba, and the new provinces; and British Columbia has fisheries and canneries of great importance on her coast and rivers. The total value of the yield of the fisheries for 1908 was about twenty-five million dollars.

The population of the Dominion in 1908 was {425} estimated to be about six and a half millions, with a yearly immigration of between 150,000 and 200,000. The French Canadians numbered about 1,500,000, and of the rest the majority were English, Scotch, and Irish. The new immigration is introducing each year a large number of non-English-speaking people, and also some very desirable settlers in the American farmers from the Western States. Among the more important foreign settlements are those of the Doukhobors, who were received in Canada as refugees from persecution in Russia, and who have repeatedly given trouble to the authorities on account of their fanatical resistance to orderly government.

The revenue of Canada for 1907-8 was $96,054,505, and the expenditure was $76,641,451, leaving a surplus of nearly twenty million dollars. At the close of the fiscal year the debt of Canada amounted to $277,960,259. Canals, lighthouses, railways, Government buildings, and other public works are the assets which Canada has to set against this debt, which represents the expenditure necessary for the development of a new and widely extended country.

In education the Dominion ranks almost equal to the Northern States of America. Every province has a public school system, and the primary and grammar schools, especially of Ontario, are a pride and a credit to the people of the province. In 1908 there were seventeen universities in the Dominion. Among them may be mentioned McGill in Montreal, Laval in Quebec, Queen's in Kingston, Dalhousie {426} in Halifax, University of Toronto in Toronto, and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. The University of Alberta was founded in 1906, that of Saskatchewan in 1907, and British Columbia in 1908.

Every city in Canada and every town of any size has its newspaper or newspapers—daily, bi-weekly, or weekly. Canadian journalism has a character quite of its own, leaning more to American ideals than to those of England. A great change in this respect has come over the Canadian Press since about 1885, up to which time the more important daily newspapers in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, and St. John had been on the English rather than the American model.



Self-government exists in the full sense of the term. At the base of the political structure lie those municipal institutions which, for completeness, are not excelled in any other country. It is in the enterprising province of Ontario that the system has attained its greatest development. The machinery of these municipalities is used in Ontario to raise the taxes necessary for the support of public schools, Free libraries can be provided in every municipality whenever the majority of the taxpayers choose. Then we go up higher to the provincial organisations governed by a lieutenant-governor, nominated and removable by the government of the Dominion, and advised by a council responsible to the people's representatives, with a legislature composed, in only two of the provinces, of two houses—a council appointed by the Crown, and an elective assembly; in all the other provinces, there is simply an assembly {428} chosen by the people on a very liberal franchise, manhood suffrage in the majority of cases. The fundamental law, or the British North America Act of 1867, gives jurisdiction to the provincial governments over administration of justice (except in criminal matters), municipal, and all purely local affairs. The North-West Territories are under the Department of the Interior. Yukon Territory is governed by a Gold Commissioner, appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and a Council of three members elected by the people, The central or general government of the Dominion is administered by a governor-general, with the assistance of a ministry responsible to a Parliament, composed of a Senate appointed by the Crown, and a House of Commons elected under an electoral franchise, practically on the very threshold of universal suffrage. This government has jurisdiction over trade and commerce, post-office, militia and defence, navigation and shipping, fisheries, railways and public works of a Dominion character, and all other matters of a general or national import. Education is under the control of the provincial governments, but the rights and privileges of a religious minority with respect to separate or denominational schools are protected by the constitution. The common law of England prevails in all the provinces except in French Canada, where the civil law still exists. The criminal law of England obtains throughout the Dominion. The central government appoints all the judges, who are irremovable except for cause. Although the constitution places in the central government the {429} residue of all powers, not expressly given to the provincial authorities, conflicts of jurisdiction are constantly arising between the general and local governments. Such questions, however, are being gradually settled by the decisions of the courts—the chief security of a written constitution—although at times the rivalry of parties and the antagonisms of distinct nationalities and creeds tend to give special importance to certain educational and other matters which arise in the operation of the constitution. All these are perils inseparable from a federal constitution governing two distinct races.

