Canada To-day and To-morrow

by Arthur E. Copping

The struggle between Great Britain and France continued, with intervals of peace and with an ebb and flow of fortunes, for a century and a half; and in the history of this period the most inspiring chapter is that which tells of the unflinching zeal and dauntless courage of Roman Catholic priests who, penetrating to the interior of the country, sought to carry Christianity and civilisation to the Indians.

By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) the possession of Hudson Bay (the history of which I shall glance at later), Acadia and Newfoundland was definitely vested with Great Britain, France retaining authority over a vast stretch of territory. Thirty years afterwards the war of the Austrian Succession justified a resumption of hostilities, which were interrupted by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. A few years later the two Powers reached the final stage of their long contest for mastery in North America; and, following Wolfe’s victory at Quebec in 1759, French rule in Canada came to an end.

But the French people remained, and their descendants remain, in Canada; and their presence there—those two million fine, happy, prosperous French-Canadians, who combine loyalty to the British Empire with a love for France—supplies, I think, the noblest object-lesson in international fraternity anywhere to be found on the earth. It is an object-lesson that grows in distinctness as our eyes open to new possibilities of unarmed amity; for at last we are slowly awakening to the knowledge that brotherhood is a higher interest of the human race, and may even call for a loftier type of bravery than bloodshed.

There was, of course, some little initial unrest in the Franco-English colony, but this was largely allayed when, in 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which restored the French civil code and defined Canada as extending from Labrador to the Mississippi, and from the watershed of Hudson Bay to the Ohio—in other words, as including the present Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and a number of States over which the Stars and Stripes now float. Then came the War of Independence, which turned our brothers into our cousins, and caused the Great Lakes to be Canada’s southern boundary, instead of her waist-belt.

The English population of Canada—far smaller than the French population—was now increased by the arrival from the south of 25,000 persons who, loyal to the old tie with Great Britain, refused their allegiance to the newly-created United States. French and English were soon united in a desire to enjoy such constitutional privileges as had already been granted to the Maritime Provinces; but while the majority were anxious that their own national traditions should be followed, the minority wished for institutions modelled on English lines. The British Government solved the problem by splitting Canada into two—an Upper Canada for the English, and a Lower Canada for the French—and giving to each a Legislature of its own, though a Legislature in which the people’s representatives were under the thumb of Crown nominees.

The war between the United States and Great Britain, in 1812-14, exposed the two Canadas and the Maritime Provinces to a severe ordeal, through which they came triumphant; and afterwards our French and English fellow-subjects resumed their agitation for a full measure of popular government. They went ultimately to the length of rebellion; and then it was not long before the Home Government granted their desire. Friction had occurred between the two Canadas on questions of revenue, and so, by the Act of 1840 that conceded a democratic constitution, these two Canadas, after half a century of separation, were again made into one Canada under one Legislature; the two halves of a political whole being now distinguished as Canada East and Canada West. Happily, however, a clash of interests arose between the French population and the English—happily, I say, because it led to the union, in 1867, of Canada West and Canada East (thence-forward to be known as the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec) with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; and this was the first stage of Confederation, a process whereby the name “Canada” was transferred to the great country, stretching from ocean to ocean, which bids fair to develop wealth and population like the United States of America, and to become the foremost nation of the British Empire.

I have only told, in broad outline, the story of Eastern Canada—that part of the Dominion which holds the accumulated interest of stirring vicissitudes experienced over a period of four hundred years. We will now turn to the only other part of the Dominion that has a history stretching back to the Middle Ages. I refer to the Hudson Bay region.

Man is a toy in the hands of Time. Things he does in one century are apt, in the light of another, to assume the character of a droll misuse of opportunity. The early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company tells, in effect, of men who worked in a rich gold mine and collected nothing but quartz.

In 1610 Henry Hudson—that glorious, pathetic hero—discovered the great northern indentation in the map of Canada; and it was re-discovered overland, about sixty years later, by two dashing adventurers from “New France”—Medard de Groseillers and Pierre Radisson, who returned from Hudson Bay with rich booty, of which they were despoiled by the authorities at Quebec. The two indignant Frenchmen went with the story of their wrongs to France, where they were treated with laughing contempt. Then they crossed to England and told our King all about it. Charles II. (who was staying at Oxford, to avoid the plague of London) pricked up his ears, and—some of his followers being minded to invest their money in a promising business speculation—a Royal Charter was granted to “Gentlemen Adventurers trading to Hudson’s Bay.” His Majesty did the thing handsomely while he was about it; for the Charter gave the Adventurers all the country and all it contained for all time.

What was the booty Radisson and Groseillers (whom, by the way, Charles II. insisted upon calling “Mr. Gooseberry”) had brought from Hudson Bay? It took the form of 600,000 beaver skins. Resident in that part of the world are many four-footed creatures which, because the weather is apt to be cold, are provided by nature with warm, hairy coats; and the fur that is a necessary for them is a luxury for man—and especially for woman. Accordingly, the Adventurers sent their ships to Hudson Bay for pelts they could turn into pelf. The actual trapping and skinning was done by the Indians, from whom the Adventurers’ agents secured the valuable furs in exchange for tobacco, shot, brandy, and other commodities of civilisation. Sometimes, not content with killing the beaver, the mink, and the silver fox, the Indians killed the Adventurers’ agents, and vice versa; but in a general way the natives and the visitors traded on a footing of mutual toleration—business being done on these lines: six beavers for one blanket, half a pound of beads for one beaver, twelve buttons or twenty fish-hooks for ditto, and twelve beavers for one gun. The Hudson’s Bay men built themselves forts, and their commercial transactions with the red man were always conducted through a small wicket in the palisades.