"Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
Ist's Preußenland? Ist's Schwabenland?
Ist's wo am Rhein die Rebe blüht?
Ist's wo am Belt die Möve zieht?
Doch Nein! Nein! Nein!
Sein Vaterland muß größer sein!"
Kann man nicht hier diesen Worten eine weitere Deutung geben?—Können Sie nicht als Mitbürger und Gründer einer neuen Nation dieselbe mit allem Edlen, was von dem alten Lande kommt, lenken und stärken?
Es ist uns eine wahre Freude, von allen Seiten zu hören, wie man die deutschen Ansiedler achtet und schätzt und sie als einen wichtigen Zusatz zu unseren Kräften betrachtet. Ihre Wissenschaft, ihre Liebe für die gute Erziehung der Jugend, sowohl in höheren Studien, als in den Studien, durch welche die gewerblichen Fortbildungsschulen in Deutschland sich einen so ruhmhaften Namen gemacht haben; ihre Sparsamkeit und ihr Fleiß, sind Canada viele Tausend Quadratmeilen Landes werth.—Die häuslichen Tugenden ihrer Frauen und Töchter sind ein schönes Beispiel für Alle.
Ich hoffe, daß die Zahl deutscher Einwanderer sich mehren wird und werde in meinen Erwartungen dadurch bestärkt, daß es bei Ihnen daheim gewiß Viele giebt, die überzeugt sind, daß das Vaterland nicht geschwächt wird, wenn deutsche Töchter jenseits des atlantischen Meeres gute Männer finden. Es wird uns sehr angenehm sein, der deutschen kaiserlichen Familie sagen zu können, wie Sie in Canada glücklich leben, und als Männer, die dem Lande Glück bringen, angesehen werden.
In 1880, it was resolved that an Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition, supported by a Federal grant, should each year be held at some city of the Dominion. The first of these central and national meetings took place at Ottawa. It was largely attended, and opened by the Governor-General with these remarks:—
Mr. President and Gentlemen,—I thank you for the address which you have read to me, expressing that deep loyalty to the Queen which, not merely from hearsay, but from observation of the sentiments which animate the people of Canada, whether in the cities or in the country, I know to be real and universal. The Princess joins with me in asking you to accept our gratitude for your recognition of the interest we feel in the great efforts at present made, in various parts of Canada, to display to the best advantage the industrial achievements of our artisans. Some of the handiwork of our two largest Provinces can be seen in this building, while others are not unrepresented; and we have evidence of the skill which graces the strength of a new brother—the young giant of the west. [1] Everywhere proof is given that the Canadian can hold his own in the rivalry that brings Art to bear on the great natural products around us, and this is not surprising when we know that he comes from the races which in Europe have been the most renowned for the taste, the ingenuity, and the solidity of their workmanship. Where so many regions have but recently been peopled, there is, it need hardly be said, much to be done, and it is most satisfactory to see how each city and town is bending itself to the task to prove that there is no laggard in the patriotic competition. I have gladly attended several of these shows, and it is a feature peculiar to this country that the industrial exhibition so generally accompanies the agricultural show. Whether this shall always be the case as in the gathering inaugurated to-day, it will be of course for you to determine by experience of success in your venture in thus combining them. This is, perhaps, the first meeting to which more than a local character has been given. It will be a matter for your consideration, and for all in Canada interested in your endeavours, whether a novel practice be established here in moving to each Province in succession the Central Exhibition, without injury to the local fairs, which will, in any case, be held. If you decide to move the agricultural show from Province to Province in successive years, no new practice would thereby be espoused, for such has been the custom of the national societies of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the old countries the spaces to be traversed are much smaller, but the need of comparison between the various exhibits is also much less. The local shows are held there in almost every county, but the advantage derived from the annual moving of the national societies has been well expressed in the words of a former and justly beloved Viceroy of Ireland, who said that the experience the National Society had earned for itself had, by its annual movement, been carried through every part of the land, through each Province in turn; and this had tended to ruse together the knowledge of the best specialties of each, whether in tillage or in pasture, in cereals or in green crops, or in the breeding and fattening of cattle. With us in Canada, if a similar practice were followed, we might perhaps add that comparison would benefit the proper employment of the best agricultural machinery, for the manufacture of which our Canadian artisans have won high commendation at the greatest international contests. If you discuss these questions, I am sure you will do so, not with the view of benefiting one city or Province only, but in the spirit which sees in all common efforts a means of uniting our Canadian people, and an instrument to make a national feeling create a national prosperity. We may congratulate our countrymen that in the live stock of all kinds shown to-day, we have a representation of those vast resources which yield so much in excess of our own requirements that we can relieve the wants of older lands; and how great is the difference between the bygone traffic from the new world to enrich Europe and what we now witness! In other days the southern seas were covered with the towering galleons of Spain, bringing the ingots of gold and silver, wrought in the mines of America through the cruel labour of thousands of enslaved Indians. This was the wealth which poured into the treasuries of a nation whose riches reared the colossal palaces of the Escorial, and the wondrous Minster of Seville. The creation of such prosperity meant a short-lived reign of luxury and cruelty—the lifting up of an old country for a time—the abasement of a new land. How different the happy and more lasting wealth with which we are able to endow Europe from Canada, when the parent land and the Dominion alike reap equal fruits from a bounteous harvest. Our treasure fleets are now laden with golden grain, and flocks and herds; with riches wrung from no servitude, but derived from the free and noble toil of a liberty-loving, independent, and self-reliant people. It is to the men who have cleared the tangled forests, or have tilled the prairie lands, that we owe such great shows of agricultural wealth as those we have lately seen, and which prove how rich and inexhaustible are the veins of ore from which we can give enough and to spare.
May the endeavour of such a society as this, assisted as it has been chiefly by individual efforts, but countenanced by the Dominion Government, be to extend for the general good of our country, the experience it earns and whatever success is secured by the co-operation of the citizens.
[1] Manitoba.
[During the delivery of the address the gates had been opened and the people allowed to come in so as to hear His Excellency's reply, and at its close they gave hearty cheering.]
The first Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art took place at Ottawa in 1880. The experiment of collecting together the work of artists resident in the country, was a success from the commencement, and the annual meetings since held have fully warranted the formation of a National Society for the Promotion of Art. The Governor-General gave the opening address as follows:—