The only bank in the Province in 1830 was the Bank of Upper Canada, with a capital of L100,000. There are now nine chartered banks owned in Ontario, with a capital of $17,000,000, and there are seven banks owned, with one exception, in the Province of Quebec, having offices in all the principal towns. There are also numbers of private banks and loan companies, the latter representing a capital of over $20,000,000. This is a prolific growth in half a century, and a satisfactory evidence of material success.
Insurance has been the growth of the last fifty years. During the session of the House of Assembly in 1830, a bill was introduced to make some provision against accidents by fire. Since then the business has grown to immense proportions. According to the returns of the Dominion Government for the 31st December, 1879, the assets of Canadian Life, Fire, Marine, Accident, and Guarantee Companies were $10,346,587. British, doing business in Canada, $6,838,309. American, ditto, $1,685,599. Of Mutual Companies, there are 94 in Ontario, with a total income for 1879 of $485,579, and an expenditure of $455,861. [Footnote: Inspector of Insurance Report, 1880.]
Fifty years ago the revenue of Upper Canada was L112,166 13s 4d; the amount of duty collected L9,283 19s. The exports amounted to L1,555,404, and the imports to L1,555,404. There were twenty-seven ports of entry and thirty-one collectors of customs. From the last published official reports we learn that the revenue for Ontario in 1879 was $4,018,287, and that for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1880, the exports were $28,063,980, and imports $27,869,444; amount of duty collected, $5,086,579; also that there are fifty-six ports of entry and thirty- eight outposts, with seventy-three collectors.
One of the most interesting features in the progress of Canada is the rapid growth of its marine. It is correctly stated to rank fourth as to tonnage among the maritime powers of the world. The United States, with its fifty-four millions of people and its immense coast-line, exceeds us but by a very little, while in ocean steamers we are ahead. In fact, the Allan Line is one of the first in the world. This is something for a country with a population of only five-and-a-half millions to boast of, and it is not by any means the only thing. We have been spoken of as a people wanting enterprise—a good-natured, phlegmatic set—but it is libel disproved by half a century's progress. We have successfully carried out some of the grandest enterprises on this continent. At Montreal we have the finest docks in America. Our canals are unequalled; our country is intersected by railroads; every town and village in the land is linked to its neighbour by telegraph wires, and we have probably more miles of both, according to population, than any other people.
The inland position of the Province of Ontario, although having the chain of great lakes lying along its southern border, never fostered a love for a sea-faring life. This is easily accounted for by the pursuits of the people, who as has been said before, were nearly all agriculturists. But the produce had to be moved, and the means were forthcoming to meet the necessities of the case. The great water-course which led to the seaports of Montreal and Quebec, owing to the rapids of the St. Lawrence, could only be navigated by the batteaux and Durham boats; and the navigator, after overcoming these difficulties, and laying his course through the noble lake from which our Province takes its name, encountered the Falls of Niagara. This was a huge barrier across his path which he had no possible means of surmounting. When the town of Niagara was reached, vessels had to be discharged, and the freight carted round the falls to Chippawa. This was a tedious matter, and a great drawback to settlement in the western part of the Province. Early in the century, the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt conceived the plan of connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario by a canal, and succeeded in getting the Government to assume the project in 1824. It was a great work for a young country to undertake, but it was pushed on, and completed in 1830. From that time to the present vessels have been enabled to pass from one lake to the other. This, with the Sault Ste. Marie canal, and those of the St. Lawrence, enables a vessel to pass from the head of Lake Superior to the ocean. The Ridean Canal undertaken about the same time as the Welland Canal, was also completed in the same year. It was constructed principally for military purposes, though at one time a large amount of freight came up the Ottawa, and thence by this canal to Kingston. The St. Lawrence was the only channel for freight going east. All the rapids were navigable with the batteaux except the Lachine, and up to 1830 there was a line of these boats running from Belleville to Montreal. [Footnote: The reader may be interested in learning the amount of produce shipped from the Province in 1830, via the St. Lawrence, and the mode of its conveyance. It is certainly a marked contrast, not only to the present facilities for carrying freight, but to the amount of produce, etc., going east and coming west. Statement of produce imported into Lower Canada through the Port of Coteau du Lac, to December 30th, 1830, in 584 Durham boats and 731 batteaux; 183,141 Bls. flour; 26,084 Bls. ashes; 14,110 Bls pork; 1,637 Bls. beef; 4,881 bus. corn and rye; 280,322 bus. wheat; 1,875 Bls. corn meal; 245 Bls. and 955 kegs lard; 27 Bls. and 858 kegs butter; 263 Bls. and 29 hds. tallow; 625 Bls. apples; 216 Bls. Raw hides; 148 hds. and 361 kegs tobacco; 1,021 casks and 3 hds. whiskey and spirits; 2,636 hogs. Quantity of merchandise brought to Upper Canada in the same year, 8,244 tons.—Journal of the House of Assembly, 1831.] Our canal system was completed fifty years ago, and all that has been done since has consisted of enlarging and keeping them in repair. The total number of miles of canal in the Province is 136.