The relations of Canada with the United States have been increasingly close and cordial as years have gone on. Many old standing causes of friction have been removed; and in other cases, such as the fisheries dispute, and the extremely high duties levied on Canadian goods in the Dingley Tariff, there has been no recent aggravation of the irritation. In 1894 an end was made to the dispute over the right of America to exclude other nations from taking the seals of the Aleutian Islands outside the three-mile limit. Canadian vessels had been seized and confiscated by America, and a state of high tension existed, which was relieved by a reference of the dispute to arbitration. This time the award was in favour of Canada. The exclusive right of pelagic sealing was denied to the United States, and damages amounting to $464,000 were awarded to the Canadian fishermen.

The year 1896 is memorable, not only for the general election which brought Sir Wilfrid Laurier {430} into power, and for the beginning of an uplift in trade which lasted until October, 1907, but also for the discovery of gold in the Yukon and in Alaska. The great rush of adventurers induced by these discoveries continued for the next two years, and Dawson city grew up with mushroom haste as the metropolis of this Arctic region. Gold discoveries in both Canadian and American territory brought to a crisis the long-pending dispute over the international boundary in the far North-west. In 1898 a joint High Commission was created, whose duties were to settle a number of questions which had long caused friction between Canada and the United States. The sessions of this Commission extended over eight months without accomplishing anything. No formal ending was made to the work of the Commission, but it never re-assembled after its adjournment in February, 1899.

It was not until 1903 that an agreement was reached between Great Britain and the United States concerning the Alaskan boundary line. In that year a treaty was concluded by which this long-disputed question was relegated to a Commission of six jurists, three British and three American, who by a majority vote were empowered to determine the boundary line. The British members of the Commission were Lord Alverstone, Chief Justice of England, who was made president, with a casting vote in case of a tie, and two Canadians, Sir Louis Jette and Mr. A. B. Aylesworth, both eminent jurists. The American members were Mr. Henry C. Lodge, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. George Turner. The {431} report of the Commission, which was transmitted to the Governments of the United States and Great Britain in October, 1903, was somewhat disappointing to Canadians, as, on the whole, the Americans gained their contentions. Canada was shut out from water communication with the Yukon as far south as Portland Channel. The treaty in which this report was incorporated, and which was finally ratified in 1905, was, however, beneficial in removing a long-standing cause of irritation between the two nations, and Canada's need for a port was met in some degree by bonding concessions at the American ports on the Alaskan coast. An International Commission to mark out the boundary line was at work in Alaska in the summer of 1908.

Serious disturbance to a number of Canadian interests, especially those of the lumbermen, was caused by the passing of the Dingley Act, with its high duties on all Canadian exports except some raw materials. To the attack on Canadian lumber Ontario replied by prohibiting the export of saw logs cut on Crown timber limits, a step which led to the transfer of a considerable number of saw mills to the Canadian side of the border line. Another cause of complaint against the United States has been the strict and harsh enforcement of the contract labour laws on the American side of the boundary line.

It is the not unfounded boast of Canadians that as the nineteenth century was the century of growth and development of the United States, so the twentieth is to be the century of Canada; and the outstanding feature of Canadian development in {432} the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth is the awakening of her national consciousness. In all her relations with Great Britain this sense of nationality has been continuously manifest. In the Colonial Conferences which have been held at intervals in London since the first Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, Canada has been acknowledgedly first among the self-governing colonies. In 1897, partly as a result of the enthusiasm created by enactment of the preference for Great Britain by the Dominion Parliament, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the foremost figure among the colonial statesmen who were in London for the Diamond Jubilee. Another evidence of loyalty and of the close connection between Canada and Great Britain in the Jubilee year was the institution of two cent postage between Great Britain and Canada. Canada's domestic rate of letter postage from 1868 had been three cents, a rate which was extended to the United States by a postal convention, by which the domestic rate of Canada was made applicable to all letters and papers entering the United States, and that of the United States to all mail matter for Canada. This rate of three cents remained in force until January, 1899, when the two cent rate was made general for Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. In 1907, the rate for newspapers and periodicals between Great Britain and Canada was again lowered, and in August, 1908, a one cent rate for letters within the area of a town or city was adopted by the Canadian Post Office.

