PROGRESS IN CANADA
Railways have spread like a network over the rich agricultural territory along the southern border land of the Dominion, from ocean to ocean, and are now pushing into the deep forest land and rich mineral and agricultural regions of the interior and the northwest, their total length in 1914 approaching 30,000 miles.
These roads have been built largely under different forms of government aid, such as land grants, cash subsidies, loans, the issue of debentures, and the guarantee of interest on bonds.
In manufacturing industry almost every branch of production is to be found, the progressive enterprise of the people of the dominion being great, and a large proportion of the goods they need being made at home. The best evidence of the enterprise of Canada in manufacture is shown by the fact that she exports many thousand dollars worth of goods annually more than she buys—England being her largest customer and the United States second on the list.
Not only is the outside world largely ignorant of the importance of Canada, but many of her own people fail to realize the greatness of the country they possess. Its area of more than three and one-half millions of square miles—one sixteenth of the entire land surface of the earth—is great enough to include an immense variety of natural conditions and products. This area constitutes forty per cent of the far extended British empire, while its richness of soil and resources in forest and mineral wealth are as yet almost untouched, and its promise of future yield is immense. The dimensions of the dominion guarantee a great variety of natural attractions. There are vast grass-covered plains, thousands of square miles of untouched forest lands, multitudes of lakes and rivers, great and small, and mountains of the wildest and grandest character, whose natural beauty equals that of the far-famed Alpine peaks. In fact, the Canadian Pacific Railway is becoming a route of pilgrimage for the lovers of the beautiful and sublime, its mountain scenery being unrivaled upon the continent.
In several conditions the people of Canada, while preserving the general features of English society, are much more free and untrammeled. The class system of Great Britain has gained little footing in this new land, where early every farmer is the owner of the soil which he tills, and the people have a feeling of independence unknown to the agricultural population of European countries. There has been great progress also in many social questions. The liquor traffic is subject in some Provinces to the local option restriction; religious liberty prevails; education is practically free and unsectarian; the franchise is enjoyed by all citizens; members of parliament are paid for their services; and though the executive department of the government is under the control of a governor-general appointed by the Crown, the laws of Canada are made by its own statesmen, and a state of practical independence prevails. Recognizing this, and respecting the liberty-loving spirit of the people, Great Britain is chary in interfering with any question of Canadian policy, or in any sense attempting to limit the freedom of her great transatlantic colony.