The number of vessels composing our marine in 1830 was 12 steamers and 110 sailing vessels, with a tonnage of 14,300; and it is worthy of remark that at that date the tonnage on the lakes was about equal to that of the United States. The number of steam vessels now owned by the Province is 385, with 657 [Footnote: Report Marine and Fisheries, 1880.] sailing vessels, having a total tonnage of 137,481, which at $30 per ton would make our shipping interest amount to $4,124,430.
A great deal has been done these last few years to protect the sailor from disaster and loss. Independent of marine charts that give the soundings of all navigable waters, buoys mark the shoals and obstructions to the entrance of harbours or the windings of intricate channels; and from dangerous rocks and bold headlands, jutting out in the course of vessels, flash out through the storm and darkness of the long dreary night the brilliant lights from the domes of the lighthouses, warning the sailor to keep away. By a system of revolving and parti-coloured lights the mariner is enabled to tell where he is, and to lay his course so as to avoid the disaster that might otherwise overtake him. There are now 149 [Footnote: Ib.] lighthouses in the Ontario division. In 1830 there were only four. Another great boon to the mariners of the present day is the meteorological service, by which he is warned of approaching storms. It is only by the aid of telegraphy that this discovery has been made practically available; and the system has been so perfected that weather changes can be told twenty-four hours in advance, with almost positive certainty. We have fourteen drum stations, eight of which are on Lake Ontario, four on Lake Huron, and two on the Georgian Bay.
The Montreal Telegraph Company, the first in Canada, was organized in 1847. It has 1,647 offices in the Dominion, 12,703 miles of poles, and 21,568 of wire. Number of messages for current year, 2,112,161; earnings, $550,840. The Dominion Company reports 608 offices, 5,112 miles of poles, and 11,501 of wire. Number of messages, 734,522; gross earnings, $229,994. This gives a total of 17,845 miles of telegraph, 2,282 offices, 2,846,623 messages, and gross earnings amounting to $780,834. [Footnote: Annual Report of Montreal and Dominion Telegraph Companies, 1881.]
The administration of justice cost the Province in 1830, $23,600, and according to the latest official returns $274,013—a very striking proof that our propensity to litigate has kept pace with the increase of wealth and numbers. There were four Superior Court Judges, of whom the Hon. John Beverley Robinson was made Chief Justice in 1829 at a salary of $6,000. The remaining judges received $3,600 each. Besides these there were eleven District Judges, and in consequence of the extent of country embraced in these sections, and the distance jurors and others had to travel, the Court of Sessions was held frequently in alternate places in the district. In the Midland District, this court was held in Kingston and Adolphustown. The latter place has been laid out for a town by some farseeing individual, but it never even attained to the dignity of a village. There was, besides the courthouse, a tavern, a foundry, a Church of England—one of the first in the Province—the old homestead of the Hagermans, near the wharf; a small building occupied for a time by the father of Sir John A. Macdonald as a store, and where the future statesman romped in his youth, and four private residences close at hand. When the court was held there, which often lasted a week or more, judge, jury, lawyers and litigants had to be billeted around the neighbourhood. As a rule they fared pretty well, for the people in that section were well off and there was rarely any charge for board. The courts comprised the Court of King's Bench, the Quarter Sessions, and Court of Requests. The latter was similar to our Division Court, and was presided over by a commissioner or resident magistrate. The Quarter Sessions had control of nearly all municipal affairs, but when the Municipal Law came into force these matters passed into the hands of the County Councils. The machinery in connection with the administration of justice has been largely augmented for, beside the additional courts, we have six Superior Court Judges, one Chancellor, two Vice-Chancellors, one Chief-Justice, three Queen's Bench, three Common Pleas, three Court of Appeal Judges, and thirty-eight County Court Judges.
The manufacturing interests of the Province in 1830 were very small indeed. I have been unable to put my hand on any trustworthy information respecting this matter at that time, but from my own recollection at a somewhat later period, I know that very little had been done to supply the people with even the most common articles in use. Everything was imported, save those things that were made at home.