When the South African War broke out in 1899, {433} Canada was the first of the colonies to come to the help of the mother country; and the Canadian contingents, the first of which left Canada for South Africa in October, 1899, rendered excellent service in the Boer War, especially in such work as scouting and the guerilla fighting in which the Boers were so adept.

The treaty-making power is still withheld from the Dominion; but since the Alaskan boundary treaty Great Britain has given more and more attention to the demands and needs of Canada when treaties have been in negotiation, and in 1907 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mr. W. S. Fielding, Minister of Finance, and the Hon. Mr. L. P. Brodeur went to Paris to negotiate directly a commercial treaty with the French Government. During the years from 1904 to 1907 the British Government gradually withdrew all the troops and warships which had been stationed in the Dominion. Canada assumed control of the fortifications of Halifax and Esquimalt in July, 1905, and the replacing of British by Canadian soldiers was complete by February, 1906. The naval dockyard at Halifax was handed over to the Canadian Government authorities in January, 1907; and from end to end of the Dominion Canada is now in complete and undivided control of her own territory.



[1] The boundaries of the new provinces were finally settled by an Act of Parliament passed in 1908—an Act which also greatly enlarged the boundaries of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.



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XXIX.

FRENCH CANADA.

As this story commenced with a survey from the heights of Quebec of the Dominion of Canada from ocean to ocean, so now may it fitly close with a review of the condition of the French Canadian people who still inhabit the valley of the St. Lawrence, and whose history is contemporaneous with that of the ancient city whose picturesque walls and buildings recall the designs of French ambition on this continent.



Though the fortifications of Louisbourg and Ticonderoga, of Niagara, Frontenac, and other historic places of the French regime in America have been razed to the ground, and the French flag is never seen in the valley of the St. Lawrence, except on some holiday in company with other national colours, nevertheless on the continent where she once thought to reign supreme, France has been able to leave a permanent impress. But this impress is not in the valley of the Mississippi. It is true that a number of French still live on the banks of the great river, that many a little village where a French {436} patois is spoken lies hidden in the sequestered bayous of the South, and that no part of the old city of New Orleans possesses so much interest for the European stranger as the French or Creole quarter, with its quaint balconied houses and luxuriant gardens; but despite all this, it is generally admitted that the time is not far distant when the French language will disappear from Louisiana, and few evidences will be found of the days of the French occupancy of that beautiful State of the Union. On the banks of the St. Lawrence, however, France has left behind her what seem likely to be more permanent memorials of her occupation. The picturesque banks of the St. Lawrence, from the Atlantic to the great lakes of the West, are the home of a large and rapidly increasing population whose language and customs are so many memorials of the old regime whose history has taken up so many pages of this story.



The tourist who travels through the province of Quebec sees on all sides the evidence that he is passing through a country of French origin. Here and there in Quebec and Montreal, or in some quiet village sequestered in a valley or elevated on the Laurentian Hills, he sees houses and churches which remind him of many a hamlet or town he has visited in Brittany or Normandy. The language is French from the Saguenay to the Ottawa, and in some remote communities even now English is never spoken, and is understood only by the cure or notary. Nor is the language so impure or degenerated as many persons may naturally suppose. On {438} the contrary, it is spoken by the educated classes with a purity not excelled in France itself. The better class of French Canadians take pride in studying the language of the country of their ancestors, and are rarely guilty of Anglicisms, though these have necessarily crept into the common parlance of mixed communities, where people are forced to speak both French and English. In some rural districts, isolated from large towns, the people retain the language as it was spoken two centuries ago—though without the accent of the old provinces of their origin—and consequently many words and phrases which are rarely now heard in France, still exist among the peasantry of French Canada, just as we find in New England many expressions which are not pure Americanisms but really memorials of old English times. In French Canada the Anglicisms are such as occur under the natural condition of things. The native of old France has no words for "clearing" the forest, making maple sugar, "blazing" a way through the woods or over the ice and snow of the rivers and lakes, and consequently the vocabulary of the French Canadian has been considerably enlarged by local circumstances. In the summer resorts of the lower St. Lawrence the influence of the English visitors, now very numerous, is becoming more evident every year, and French habits are becoming modified and the young folks commence to speak English fairly well. Away from the St. Lawrence, however, and the path of the tourists, the French Canadians remain, relatively speaking, untouched by English customs.

