We acted in the full independence of our sovereign power. What we did we did of our own free will.… If it should be the will of the people of Canada at any future stage to take part in any war of England, the people of Canada will have to have their way.… The work of union and harmony between the chief races of this country is not yet complete.… But there is no bond of union so strong as the bond created by common dangers faced in common.[1]
What a prophecy. How well was it realised fourteen years afterwards. But at the time the Canadians, believing that war would not pass their way again, erected monuments in all the leading cities to commemorate their losses, little thinking that the courage and traditions achieved would be perpetuated at the second battle of Ypres, Vimy Ridge, and the Somme.
The general election of 1900 sustained Sir Wilfrid, and from that time until 1911 he gave to his country a vision and a courage worthy of the great statesman who had preceded him in the premiership during many years. Possibly the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York the following year also opened up new vistas to him of the Empire upon which the sun never sets. At any rate life flowed on evenly enough for him and the Canadian people until there came one of those imperial acts of negotiation which sorely, perhaps unwarrantably, tried the loyalty and patience of everyone in the Dominion, irrespective of race, party, or creed. As a result of it any future Dominion Government would be very brave indeed if it agreed to an arbitration affecting common Canadian and American interests where the negotiators were not of themselves. However, if the Alaska Boundary Award 1903 gave the United States command of the ports leading to the Klondike it also gave to the Canadians a very clear lead as to what they should do when treaties affecting their own interests came up for consideration. Happily both Motherland and Dominion now see eye to eye in this regard, and no greater evidence of the solidarity resulting can be seen than in the signing of the recent Treaty of Versailles by the Overseas delegates.
Deep as was the chagrin at the time, internal expansion and growing wants diverted the attention of most of the settlers to the new problem being worked out in the West. Immigrants were pouring in ceaselessly. A charter for a Grand Trunk Pacific Railway had just been given by the Dominion House. Everyone was ambitious. All these reasons created a desire upon the part of the people for full provincial organisation instead of the territorial system which could not possibly satisfy the demands of a virile Northwest. The Autonomy Bills of Saskatchewan and Alberta were soon presented by the Dominion Government, and on September 1, 1905 two provinces were formally constituted from the old territories.
There were many in the Eastern Provinces who viewed these evidences of expansion not without certain misgivings. Most of the newly arrived settlers were intelligent Americans of considerable means. They had brought their household furniture, agricultural implements, and herds of horses and cattle with them. All this, however, was desirable and praiseworthy. But what worried the older settlers of the west and particularly the residents in the east was, did they intend to disseminate their previous Republican ideas? In justice to them it must be affirmed that they did not. On the contrary, they settled down as resident Canadians, loyally supporting existing institutions and the Crown. Many of them, however, were Canadians by birth, returning to their native land, or the children of Canadians. But whether Canadian by parentage or naturalisation they are a splendid asset to the west. And their knowledge of modern farming methods is by no means the least important of their accomplishments. In their train, there has also arrived a large number of skilled and unskilled European labourers.
When the House of Commons on May 22, 1919, adopted a recommendation of an address to the King not to grant further titles to Canadians, it was asserted by some that it was primarily caused by this western invasion. But it can be rightly maintained that such action was caused by conditions existing at the time entirely independent of this influence. It may be that in the future the resolution will be withdrawn. Resolutions in Canada are not as fixed as the ancient laws of the Medes and the Persians.
Side by side with this agricultural expansion there has been an era of discovery in the Dominion unequalled even by the golden age of '49. Alexander Macdonald, a Scotchman from New Brunswick, found a fortune in the great Klondike rush of 1894-8 and other Canadians did the same at Cobalt, Ontario, in 1903, where a member of a railway construction gang picked up a silver nugget by accident, thereby disclosing to an eager continent the famous Cobalt silver fields. Canada has, as a result, one of the greatest gold and silver-mining centres in the world.
As if to keep pace with this unexpected development, Dr. Charles E. Saunders, of the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, announced his successful evolution of Marquis wheat. The Doctor had been experimenting with mid-European Red Fife and Red Calcutta ever since 1903. By successfully crossing the two, an early ripening, hard red spring wheat with excellent milling and baking qualities was evolved. Marquis wheat, as it was named, is now the dominant spring wheat throughout America. Over three hundred million bushels are produced annually, and it was largely owing to Canadian Marquis that the Allies were able to overcome the food crisis in 1918. The wealth of the world has thus been increased enormously by it.
In 1911 Sir Wilfrid, who had been attending the Imperial Conference in London during May and June of that year, returned home determined to place himself again in the hands of the electorate. Unfortunately he had either not profited by the lesson of 1891 or he now believed that the Dominion was ripe for reciprocity with the United States. The contest resulted in the overwhelming defeat of his ministry. For fifteen years he had enjoyed the same confidence of the people as was extended to Sir John A. Macdonald, and the story of his premiership was practically the political history of Canada for that period.
The Hon. Sir Robert Borden, who had led the Conservative party after Sir Charles Tupper had resigned in 1901, now succeeded, and a new era opened in Canadian politics. Throughout the ten years of his two terms of office he invariably viewed the questions and problems before him from a judicial standpoint. At the end of his term of office he carried into his semi-retirement the respect and honour of the Canadian people. If he lacked the personality and the fire of Sir John A. and Sir Wilfrid, on the hustings and in the House, he made up for it by a mind well balanced in statesmanship. Never was this seen to greater advantage than on those occasions when he participated in the Imperial Conferences and at the Peace negotiations ir Versailles.