Behind the Atlantic ports, supplied by them with traffic, supplying them with traffic, is a provincial population of five millions. Behind the Pacific ports in British Columbia and Alberta, one would be justified in expecting to find—Strathcona said a hundred million people, but for this generation put it at twelve million.
Through the Atlantic ports annually come two hundred and fifty thousand or more immigrants, not counting the one hundred and fifty thousand from the United States. What if something happened to bring as many to the Pacific, as well as those now coming to the Atlantic?
Then a century of peace has a sleeping-powder effect on a nation. We forget that the guns of four nations once boomed and roared round old Quebec and down Bay of Fundy way. If the Pacific becomes a front door, the guns of the great nations may yet boom there. In fact, if Canada had not been a part of Greater Britain four or five years ago when the trouble arose over Japanese immigration, guns might easily have boomed round Vancouver long before the Pacific Coast had become a front door. Front door status entails bolt and strong bar. Front door means navy. Navy means shipbuilding plants, and the shipyards of the United States on the Atlantic support fifty thousand skilled artisans, or what would make a city of two hundred and fifty thousand people. The shipyards of England support a population equal to Boston. In the United States those shipyards exist almost wholly by virtue of government contracts to build war vessels, and in Great Britain largely by virtue of admiralty subsidies. Though they also do an enormous amount of work on river and coastal steamers, the manager of the largest and oldest plant in the United States told me personally that with the high price of labor and material in America, his shipyard could not last a day without government contracts for war vessels, torpedoes, dredges, etc. Front door on the Pacific means that to Canada, and it means more; for Canada belongs to an empire that has vaster dominions to defend in Asia than in Europe.
But isn't all this stretching one's fancy a bit too far in the future? How far is too far? The Panama Canal is open for traffic, and there is not a harbor of first rank in the United States, Atlantic, Pacific, or Gulf of Mexico, that does not bank on, that is not spending millions on, the expectation of Panama changing the Pacific from a back into a front door. Either these harbors are all wrong or Canada is sound asleep as a tombstone to the progress round her. Boston has spent nine million dollars acquiring terminals and water-front, and is now guaranteeing the bonds of steamships to the extent of twenty-five million dollars. New York has built five new piers to take care of the commerce coming—and the Federal government has spent fifty million dollars improving the approaches to her harbor. Baltimore is so sure that Panama is going to revive shore-front interests that she has reclaimed almost two hundred acres of swamp land for manufacturing sites, which she is leasing out at merely nominal figures to bring the manufacturers from inland down to the sea. In both Baltimore and Philadelphia, railroads are spending millions increasing their trackage for the traffic they expect to feed down to the coast cities for Panama steamers.
Among the Gulf ports, New Orleans has spent fifteen million dollars putting in a belt line system of railroads and docks with steel and cement sheds, purely to keep her harbor front free of corporate control. This is not out of enmity to corporations, but because the prosperity of a harbor depends on all steamers and all railroads receiving the same treatment. This is not possible under private and rival control. Yet more, New Orleans is putting on a line of her own civic steamships to South America. Up at St. Louis and Kansas City, they are putting on civic barge lines down the rivers to ocean front.
At Los Angeles twenty million dollars have been spent in making a harbor out of a duck pond. San Francisco and Oakland have improved docks to the extent of twenty-four million dollars. Seattle attests her expectation of what Panama is going to do on the Pacific by securing the expenditure of fifteen million dollars on her harbor for her own traffic and all the traffic she can capture from Canada; and it may be said here that the Grand Trunk Pacific of Canada—a national road on which the Dominion is spending hundreds of millions—has the finest docks in Seattle. Portland has gone farther than any of the Pacific ports. Portland is Scotch—full of descendants of the old Scotch folk who used to serve in the Hudson's Bay Company. If there is a chance to capture world traffic, Portland is out with both hands and both feet after that flying opportunity. Portland has not only improved the entrance to the Columbia to the extent of fifteen million dollars—this was done by the Federal government—but she has had a canal cut past bad water in the Columbia, costing nearly seven millions, and has put on the big river a system of civic boats to bring the wheat down from an inland empire. There is no aim to make this river line a dividend payer. The sole object is to bring the Pacific grain trade to Portland. Portland is already a great wheat port. Will she get a share of Canada's traffic in bond to Liverpool? Candidly, she hopes to. How? By having Canadian barges bring Alberta wheat down the Columbia.
II
And now, what is Canada doing? Canada is doing absolutely nothing. Canada is saying, with a little note of belligerency in her voice—What's Panama to us? Either every harbor in the United States is Panama fool-mad; either every harbor in the United States is spending money like water on fool-schemes; or Canada needs a wakening blast of dynamite 'neath her dreams. If Panama brings the traffic which every harbor in the United States expects, then Canada's share of that traffic will go through Seattle and Portland. Either Canada must wake up or miss the chance that is coming.
Two American transcontinentals have not come wooing traffic in Vancouver for nothing. The Canadian Pacific is not double tracking its roadbed to the Coast for nothing. The Grand Trunk has not bought terminals in Seattle for nothing. Yet, having jockeyed for traffic in Vancouver, the two American roads have recently evinced a cooling. They are playing up interests In Seattle and marking time in Vancouver. Grand Trunk terminals in Seattle don't help Vancouver; but if Canada doesn't want the traffic from the world commerce of the seas, then Portland and Seattle do.
One recalls how a person feels who is wakened a bit sooner than suits his slumbers. He passes some crusty comments and asks some criss-cross questions. The same with Canada regarding Panama. What's Panama to us? How in the world can a cut through a neck of swamp and hills three thousand miles from the back of beyond, have the slightest effect on commerce in Canada? And if it has, won't it be to hurt our railroads? And if Panama does divert traffic from land to water, won't that divert a share of shipping away from Montreal and St. John and Halifax?