Studies in the South and West, with Comments on Canada

by Charles Dudley Warner

The educational work of Ontario is nobly crowned by the University of Toronto, though it is in no sense a State institution. It is well endowed, and has a fine estate. The central building is dignified and an altogether noble piece of architecture, worthy to stand in its beautiful park. It has a university organization, with a college inside of it, a school of practical science, and affiliated divinity schools of several denominations, including the Roman Catholic. There are fine museums and libraries, and it is altogether well equipped and endowed, and under the presidency of Dr. Daniel Wilson, the venerable ethnologist, it is a great force in Canada. The students and officers wear the cap and gown, and the establishment has altogether a scholastic air. Indeed, this tradition and equipment—which in a sense pervades all life and politics in Canada—has much to do with keeping up the British connection. The conservation of the past is stronger than with us.

A hundred matters touching our relations with Canada press for mention. I must not omit the labor organizations. These are in affiliation with those in the United States, and most of them are international. The plumbers, the bricklayers, the stone-masons and stone-cutters, the Typographical Union, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the wood-carvers, the Knights of Labor, are affiliated; there is a branch of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in Canada; the railway conductors, with delegates from all our States, held their conference in Toronto last summer. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners is a British association, with headquarters in Manchester, but it has an executive committee in New York, with which all the Canadian and American societies communicate, and it sustains a periodical in New York. The Society of Amalgamated Engine Builders has its office in London, but there is an American branch, with which all the Canadian societies work in harmony. The Cigar-makers’ Union is American, but a strike of cigar-makers in Toronto was supported by the American; so with the plumbers. It may be said generally that the societies each side the line will sustain each other. The trade organizations are also taken up by women, and these all affiliate with the United States. When a “National” union affiliates with one on the other side, the name is changed to “International.” This union and interchange draws the laborers of both nations closer together. From my best information, and notwithstanding the denial of some politicians, the Canadian unions have love and sympathy for and with America. And this feeling must be reckoned with in speaking of the tendency to annexation. The present much-respected mayor of Toronto is a trade-unionist, and has a seat in the local parliament as a Conservative; he was once arrested for picketing, or some such trade-union performance. I should not say that the trades-unions are in favor of annexation, but they are not afraid to discuss it. There is in Toronto a society of a hundred young men, the greater part of whom are of the artisan class, who meet to discuss questions of economy and politics. One of their subjects was Canadian independence. I am told that there is among young men a considerable desire for independence, accompanied with a determination to be on the best terms with the United States, and that as between a connection with Great Britain and the United States, they would prefer the latter. In my own observation the determination to be on good terms with the United States is general in Canada; the desire for independence is not.

The frequency of the question, “What do you think of the future of Canada?” shows that it is an open question. Undeniably the confederation, which seems to me rather a creation than a growth, works very well, and under it Canada has steadily risen in the consideration of the world and in the development of the sentiment of nationality. But there are many points unadjusted in the federal and provincial relations; more power is desired on one side, more local autonomy on the other. The federal right of disallowance of local legislation is resisted. The stated distribution of federal money to the provinces is an anomaly which we could not reconcile with the public spirit and dignity of the States, nor recognize as a proper function of the Government. The habit of the provinces of asking aid from the central government in emergencies, and getting it, does not cultivate self-reliance, and the grant of aid by the Federal Government, in order to allay dissatisfaction, must be a growing embarrassment. The French privileges in regard to laws, language, and religion make an insoluble core in the heart of the confederacy, and form a compact mass which can be wielded for political purposes. This element, dominant in the province of Quebec, is aggressive. I have read many alarmist articles, both in Canadian and English periodicals, as to the danger of this to the rights of Protestant communities. I lay no present stress upon the expression of the belief by intelligent men that Protestant communities might some time be driven to the shelter of the wider toleration of the United States. No doubt much feeling is involved. I am only reporting a state of mind which is of public notoriety; and I will add that men equally intelligent say that all this fear is idle; that, for instance, the French increase in Ontario means nothing, only that the habitant can live on the semisterile Laurentian lands that others cannot profitably cultivate.

In estimating the idea the Canadians have of their future it will not do to take surface indications. One can go to Canada and get almost any opinion and tendency he is in search of. Party spirit—though the newspapers are in every way, as a rule, less sensational than ours—runs as high and is as deeply bitter as it is with us. Motives are unwarrantably attributed. It is always to be remembered that the Opposition criticises the party in power for a policy it might not essentially change if it came in, and the party in power attributes designs to the Opposition which it does not entertain: as, for instance, the Opposition party is not hostile to confederation because it objects to the “development” policy or to the increase of the federal debt, nor is it for annexation because it may favor unrestricted trade or even commercial union. As a general statement it may be said that the Liberal-Conservative party is a protection party, a “development” party, and leans to a stronger federal government; that the Liberal party favors freer trade, would cry halt to debt for the forcing of development, and is jealous of provincial rights. Even the two parties are not exactly homogeneous. There are Conservatives who would like legislative union; the Liberals of the province of Quebec are of one sort, the Liberals of the province of Ontario are of another, and there are Conservative-Liberals as well as Radicals.

