2. Though Canada is a distinct nation, with her destiny in her own hands, either to make or mar, she is, at the same time, a member of the great British Empire. This connection obliges her to make no treaty with a foreign power without the consent of the British Government; but as a set-off, it entitles her in time of danger to the powerful assistance of the British army and navy. And, as we have seen in the great Boer war, Canada is willing, on her part, to come to the aid of the mother-country in the time of stress and strain. No more gallant men than her sons have fought in that war and it is a great satisfaction to England to know that the support she has received from Canada has been freely rendered by Canadians of French origin as well as by those of British descent. Thus the defeated foe of Wolfe's day has, by just treatment, been turned into the loyal friend of to-day.
3. After providing for her defence Canada's next care was to bring the different provinces into touch with each other. By means of a wonderful network of waterways, a person can go through the length and breadth of the land almost entirely by water. But this mode of travelling is slow and difficult. Steps were, therefore, taken by the Dominion Parliament to bind the different provinces together by means of a line of rails. What a gigantic task lay before them! The distance to be crossed between the two oceans was no less than 3000 miles, a distance so great that it would take an ordinary train, going day and night, almost a week to accomplish the journey.
4. The task, however, was completed in five years. The Canadian Pacific Railway, as it is called, was begun in 1880 and finished in 1885. Thus the Dominion of Canada, which now stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is linked together by the iron road, and its most distant parts brought into easy communication with each other by rail and wire. To British Columbia and Manitoba, in particular, such a line meant everything. It afforded settlers easy access to the interior and gave an outlet to the markets for the produce of their farms. And to the mother-country also this railway is of great value as an important link in the chain that binds together the various parts of the British Empire. Mails from England to the Far East are now carried by way of Canada more quickly than by any other route. Troops may be transported from Liverpool to Hong Kong in less than thirty days.
5. Canada has everything required to make a nation great and prosperous. Her various provinces have each their own special character and productions. Nova Scotia, for instance, is the great coal-cellar of the eastern provinces, and it stands first in the whole Dominion for its fisheries; whilst the supply of wood-pulp for making paper is almost unlimited.
6. The province of Quebec was formerly a vast forest, and the lumber trade is still its most important industry. Its inhabitants are chiefly of French origin, and they still cling to the language and customs of their ancestors. The French Canadian does not seem to move with the stream of time. He is content to smoke his home-grown tobacco and to get his sugar from the sap of the maple. He wears a strong "home-spun" cloth, spun and woven at his own fire-side; in fact, he is content to go on as his fathers before him. The people of Ontario are strikingly different. They are mostly of British origin and are always pushing on, trying to make what is good still better. Their fruit orchards, vineyards, and dairy-farms are a growing source of wealth, and a great surprise to those who have thought of Canada as the land of ice and snow. Canadian butter and cheese are now largely exported; in 1900, for example, about twenty million pounds of butter and 200 million pounds of cheese were sent abroad.
7. On entering Manitoba, the central province, the traveller finds himself in a new world. Here are vast plains presenting in summer the appearance of a sea of waving corn. The farms are immense, all so different from our English farms with their small fields and hedge-rows. Think of a farm where the furrows are four miles long and as straight as an arrow! Continuing westward we come to the slope of the Rocky Mountains which are specially adapted to the raising of cattle. This is the "ranch" country of Canada, where the horses and cattle range wild, and as a rule manage to provide for themselves both in winter and summer.
8. Of British Columbia, on the western side of the Rockies, we have already spoken as rich in gold and coal. This province is also valuable for its timber and salmon. If you buy a tin of preserved salmon, you will be almost sure to find that it has come from this colony. So plentiful are the salmon in this part of Canada that at times they swarm up the rivers like a shoal of herrings on the coast of Cornwall.
9. Canada, then, it will be seen is bountifully supplied by nature with all she needs to make her the land of plenty. She has been styled "Our Lady of the Snows," and it must be admitted that the Canadian climate is very cold in winter, and that the snow lies on the ground for some months over most of the country. The snow, however, is really one of the boons of nature: protecting the ground from extreme frosts, bridging the streams, converting rough tracts into the smoothest of roads, and turning with the warm breath of spring into water to moisten the ground for the upspringing crops.
10. Canada's great want is men of the right stamp to turn the gifts of nature to account, and these will come in time. She has now five millions of people, but could well support ten times as many. She possesses every element essential to national greatness, both in the character of her people and the wealth of her resources. The fisheries of her maritime provinces, the timber of her ancient forests, the granaries of the prairie region, the ranches of the Rockies, and the treasures of her mines, together with her intricate network of water-ways—all combine to give Canada the promise of an honoured place among the great nations of the world, and to make us proud to remember that she is a staunch and loyal friend to the British name and nation.