Canada and the British immigrant

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 (#litres_trial_promo).) 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.