{439}

Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois has been the key-note of French Canadian politics for over a century. At the present time the records and statutes of the Dominion are always given in the two languages, and the same is true of all motions put by the Speaker. Though the reports of the debates appear daily in French, English prevails in the House of Commons and in the Senate. The French Canadians are forced to speak the language of the majority, and it is some evidence of the culture of their leading public men, that many among them—notably Sir Wilfrid, the eloquent leader of the Liberals, and first French Canadian premier since 1867—are able to express themselves in English with a freedom and elegance which no English-speaking member can pretend to equal in French. In the legislature of the province of Quebec, French has almost excluded English, though the records are given in the two languages. In the supreme court of the Dominion the arguments may be in French, and the two Quebec judges give their decisions in their own tongue.

The people of French Canada are very devout Roman Catholics. The numerous churches, colleges, and convents of the country attest the power and wealth of the Church, and the desire of the French Canadians to glorify and perpetuate it by every means in their power. The whole land is practically parcelled out among the saints, as far as the nomenclature of the settlements and villages is concerned. The favourite saint appears to be Ste. Anne, whose name appears constantly on the banks {440} of the St. Lawrence. We have Ste. Anne de la Perade, Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere, and many others. We all remember the verse of Moore's boat song:

"Faintly as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time, Soon as the woods on shore look dim, We 'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn."

This village, situated at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, is generally known as Ste. Anne de Bellevue, and still retains some of the characteristics of a French Canadian village, notwithstanding its close neighbourhood to the English-speaking settlements of Ontario. Jesuits, Sulpicians, and Recollets have done much to mould the thought and control the political destiny of the people under their spiritual care. The universities, colleges, and schools are mainly directed by the religious orders. The priests, as this story has shown, have been very active and conscientious workers from the earliest days of Canadian history.

Canada, too, has her Notre Dame de Lourdes, to whose shrine the faithful flock by thousands. Some twenty miles east of Quebec, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, is the church of Ste. Anne de Beaupre, or, as the Saint is more particularly known, La bonne Ste. Anne, who has won fame in Canada for miraculous cures for two centuries at least.



This historic place rests under the shelter of a lofty mountain of the Laurentides, on a little plateau which has given it the name of the "beautiful meadow." The village itself consists of a {442} straggling street of wooden houses, with steep roofs and projecting eaves, nearly all devoted to the entertainment of the large assemblage that annually resorts to this Canadian Mecca, probably some sixty thousand in the course of the summer. Here you will see on the fete of Ste. Anne, and at other fixed times, a mass of people in every variety of costume, Micmacs, Hurons, and Iroquois—representatives of the old Indian tribes of Canada—French Canadians, men, women, and children, from the valleys of the Ottawa, and the St. Maurice, and all parts of Quebec, as well as tourists from the United States. The handsome grey stone church—now dignified as a "basilica"—which has been built of late years, attests the faith of many thousands who have offered their supplications at the shrine of La bonne Ste. Anne for centuries.[1] Piles of crutches of every description, of oak, of ash, of pine, are deposited in every available corner as so many votive offerings from the countless cripples that claim to have been cured or relieved. The relic through which all the wonderful cures are said to be effected, consists of a part of the finger bone of Ste. Anne, which was sent in 1668 by the Chapter of Carcassonne to Monseigneur de Laval. The church also possesses several pictures of merit, one of them by Le Brun, presented by the Viceroy Tracy in 1666. The situation of many of the French Canadian {443} villages is exceedingly picturesque, when they nestle in some quiet nook by the side of a river or bay, or overlook from some prominent hill a noble panorama of land and water. The spire of the stone church rises generally from the midst of the houses, and the priest's residence or presbytere is always the most comfortable in size and appearance. The houses are for the most part built of wood. The roofs are frequently curved, with projecting eaves, which afford a sort of verandah under which the family sit in summer evenings. Some of the most pretentious structures, especially the inns, have balconies running directly across the upper story. Many of the barns and outhouses have thatched roofs, which are never seen in any other part of Canada. The interiors are very plainly furnished, in many cases with chairs and tables of native manufacture. A high iron stove is the most important feature of every dwelling in a country where the cold of winter is so extreme. Whitewash is freely used inside and outside, and there is on the whole an air of cleanliness and comfort in the humblest cottage.

