Canada under British Rule 1760-1900

by John George Bourinot

As the several States of the Commonwealth have full control of their own constitutions, they may choose at any moment to elect their own governors as in the States of the American Union, instead of having them appointed by the crown as in Canada. We see also an imitation of the American constitution in the principle which allots to the central government only certain enumerated powers, and leaves the residuary power of legislation to the States. Again, while the act provides for a high and other federal courts, the members of which are to be appointed and removed as in Canada by the central government, the States are still to have full jurisdiction over the State courts as in the United States. The Canadian constitution, which gives to the Dominion exclusive control over the appointment and removal of the judges of all the superior courts, offers a positive guarantee against the popular election of judges in the provinces. It is not going too far to suppose that, with the progress of democratic ideas in Australia—a country inclined to political experiments—we may find the experience of the United States repeated, and see elective judges make their appearance when a wave of democracy has suddenly swept away all dictates of prudence and given unbridled licence to professional political managers only anxious for the success of party. In allowing the British Parliament to amend the Act of Union on an address of the Canadian parliament, we have yet another illustration of the desire of Canadians to respect the supremacy of the sovereign legislature of the empire. On the other hand, the Australians make themselves entirely independent of the action of the imperial parliament, which might be invaluable in some crisis affecting deeply the integrity and unity of the Commonwealth, and give full scope to the will of democracy expressed at the polls. In also limiting the right of appeal to the Queen in council—by giving to the high court the power to prevent appeals in constitutional disputes—the Australians have also to a serious degree weakened one of the most important ties that now bind them to the empire, and afford additional illustration of the inferiority of the Australian constitution, from an imperial point of view, compared with that of the Canadian Dominion, where a reference to the judicial committee of the privy council is highly valued.

The Canadian people are displaying an intellectual activity commensurate with the expansion of their territory and their accumulation of wealth. The scientific, historical and political contributions of three decades, make up a considerable library which shows the growth of what may be called Canadian literature, since it deals chiefly with subjects essentially of Canadian interest. The attention that is now particularly devoted to the study and writing of history, and the collection of historical documents relating to the Dominion, prove clearly the national or thoroughly Canadian spirit that is already animating the cultured class of its people.

Of the numerous historical works that have appeared since 1867 two only demand special mention in this short review. One of these is A History of the days of Montcalm and Lévis by the Abbé Casgrain, who illustrates the studious and literary character of the professors of the great university which bears the name of the first bishop of Canada, Monseigneur Laval. A more elaborate general history of Canada, in ten octavo volumes, is that by Dr. Kingsford, whose life closed with his book. Whilst it shows much industry and conscientiousness on the part of the author, it fails too often to evoke our interest even when it deals with the striking and picturesque story of the French régime, since the author considered it his duty to be sober and prosaic when Parkman is bright and eloquent.

A good estimate of the progress of literary culture in Canada can be formed from a careful perusal of the poems of Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, Charles G.W. Roberts, Wilfred Campbell, Duncan Campbell Scott and Frederick George Scott. The artistic finish of their verse and the originality of their conception entitle them fairly to claim a foremost place alongside American poets since Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Bryant and Lowell have disappeared. Pauline Johnson, who has Indian blood in her veins, Archbishop O'Brien of Halifax, Miss Machar, Ethelyn Weatherald, Charles Mair and several others might also be named to prove that poetry is not a lost art in Canada, despite its pressing prosaic and material needs.

Dr. Louis Fréchette is a worthy successor of Crémazie and has won the distinction of having his best work crowned by the French Academy. French Canadian poetry, however, has been often purely imitative of French models like Musset and Gautier, both in style and sentiment, and consequently lacks strength and originality. Fréchette has all the finish of the French poets and, while it cannot be said that he has yet originated fresh thoughts, which are likely to live among even the people whom he has so often instructed and delighted, yet he has given us poems like that on the discovery of the Mississippi which prove that he is capable of even better things if he would seek inspiration from the sources of the deeply interesting history of his own country, or enter into the inner mysteries and social relations of his picturesque compatriots.

The life of the French Canadian habitant has been admirably described in verse by Dr. Drummond, who has always lived among that class of the Canadian people and been a close observer of their national and personal characteristics. He is the only writer who has succeeded in giving a striking portraiture of life in the cabin, in the "shanty" (chantier), and on the river, where the French habitant, forester, and canoe-man can be seen to best advantage.

But if Canada can point to some creditable achievements of recent years in history, poetry and essays, there is one department in which Canadians never won any marked success until recently, and that is in the novel or romance. Even Mr. Kirby's Le Chien d'Or which recalls the closing days of the French régime—the days of the infamous Intendant Bigot who fattened on Canadian misery—does not show the finished art of the skilled novelist, though it has a certain crude vigour of its own, which has enabled it to live while so many other Canadian books have died. French Canada is even weaker in this particular, and this is the more surprising because there is abundance of material for the novelist or the writer of romance in her peculiar society and institutions. But this reproach has been removed by Mr. Gilbert Parker, now a resident in London, but a Canadian by birth, education and sympathies, who is animated by a laudable ambition of giving form and vitality to the abundant materials that exist in the Dominion for the true story-teller. His works show great skill in the use of historic matter, more than ordinary power in the construction of a plot, and, above all, a literary finish which is not equalled by any Canadian writer in the same field of effort. Other meritorious Canadian workers in romance are Mr. William McLennan, Mrs. Coates (Sarah Jeannette Duncan), and Miss Dougall, whose names are familiar to English readers.

The name of Dr. Todd is well known throughout the British empire, and indeed wherever institutions of government are studied, as that of an author of most useful works on the English and Canadian constitutions. Sir William Dawson, for many years the energetic principal of McGill University, the scientific prominence of which is due largely to his mental bias, was the author of several geological books, written in a graceful and readable style. The scientific work of Canadians can be studied chiefly in the proceedings of English, American and Canadian societies, especially, of late years, in the transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, established over eighteen years ago by the Marquess of Lorne when governor-general of the Dominion. This successful association is composed of one hundred and twenty members who have written "memoirs of merit or rendered eminent services to literature or science."

On the whole, there have been enough good poems, histories, and essays, written and published in Canada during the last four or five decades, to prove that there has been a steady intellectual growth on the part of the Canadian people, and that it has kept pace at all events with the mental growth in the pulpit, or in the legislative halls, where, of late years, a keen practical debating style has taken the place of the more rhetorical and studied oratory of old times. The intellectual faculties of Canadians only require larger opportunities for their exercise to bring forth rich fruit. The progress in the years to come will be much greater than that Canadians have yet shown, and necessarily so, with the wider distribution of wealth, the dissemination of a higher culture, and a greater confidence in their own mental strength, and in the opportunities that the country offers to pen and pencil. What is now wanted is the cultivation of a good style and artistic workmanship.

Much of the daily literature of Canadians—indeed the chief literary aliment of large numbers—is the newspaper press, which illustrates necessarily the haste, pressure and superficiality of writings of that ephemeral class. Canadian journals, however, have not yet descended to the degraded sensationalism of New York papers, too many of which circulate in Canada to the public detriment. On the whole, the tone of the most ably conducted journals—the Toronto Globe, and the Montreal Gazette notably—is quite on a level with the tone of debate in the legislative bodies of the country.