The Canadian Dominion: A Chronicle of Our Northern Neighbor

by Oscar D. Skelton

The result of the elections, which were held on September 21, 1911, was the crushing defeat of the Liberal party. A Liberal majority of forty-four in a house of two hundred and twenty-one members was turned into a Conservative majority of forty-nine. Eight cabinet ministers went down to defeat. The Government had a slight majority in the Maritime Provinces and Quebec, and a large majority in the prairie West, but the overwhelming victory of the Opposition in Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia turned the day.

The appeal to loyalty revealed much that was worthy and much that was sordid in Canadian life. It was well that a sturdy national self-reliance should be developed and expressed in the face of American prophets of "manifest destiny," and that men should be ready to set ideals above pocket. It was unfortunate that in order to demonstrate a loyalty which might have been taken for granted economic advantage was sacrificed; and it was disturbing to note the ease with which big interests with unlimited funds for organizing, advertising, and newspaper campaigning, could pervert national sentiment to serve their own ends. Yet this was possibly a stage through which Canada, like every young nation, had to pass; and the gentle art of twisting the lion's tail had proved a model for the practice of plucking the eagle's feathers.

The growth of Canada brought her into closer touch with lands across the sea. Men, money, and merchandise came from East and West; and with their coming new problems faced the Government of the Dominion. With Europe they were trade questions to solve, and with Asia the more delicate issues arising out of oriental immigration.

In 1907 the Canadian Government had established an intermediate tariff, with rates halfway between the general and the British preferential tariffs, for the express purpose of bargaining with other powers. In that year an agreement based substantially on these intermediate rates was negotiated with France, though protectionist opposition in the French Senate prevented ratification until 1910. Similar reciprocal arrangements were concluded in 1910 with Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. The manner of the negotiation was as significant as the matter. In the case of France the treaty was negotiated in Paris by two Canadian ministers, W.S. Fielding and L.P. Brodeur, appointed plenipotentiaries of His Majesty for that purpose, with the British Ambassador associated in what Mr. Arthur Balfour termed a "purely technical" capacity. In the case of the other countries even this formal recognition of the old colonial status was abandoned. The agreement with Italy was negotiated in Canada between "the Royal Consul of Italy for Canada, representing the government of the Kingdom of Italy, and the Minister of Finance of Canada, representing His Excellency the Governor General acting in conjunction with the King's Privy Council for Canada." The conclusions in these later instances were embodied in conventions, rather than formal treaties.

With one country, however, tariff war reigned instead of treaty peace. In 1899 Germany subjected Canadian exports to her general or maximum tariff, because the Dominion refused to grant her the preferential rates reserved for members of the British Empire group of countries. After four years' deliberation Canada eventually retaliated by imposing on German goods a special surtax of thirty-three and one-third per cent. The trade of both countries suffered, but Germany's, being more specialized, much the more severely. After seven years' strife, Germany took the initiative in proposing a truce. In 1910 Canada agreed to admit German goods at the rates of the general—not the intermediate—tariff, while Germany in return waived her protest against the British preference and granted minimum rates on the most important Canadian exports.

Oriental immigration had been an issue in Canada ever since Chinese navvies had been imported in the early eighties to work on the government sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mine owners, fruit farmers, and contractors were anxious that the supply should continue unchecked; but, as in the United States, the economic objections of the labor unions and the political objections of the advocates of a "White Canada" carried the day.

Chinese immigration had been restricted in 1885 by a head tax of $50 on all immigrants save officials, merchants, or scholars; in 1901 this tax was doubled; and in 1904 it was raised to $500. In each case the tax proved a barrier only for a year or two, when wages would rise sufficiently to warrant Orientals paying the higher toll to enter the Promised Land. Japanese immigrants did not come in large numbers until 1906, when the activities of employment companies brought seven thousand Japanese by way of Hawaii. Agitators from the Pacific States fanned the flames of opposition in British Columbia, and anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese riots broke out in Vancouver in 1907. The Dominion Government then grappled with the question. Japan's national sensitiveness and her position as an ally of Great Britain called for diplomatic handling. A member of the Dominion Cabinet, Rodolphe Lemieux, succeeded in 1907 in negotiating at Tokio an agreement by which Japan herself undertook to restrict the number of passports issued annually to emigrants to Canada.

The Hindu migration, which began in 1907, gave rise to a still more delicate situation. What did the British Empire mean, many a Hindu asked, if British subjects were to be barred from British lands? The only reply was that the British Government which still ruled India no longer ruled the Dominions, and that it was on the Dominions that the responsibility for the exclusion policy must rest. In 1909 Canada suggested that the Indian Government itself should limit emigration, but this policy did not meet with approval at the time. Failing in this measure, the Laurier Government fell back on a general clause in the Immigration Act prohibiting the entrance of immigrants except by direct passage from the country of origin and on a continuous ticket, a rule which effectually barred the Hindu because of the lack of any direct steamship line between India and Canada. An Order-in-Council further required that immigrants from all Asiatic countries must possess at least $200 on entering Canada. The Borden Government supplemented these restrictions by a special Order-in-Council in 1913 prohibiting the landing of artisans or unskilled laborers of any race at ports in British Columbia, ostensibly because of depression in the labor market. The leaders of the Hindu movement, with apparently some German assistance, determined to test these restrictions. In May, 1914, there arrived at Vancouver from Shanghai a Japanese ship carrying four hundred Sikhs from India. A few were admitted, as having been previously domiciled in Canada; the others, after careful inquiry, were refused admittance and ordered to be deported. Local police were driven away from the ship when attempting to enforce the order, and the Government ordered H.M.C.S. Rainbow to intervene. By a curious irony of history, the first occasion on which this first Canadian warship was called on to display force was in expelling from Canada the subjects of another part of the British Empire. Further trouble followed when the Sikhs reached Calcutta in September, 1914, for riots took place involving serious loss of life and later an abortive attempt at rebellion. Fortunately there were good prospects that the Indian Government would in future accept the proposal made by Canada in 1909. At the Imperial Conference of 1917, where representatives of India were present for the first time, it was agreed to recommend the principle of reciprocity in the treatment of immigrants, India thus being free to save her pride by imposing on men from the Dominions the same restrictions the Dominions imposed on immigrants from India.

But all these dealings with lands across the sea paled into insignificance beside the task imposed on Canada by the Great War. In the sudden crisis the Dominion attained a place among the nations which the slower changes of peace time could scarcely have made possible in decades.

When the war party in Germany and Austria-Hungary plunged Europe into the struggle the world had long been fearing, there was not a moment's hesitation on the part of the people of Canada. It was not merely the circumstance that technically Canada was at war when Britain was at war that led Canadians to instant action. The degree of participation, if not the fact of war, was wholly a matter for the separate Dominions. It was the deep and abiding sympathy with the mother country whose very existence was to be at stake. Later, with the unfolding of Germany's full designs of world dominance and the repeated display of her callous and ruthless policies, Canada comprehended the magnitude of the danger threatening all the world and grimly set herself to help end the menace of militarism once for all.