The loom is still kept busy in some villages, and a coarse, warm homespun is even yet made for everyday use. The habitant also wears in winter moccasins and a tuque bleue, or woollen cap, in which he is always depicted by the painter of Canadian scenes. But with the growth of towns and the development of the railway system a steady change is occurring year by year in the dress of the inhabitants, and it is only in the very remote settlements that we can find the homely stuffs of former times. Old dresses {444} and old customs are gradually disappearing with the old-fashioned caleche, in which tourists once struggled to admire French Canadian scenes. As a rule, however, the people live very economically, and extravagance in dress is rather the exception. On gala days the young wear many ribbons and colours, though arranged with little of the taste characteristic of the French people. Both old and young are very sociable in their habits, and love music and dancing. The violin is constantly played in the smallest village, and the young people dance old-fashioned cotillons or danses rondos. The priests, however, do not encourage reckless gaieties or extravagance in dress. Now and then the bishop issues a Pastoral in which the waltz and other fast dances, and certain fashionable modes of dress, are expressly forbidden, and though his mandates are no doubt soon forgotten in the cities and towns, they are, on the whole, religiously observed in the rural communities. The feasts of the Church are kept with great zeal,—especially the fetes d'obligation—and consequently the French Canadian has holidays without number.



No class of the population of Canada is more orderly or less disposed to crime than the French Canadians. The standard of the morality of the people is high. Early marriages have been always encouraged by the priests, and large families—fifteen children being very common—are the rule in the villages. The habitant is naturally litigious, and the amount in dispute is, in his opinion, trifling compared with the honour of having a case in court, {446} which demands the attendance of the whole village. The temperate habits of the French Canadian make them necessarily valuable employes in mills and manufactories of all kinds. Indeed, they prefer this life to that of the farm, and until very recently there was a steady exodus of this class to the manufacturing towns of Lowell, Holyoke, and other places in New England. A large proportion of the men employed in the lumbering industry of Canada is drawn from the province of Quebec. As their forefathers were coureurs de bois in the days of the French regime, and hunted the beaver in the wilderness, even venturing into the illimitable Northwest region, so in these modern times the French Canadians seek the vast pine woods which, despite axe and fire, still stretch over a large area watered by the Ottawa and other rivers.

In commercial and financial enterprise, the French Canadians cannot compete with their fellow-citizens of British origin, who practically control the great commercial undertakings and banking institutions of Lower Canada, especially in Montreal. Generally speaking, the French Canadians cannot compare with the English population as agriculturists, Their province is less favoured than Ontario with respect to climate and soil. The French system of sub-dividing farms among the members of a family has tended to cut up the land unprofitably, and it is a curious sight to see the number of extremely narrow lots throughout the French settlements. It must be admitted, too, that the French population has less enterprise, and less disposition to adopt new {447} machines and improved agricultural implements, than the people of the other provinces.

As a rule, the habitant lives contentedly on very little. Give him a pipe of native tobacco, a chance of discussing politics, a gossip with his fellows at the church door after service, a visit now and then to the county town, and he will be happy. It does not take much to amuse him, while he is quite satisfied that his spiritual safety is secured as long as he is within sound of the church bells, goes regularly to confession, and observes all the fetes d'obligation. If he or one of his family can only get a little office in the municipality, or in the "government," then his happiness is nearly perfect. Indeed, if he were not a bureaucrat, he would very much belie his French origin. Take him all in all, however, Jean-Baptiste, as he is familiarly known, from the patron saint of French Canada, has many excellent qualities. He is naturally polite, steady in his habits, and conservative in his instincts. He is excitable and troublesome only when his political passions are thoroughly aroused, or his religious principles are at stake; and then it is impossible to say to what extreme he will go. Like the people from whom he is descended—many of whose characteristics he has never lost since his residence of centuries on the American continent—he is greatly influenced by matters of feeling and sentiment, and the skilful master of rhetoric has it constantly in his power to sway him to an extent which is not possible in the case of the stronger, less impulsive Saxon race, with whom reason and argument prevail to a large degree.

