Problems of the Pacific

by Frank Fox

The existence, side by side, of two races and two languages in Canada makes it a matter of some doubt as to what the future Canadian nation will be. The French race, so far proving more stubborn in its characteristics than the British race in Canada, has been the predominant influence up to recently, though its influence has sought the impossible aim of a French-Canadian nation rather than a Canadian nation. Thus it was at once a bulwark of national spirit and yet an obstacle to a genuinely progressive nationalism. Patriotic in its resistance to all external influences which threatened Canadian independence, it yet failed in its duty to promote an internal progress towards a homogeneous people.

Canada, it is perhaps needless to recall to mind, was originally a French colony. In the sixteenth century, when the British settlements in America were scattered along the Atlantic seaboard of what is now the United States, the French colonised in the valley of the Mississippi and along the course of the great river known as the St Lawrence. Their design of founding an Empire in America, a "New France," took the bold form of isolating the seaboard colonies of the British, and effectively occupying all of what is now the Middle-West of the United States, together with Canada and the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. It is not possible to imagine greater courage, more patient endurance, more strenuous enterprise, than was shown by the early founders of New France. If they did not achieve, they at least fully deserved an Empire.

French colonists in Canada occupied at first the province of Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, and the province of Quebec on the River St Lawrence. Jacques Cartier, a sailor of St Malo, was the first explorer of the St Lawrence. Acadia was colonised in 1604 by an expedition from the Huguenot town of La Rochelle, under the command of Champlain, De Monts, and Poutrincourt. Then a tardy English rivalry was aroused. In 1614 the Governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, sent an expedition to Acadia, and took possession of the French fort. That was the first blow in a long struggle between English and French for supremacy in North America. In 1629, the date of Richelieu's supremacy in France, an incident of a somewhat irregular war between England and France was the capture, by David Kirk, an English Admiral, of Quebec, the newly-founded capital of "New France"; and the English Flag floated over Fort St Louis. But it was discovered that this capture had been effected after peace had been declared between the two European Powers, and, by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye, Quebec was restored to France.

But the French colonies in America were still inconsiderable and were always threatened by the Red Indians, until Colbert, the great Minister of Louis XIV., made them a royal province, and, with Jean Baptiste Talon as Governor, Monseigneur Laval as Bishop, and the Marquis de Tracy as soldier, French Canada was organised under a system of theocratic despotism. The new régime was strictly paternal. The colonists were allowed no self-governing rights; a feudal system was set up, and the land divided into seignories, whose vassals were known as "habitants," a name which still survives. In all things the Governor and the Bishop exercised a sway. Wives were brought from France for the habitants, early marriages and large families encouraged, and religious orthodoxy carefully safeguarded.

The French Canada of to-day shows the enduring nature of the lessons which Talon and Laval then inculcated. With the growth of modern thought the feudal system has passed away, and the habitants are independent farmers instead of vassals to a seigneur. But in most other things they are the same as their forefathers of the seventeenth century. When Canada passed into the hands of the English, it had to be recognised that there was no hope of holding the country on any terms antagonistic to the habitants and their firmly fixed principles of life. In regard to religion, to education, to marriage and many other things, the old Roman Catholic ecclesiastical influence was preserved, and continues almost undiminished to this day.

The French-Canadian is a Frenchman of the era before the Revolution—a Frenchman without scepticism, and with a belief in large families. He is the Breton peasant of a century ago, who has come to a new land, increased and multiplied. He is devoutly attached to the Roman Catholic Church, and follows its guidance in all things.

A somewhat frigid and calculating "loyalty" to Great Britain; a deep sentimental attachment to France as "the Mother Country"; a rooted dislike to the United States, founded on the conviction that if Canada joined the great Republic he would lose his language and religious privileges—these are the elements which go to the making of the French-Canadian's national character.

Very jealously the French-Canadian priesthood preserves the ideas of the ancient order. Marriage of French-Canadians with Protestants, or even with Roman Catholics of other than French-Canadian blood, is discouraged. The education of the children—the numerous children of this race which counts a family not of respectable size until it has reached a dozen—is kept in the hands of the Church in schools where the French tongue alone is taught. Thus the French-Canadian influence, instead of permeating through the whole nation, aims at a people within a people. The aim cannot be realised; and already the theocratic idea, on which French-Canadian nationalism is largely based, shows signs of weakening. There are to be found French-Canadians who are confessedly "anti-clerical." That marks the beginning of the end. One may foresee in the near future the French-Canadian element merging in the general mass of the community to the great benefit of all—of the French-Canadian, who needs to be somewhat modernised; of the British-Canadian, who will be all the better for a mingling of a measure of the exalted idealism and spiritual strength of the French element; and of the nation at large, for a complete merging of the two races, French and British, in Canada would produce a people from which might be expected any degree of greatness.

Canada, facing to-day both the Atlantic and the Pacific, has the possibilities of greatness on either ocean, or indeed on both; I do not think it a wild forecast to say that ultimately her Pacific provinces may be greater than those bordering the Atlantic, and may draw to their port a large share of the trade of the Middle-West. Entering Canada by her Pacific gate, and passing through the coastal region over the Selkirks and Rockies to the prairie, one sees all the material for the making of a mighty nation. The coastal waters, and the rivers flowing into them, teem with fish, and here are the possibilities of a huge fishing population. At present those possibilities are, in the main, neglected, or allowed to be exploited by Asiatics. But a movement is already afoot to organise their control for the benefit of a British population. The coastal strip and the valleys running into the ranges are mild of climate and rich of soil. An agricultural population of 10,000,000 could here find sustenance, first levying toll on the great forests, and later growing grain and fruit. Within the ranges are great stores of minerals, from gold down to coal and iron. Everywhere are rushing rivers and rapids to provide electrical power. Fishermen, lumbermen, farmers, mountain graziers, miners, manufacturers—for all these there is golden opportunity. The rigours of the Eastern Canadian climate are missing: but there is no enervating heat. The somewhat old-fashioned traditions of the Eastern provinces are also missing, and the people facing the Pacific have the lusty confidence of youth.

At present the balance of political power in Canada is with the east. But each year sees it move farther west. The Pacific provinces count for more and more, partly from their increasing population, partly from their increasing influence over the prairie farmers and ranchers. The last General Election in Canada showed clearly this tendency. In every part of the nation there was a revulsion from the political ideals represented by Sir Wilfrid Laurier: and that revulsion was most complete in the west, where as a movement it had had its birth.