The interests of the maritime provinces are closely associated with those of New England; popular votes there have often pointed to political as well as commercial union, but the controlling forces are loyal to the confederation and to British connection. Manitoba is different in origin, as I pointed out, and in temper. It considers sharply the benefit to itself of the federal domination. My own impression is that it would vote pretty solidly against any present proposition of annexation, but under the spur of local grievances and the impatience of a growth slower than expected there is more or less annexation talk, and one newspaper of a town of six thousand people has advocated it. Whether that is any more significant than the same course taken by a Quebec newspaper recently under local irritation about disallowance I do not know. As to unrestricted trade, Sir John Thompson, the very able Minister of Justice in Ottawa, said in a recent speech that Canada could not permit her financial centre to be shifted to Washington and her tariff to be made there; and in this he not only touched the heart of the difficulty of an arrangement, but spoke, I believe, the prevailing sentiment of Canada.

As to the future, I believe the choice of a strict conservatism would be, first, the government as it is; second, independence; third, imperial federation: annexation never. But imperial federation is generally regarded as a wholly impracticable scheme. The Liberal would choose, first, the framework as it is, with modifications; second, independence, with freer trade; third, trust in Providence, without fear. It will be noted in all these varieties of predilection that separation from England is calmly contemplated as a definite possibility, and I have no doubt that it would be preferred rather than submission to the least loss of the present autonomy. And I must express the belief that, underlying all other thought, unexpressed, or, if expressed, vehemently repudiated, is the idea, widely prevalent, that some time, not now, in the dim future, the destiny of Canada and the United States will be one. And if one will let his imagination run a little, he cannot but feel an exultation in the contemplation of the majestic power and consequence in the world such a nation would be, bounded by three oceans and the Gulf, united under a restricted federal head, with free play for the individuality of every State. If this ever comes to pass, the tendency to it will not be advanced by threats, by unfriendly legislation, by attempts at conquest. The Canadians are as high-spirited as we are. Any sort of union that is of the least value could only come by free action of the Canadian people, in a growth of business interests undisturbed by hostile sentiment. And there could be no greater calamity to Canada, to the United States, to the English-speaking interest in the world, than a collision. Nothing is to be more dreaded for its effect upon the morals of the people of the United States than any war with any taint of conquest in it.

There is, no doubt, with many, an honest preference for the colonial condition. I have heard this said:

“We have the best government in the world, a responsible government, with entire local freedom. England exercises no sort of control; we are as free as a nation can he. We have in the representative of the Crown a certain conservative tradition, and it only costs us ten thousand pounds a year. We are free, we have little expense, and if we get into any difficulty there is the mighty power of Great Britain behind us!” It is as if one should say in life, I have no responsibilities; I have a protector. Perhaps as a “rebel,” I am unable to enter into the colonial state of mind. But the boy is never a man so long as he is dependent. There was never a nation great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.

In Canada to-dav there is a growing feeling for independence; very little, taking the whole mass, for annexation. Put squarely to a popular vote, it would make little show in the returns. Among the minor causes of reluctance to a union are distrust of the Government of the United States, coupled with the undoubted belief that Canada has the better government; dislike of our quadrennial elections; the want of a system of civil service, with all the turmoil of our constant official overturning; dislike of our sensational and irresponsible journalism, tending so often to recklessness; and dislike also, very likely, of the very assertive spirit which has made us so rapidly subdue our continental possessions.

But if one would forecast the future of Canada, he needs to take a wider view than personal preferences or the agitations of local parties. The railway development, the Canadian Pacific alone, has changed within five years the prospects of the political situation. It has brought together the widely separated provinces, and has given a new impulse to the sentiment of nationality. It has produced a sort of unity which no Act of Parliament could ever create. But it has done more than this: it has changed the relation of England to Canada. The Dominion is felt to be a much more important part of the British Empire than it was ten years ago, and in England within less than ten years there has been a revolution in colonial policy. With a line of fast steamers from the British Islands to Halifax, with lines of fast steamers from Vancouver to Yokohama, Hong-Kong, and Australia, with an all rail transit, within British limits, through an empire of magnificent capacities, offering homes for any possible British overflow, will England regard Canada as a weakness? It is true that on this continent the day of dynasties is over, and that the people will determine their own place. But there are great commercial forces at work that cannot be ignored, which seem strong enough to keep Canada for a long time on her present line of development in a British connection.