{448}

In the present, as in the past, the Church makes every effort to supervise with a zealous care the mental food that is offered for the nourishment of the people in the rural districts, where it exercises the greatest influence. Agnosticism is a word practically unknown in the vocabulary of the French Canadian habitant, who is quite ready to adhere without wavering to the old belief which his forefathers professed. Whilst the French Canadians doubtless lose little by refusing to listen to the teachings which would destroy all old-established and venerable institutions, and lead them into an unknown country of useless speculation, they do not, as a rule, allow their minds sufficient scope and expansion. It is true that a new generation is growing up with a larger desire for philosophic inquiry and speculation. But whilst the priests continue to control the public school system of the province, they have a powerful means of maintaining the current of popular thought in that conservative and too often narrow groove, in which they have always laboured to keep it since the days of Laval.



It is obvious, however, to a careful observer of the recent history of the country that there is more independence of thought and action showing itself in the large centres of population—even in the rural communities—and that the people are beginning to understand that they should be left free to exercise their political rights without direct or undue interference on the part of their spiritual advisers. English ideas in this respect seem certainly to be gaining ground.

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In the days of the French regime there was necessarily no native literature, and little general culture except in small select circles at Quebec and Montreal. But during the past half century, with the increase of wealth, the dissemination of liberal education, and the development of self-government, the French Canadians have created for themselves a literature which shows that they inherit much of the spirituality and brilliancy of their race. Their histories and poems have attracted much attention in literary circles in France, and one poet, Mr. Louis Frechette, has won the highest prize of the French Institute for the best poem of the year. In history we have the names of Garneau, Ferland, Sulte, Tasse, Casgrain; in poetry, Cremazie, Chauveau, Frechette, Poisson, Lemay; in science, Hamel, Laflamme, De Foville; besides many others famed as savants and litterateurs. In art some progress has been made, and several young men go to the Paris schools from time to time. The only sculptor of original merit that Canada has yet produced is Hebert, a French Canadian, whose monuments of eminent Canadians stand in several public places. Science has not made so much progress as belles-lettres and history, though Laval University—the principal educational institution of the highest class—has among its professors men who show some creditable work in mathematics, geology, and physics. In romance, however, very little has been done.

The French Canadians have a natural love for poetry and music. Indeed it is a French Canadian by birth and early education—Madame Albani—who {451} not long ago won a high distinction on the operatic stage. No writer of this nationality, however, has yet produced an opera or a drama which has won fame for its author. The priesthood, indeed, has been a persistent enemy of the theatre, which consequently has never attained a successful foothold in French Canada. Sacred music, so essential a feature of a Roman Catholic service, has been always cultivated with success.

The chansons populaires, which have been so long in vogue among the people of all classes in the province of Quebec are the same in spirit, and very frequently in words, as those which their ancestors brought over with them from Brittany, Normandy, Saintonge, and Franche-Comte. Some have been adapted to Canadian scenery and associations, but most of them are essentially European in allusion and spirit. The Canadian lumberer among the pines of the Ottawa and its tributaries, the Metis or half-breeds of what was once the great Lone Land, still sing snatches of the songs which the coureurs de bois, who followed Duluth and other French explorers, were wont to sing as they paddled over the rivers of the West or camped beneath the pines and the maples of the great forests. It is impossible to set the words of all of them to the music of the drawing-room, where they seem tame and meaningless; but when they mingle with "the solemn sough of the forest," or with the roar of rushing waters, the air seems imbued with the spirit of the surroundings. It has been well observed by M. Gagnon, a French Canadian, that "many of them have no beauty {452} except on the lips of the peasantry." There is "something sad and soft in the voices that imparts a peculiar charm to these monotonous airs, in which their whole existence seems to be reflected."

I give below the most popular and poetical of all the Canadian ballads, and at the same time a translation by a Canadian writer:[2]

A LA CLAIRE FONTAINE. TRANSLATION.

A la claire fontaine Down to the crystal streamlet M'en allant promener, I strayed at close of day; J'ai trouve l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters Que je m'y suis baigne. I plunged without delay. Lui ya longtemps que je t'aime, I 've loved thee long and dearly, Jamais je ne t'oublierai. I 'll love thee, sweet, for aye.

