Some important questions which have arisen in Canada since the dates above given had largely to do with its relations to the United States and its people. One of the most troublesome of these was that relating to the productive fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland and the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. For years the problem of the rights of American fishermen in these regions excited controversy. Several partial settlements have been made and in 1877 the sum of $5,000,000 was awarded to Great Britain in payment for the privileges granted to the United States. A treaty was signed in 1888 for the settlement of other branches of this vexatious question.
The discovery of gold on the Klondike River in 1896 developed another problem, that of the true boundary between Alaska and Canada. At first, under the belief that the gold region was in Alaska, it brought a rush of American miners to that region. But it was soon found that the mining region was in Canada and the mining laws imposed by the Canadian authorities were bitterly objected to by the American miners. The question of boundary has since been definitely settled by an international tribunal of British and American jurists and the present boundary line marked out by a scientific commission.
The industrial development of the Dominion within recent years has been great. Agriculturally the development of the fertile wheat fields of the middle west is of the most promising character, while railway progress has been highly encouraging. The building of the Canadian Pacific Railway was a remarkable enterprise at the time of its construction. Recently Canada is approaching a position of rivalry with the United States in this particular, a new transcontinental line, the Grand Trunk Pacific, having been completed in 1914, while the Canadian Northern is rapidly progressing.
PROGRESS IN CANADA
Railways have spread like a network over the rich agricultural territory along the southern border land of the Dominion, from ocean to ocean, and are now pushing into the deep forest land and rich mineral and agricultural regions of the interior and the northwest, their total length in 1914 approaching 30,000 miles.
These roads have been built largely under different forms of government aid, such as land grants, cash subsidies, loans, the issue of debentures, and the guarantee of interest on bonds.
In manufacturing industry almost every branch of production is to be found, the progressive enterprise of the people of the dominion being great, and a large proportion of the goods they need being made at home. The best evidence of the enterprise of Canada in manufacture is shown by the fact that she exports many thousand dollars worth of goods annually more than she buys—England being her largest customer and the United States second on the list.
Not only is the outside world largely ignorant of the importance of Canada, but many of her own people fail to realize the greatness of the country they possess. Its area of more than three and one-half millions of square miles—one sixteenth of the entire land surface of the earth—is great enough to include an immense variety of natural conditions and products. This area constitutes forty per cent of the far extended British empire, while its richness of soil and resources in forest and mineral wealth are as yet almost untouched, and its promise of future yield is immense. The dimensions of the dominion guarantee a great variety of natural attractions. There are vast grass-covered plains, thousands of square miles of untouched forest lands, multitudes of lakes and rivers, great and small, and mountains of the wildest and grandest character, whose natural beauty equals that of the far-famed Alpine peaks. In fact, the Canadian Pacific Railway is becoming a route of pilgrimage for the lovers of the beautiful and sublime, its mountain scenery being unrivaled upon the continent.
In several conditions the people of Canada, while preserving the general features of English society, are much more free and untrammeled. The class system of Great Britain has gained little footing in this new land, where early every farmer is the owner of the soil which he tills, and the people have a feeling of independence unknown to the agricultural population of European countries. There has been great progress also in many social questions. The liquor traffic is subject in some Provinces to the local option restriction; religious liberty prevails; education is practically free and unsectarian; the franchise is enjoyed by all citizens; members of parliament are paid for their services; and though the executive department of the government is under the control of a governor-general appointed by the Crown, the laws of Canada are made by its own statesmen, and a state of practical independence prevails. Recognizing this, and respecting the liberty-loving spirit of the people, Great Britain is chary in interfering with any question of Canadian policy, or in any sense attempting to limit the freedom of her great transatlantic colony.