J'ai trouve l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters Que je m'y suis baigne, I plunged without delay; Et c'est au pied d'un chene Then 'mid the flowers springing Que je m'suis repose. At the oak-tree's foot I lay.

Et c'est au pied d'un chene Then 'mid the flowers springing Que je m'suis repose; At the oak-tree's foot I lay; Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing Le rossignol chantait. High on the topmost spray.

Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing Le rossignol chantait; High on the topmost spray; Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing Toi qui as le coeur gai. Thy song with heart so gay.

Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing Toi qui as le coeur gai; Thy song with heart so gay; Tu as le coeur a rire, Thy heart was made for laughter, Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer. My heart 's in tears to-day.

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Tu as le coeur a rire, Thy heart was made for laughter, Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer; My heart 's in tears to-day; J'ai perdu ma maitresse Tears for a fickle mistress, Sans pouvoir la trouver. Flown from its love away.

J'ai perdu ma maitresse Tears for a fickle mistress, Sans pouvoir la trouver; Flown from its love away, Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play.

Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play— Je voudrais que la rose Would that each rose were growing Fut encore au rosier. Still on the rose-tree gay.

Je voudrais que la rose Would that each rose were growing Fut encore au rosier, Still on the rose-tree gay, Et que le rosier meme And that the fated rose-tree Fut dans la mer jete. Deep in the ocean lay. Lui ya longtemps que je t'aime, I 've loved thee long and dearly, Jamais je ne t'oublierai. I 'll love thee, sweet, for aye.

A la Claire Fontaine has been claimed for Franche-Comte, Brittany, and Normandy, but the best authorities have come to the conclusion, from a comparison of the different versions, that it is Norman. In Malbrouck s'en va-t-en-guerre, we have a song which was sung in the time of the Grand Monarque. Of its popularity with the French Canadians, we have an example in General Strange's reply to the 65th, a French Canadian regiment, during the second Northwest rebellion. One morning, after weeks of tedious and toilsome marching, just as the men were about to fall in, the General {454} overhead the remark—"Ah! when will we get home?" "Ah, mes garcons," laughed the General—

"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre Mais quand reviendra-t-il?"

"Malbrouck has gone a-fighting, But when will he return?"

and with their characteristic light-heartedness the men caught up the famous old air and the march was resumed without a murmur.

These chansons populaires of French Canada afford some evidence of the tenacity with which the people cling to the customs, traditions, and associations of the land of their origin. Indeed, a love for Old France lies still deep in the hearts of the people, and both young and old study her best literature, and find their greatest pride in her recognition of their poets and writers. But while there exists among the more influential and cultured class a sentimental attachment to Old France, there is a still deeper feeling, strengthened by the political freedom and material progress of the past forty years, that the connection with the British Empire gives the best guaranty for the preservation of their liberties and rights. This feeling has found frequent expression in the forcible utterances of Sir Wilfrid, the late Premier of the Dominion. No doubt the influence of the Roman Catholic priesthood has had much to do with perpetuating the connexion with England. They feel that it is {455} not by a connexion with France or the United States that their religious and civil institutions can be best conserved.

All classes now agree as to the necessity of preserving the federal system in its entirety, since it ensures better than any other system of government the rights and interests of the French Canadian population in all those matters most deeply affecting a people speaking a language, professing a religion, and retaining certain institutions different from those of the majority of the people of the Dominion.



No French Canadian writer or politician of weight in the country now urges so impossible or suicidal a scheme as the foundation of an independent French nationality on the banks of the St. Lawrence. The history of the fifty years that have elapsed since the dark days of Canada, when Papineau wished to establish a "Nation Canadienne," goes to show that the governing classes of the English and French nationalities have ceased to feel towards each other that intense spirit of jealousy which was likely at one time to develop itself into a dangerous hatred. The spirit of conciliation and justice, which has happily influenced the action of leading English and French Canadian statesmen in the administration of public affairs, has been so far successful in repressing the spirit of passion and demagogism which has exhibited itself at certain political crises, and in bringing the two nationalities into harmony with each other. As long as the same wise counsels continue to prevail in Canada that {456} have heretofore governed her, and carried her successfully through critical periods, the integrity of the confederation is assured, and the two races will ever work harmoniously together, united by the ties of a common interest,—always the strongest bond of union—and a common allegiance to the Empire to whose fostering care they already owe so much.



[1] The illustration represents the ancient church which was built in 1658, but was taken down a few years ago on account of its dangerous condition, and rebuilt on the old site near the basilica, in exactly the original form with the same materials.

[2] Songs of Old Canada. Translated by W. McLennan.



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XXX

RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF CANADA.

In the ordinary course of events this history of the Dominion should have closed with an account of the old French Province of Quebec, its people, their characteristics and their progress. But so much has happened in the second decade of the twentieth century that the impress of France is slowly being obliterated by a Canadianism which is peculiar to itself. Of course this does not mean that the French language is disappearing or that all the customs of the old regime are giving way to new. But autres temps, autres moeurs. For this the Great War has been largely responsible. Previous to it, the average French Canadian had been too prone to dwell on the ties which bound him to La Belle France. But a part in the world-conflict convinced him that in the hundred and fifty years he had been disassociated from the country of his birthright, he had worked out his destiny along lines essentially Canadian. This view is likewise affecting and influencing the standpoint of those who have settled in the Great Northwest. The result is a stronger feeling of Canadian nationality in that association {458} of nations which we are pleased to term the British Empire.



After the tragic death of Sir John Thompson in 1892 Canada struggled along politically under several Conservative Premiers which undoubtedly prepared the way for Sir Wilfrid Laurier's great victory four years afterwards. Then, surrounded by the men who had been so many years in opposition with him, he evolved those practical principles of Liberalism which kept his party firmly in power until he advocated free trade in 1911. Since that time both Liberals and Conservatives have come to the conclusion that a protective policy is the one best suited for Canada's growing needs and future prospects. It is interesting to recall, however, that in the dying days of Conservative rule, Nicholas Flood Davin, a prominent member on the Government benches, introduced a Bill for Woman's Suffrage, a reform which was not realised in the Dominion until 1917. As for Quebec it has adhered steadily to manhood franchise, although there is a decided possibility that women will receive the vote in 1922. Some three years afterwards, or, to be exact, September 29, 1898, a Prohibition plebiscite was carried in Canada, but it was fully twenty years before it was put into effect by the various provinces, always with the same exception—that of Quebec, It will therefore be seen that in some respects the old province of Lower Canada does not adopt innovations lightly, or, at least, until they have been first tried and found to be worthy of some measure of support.

When the outbreak of the Boers startled Canada and roused in her the dormant desire to respond {460} to the call of the Motherland, it was Sir Wilfrid Laurier who took up the challenge of non-intervention or neutrality.

We acted in the full independence of our sovereign power. What we did we did of our own free will. . . . If it should be the will of the people of Canada at any future stage to take part in any war of England, the people of Canada will have to have their way. . . . The work of union and harmony between the chief races of this country is not yet complete. . . . But there is no bond of union so strong as the bond created by common dangers faced in common.[1]

What a prophecy. How well was it realised fourteen years afterwards. But at the time the Canadians, believing that war would not pass their way again, erected monuments in all the leading cities to commemorate their losses, little thinking that the courage and traditions achieved would be perpetuated at the second battle of Ypres, Vimy Ridge, and the Somme.

The general election of 1900 sustained Sir Wilfrid, and from that time until 1911 he gave to his country a vision and a courage worthy of the great statesman who had preceded him in the premiership during many years. Possibly the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York the following year also opened up new vistas to him of the Empire upon which the sun never sets. At any rate life flowed on evenly enough for him and the Canadian people until there came one of those imperial acts of negotiation which sorely, perhaps unwarrantably, tried the loyalty and patience of everyone in the Dominion, irrespective of race, party, or creed. As a result of it {461} any future Dominion Government would be very brave indeed if it agreed to an arbitration affecting common Canadian and American interests where the negotiators were not of themselves. However, if the Alaska Boundary Award 1903 gave the United States command of the ports leading to the Klondike it also gave to the Canadians a very clear lead as to what they should do when treaties affecting their own interests came up for consideration. Happily both Motherland and Dominion now see eye to eye in this regard, and no greater evidence of the solidarity resulting can be seen than in the signing of the recent Treaty of Versailles by the Overseas delegates.