The burden laid by taxation upon the Canadians is not oppressive. Taxation is raised almost entirely in the form of custom and excise duties, and amounts to four million sterling. This is an average rate of one pound for each of the population; not differing appreciably from the rate of taxation in the United States, but being considerably less than one-half of that which now prevails in Great Britain.
Canada trusts for her defence against foreign enemies to her militia and volunteers, of whom she has nominally a large force. But only a handful of these are annually called out for a few days of drill, and the Dominion spends no more than £200,000 upon her military preparations. Her fleet is equally modest, and consists of a few small steamers which serve on the lakes and rivers, and mount in all about twenty guns.
Besides the outlays incurred in carrying on the ordinary business of Government, large sums, raised by loan, are annually expended on public works. Navigation on the great rivers of Canada is interrupted by numerous rapids and falls. Unless these obstructions be overcome, the magnificent water-way with which Canada is endowed will be of imperfect usefulness. At many points on the rivers and lakes canals have been constructed. The formidable impediment which the great Fall of Niagara offers to navigation is surmounted by the Welland Canal, twenty-seven miles in length, and on which, with its branches, two and a half million sterling have been expended. Much care is bestowed, too, upon the deepening of rivers and the removal of rocks and other obstructions to navigation. The vast distances of Canada render railways indispensable to her development. The Canadian Government and people have duly appreciated this necessity. They have already constructed seven thousand miles of railway, and are proceeding rapidly with further extension. The cost of railways already made amounts to eighty million sterling, of which Government has provided one-fourth. Very soon Canada will have a length of railway equal to one-half that of Great Britain. But the disposition to travel has not kept pace with the increased facilities which have been provided. The average number of journeys performed annually by each Englishman is seventeen, while the Canadian average is not quite two.
There still remain in the various provinces of the Dominion about ninety thousand Indians, to represent the races who possessed the continent when the white man found it. Two-thirds of these are in the unpeopled wastes of Manitoba and British Columbia; the remainder are settled in the old provinces. The Indian policy of Canada has been from the beginning just and kind, and it has borne appropriate fruits. The Governments of the United States have signally failed in their management of their Indian population. Faith has not been kept with the savages. Treaties have again and again been made by the Government and violated by the people. Lands have been assigned to the Indians, and forcibly taken from them so soon as possession was desired by any considerable number of white men. Large grants of food and clothing have been given by the Government, and shamelessly intercepted by dishonest traders. Out of transactions such as these have sprung bitter hatreds, ruthless massacres, inflicted now by the red man, now by the white, and a state of feeling under which a Western American will, on slight provocation, shoot down an Indian with as little remorse as he would slay a stag. Canada has dealt in perfect fairness with her Indians. She has recognized always the right of the original occupants of the land. She has fulfilled with inflexible faith every treaty into which she has entered. The lands allotted to the Indians have been secured to them as effectively as those of the white settler, or have been acquired from them by fair process of sale and purchase. The Indians have requited with constant loyalty the Government which has treated them with justice. While the French ruled Canada there was perpetual strife with the Indians, as there is to-day in the United States. Canada under the British has never been disturbed by an Indian war.
The Indians of the older provinces have adopted settled habits and betaken themselves to agriculture. In Ontario they are steadily increasing in numbers and intelligence. Drunkenness diminishes; education is eagerly sought; hunting gives place to farming; the descendants of the barbarous Iroquois have been transformed into industrious and prosperous citizens. In Quebec there is also progress, but it is less rapid, and the old drunken habits of the people have not yielded so completely to the influences which surround them. The Indians of British Columbia are still very drunken and debased, and their numbers diminish rapidly. In Manitoba and the whole North-West the condition of the Indians is very hopeful. Drunkenness is almost unknown; crime is very rare; the demand for schools and for persons who can teach how to build houses and till the soil is universal and urgent. The buffalo has been the support of the North-Western Indian. Its flesh was his food, its skin was his clothing, the harness of his horse, the property by whose sale all his remaining wants were supplied. The innumerable multitudes of buffalo which frequented the plains maintained in the Indian camp a rude affluence. But the buffalo gives place before advancing civilization, and the Indians in alarm hasten to find new means of subsistence.
The problem which savage occupants present to the civilized men who settle on their lands has been solved in Canada by the simple but rare device of friendly and perfectly fair dealing. The red men of Canada live contentedly under the rule of the strangers, and prove that they are able to uphold themselves by the white man’s industries. They adopt his language, often to the disuse of their own, his dress, his customs, his religion. Not only do the two races live in concord; their blood has been largely mixed. The native race is probably doomed to disappear, but this will not be the result of violence or even of neglect. The history of the Indian race in Canada will close with its peaceful absorption by the European races which possess the continent.
Thirty years ago the Canadians, borrowing largely from their neighbours of the United States, perfected their common-school system. Schools adequate to the wants of the population are provided. A Board chosen by the people conducts the school business of the district. The costs are defrayed by a local tax, supplemented by a grant from the treasury of the province. In general, no fees are charged; primary education is absolutely free. The French Canadians manifest less anxiety for education than their British neighbours, and have not yet emerged from the ignorance which they brought with them from Europe, and in which they were suffered for generations to remain. In Toronto and the maritime provinces the means of education are ample, and are very generally taken advantage of by the colonists.
A noble heritage has been bestowed upon the Canadian people. Treasures of the sea and of the soil, of forest and of mine, are theirs in lavish abundance. Their climate, stern but also kindly, favours the growth of physical and mental energy. They enjoy freedom in its utmost completeness. Their peaceable surroundings exempt them from the blight of war and the evils of costly defensive preparation. For generations these inestimable advantages were in large measure neutralized by the enfeebling rivalries which divided the provinces. But internal dissension has been silenced by confederation, and Canada has begun to consolidate into a nation. Differences of religion and of race still hold a place among the forces which are shaping out her future, but the antipathies which they once inspired have almost passed away. The distinctions of Catholic and Protestant, Englishman and Frenchman, are being merged in the common designation of Canadian, which all are proud to bear. The welfare of Canada, her greatness in the years of the future, are assured not merely by the vastness of her material resources, but still more by the spirit which animates her people. The destiny towards which the Canadian people are hastening is fittingly indicated by the eloquent words of one of the ablest of their Governor-Generals. 1875 A.D. “However captivating,” said Lord Dufferin, “may be the sights of beauty prepared by the hands of Nature, they are infinitely enhanced by the contemplation of all that man is doing to turn to their best advantage the gifts thus placed within his reach. In every direction you see human industry and human energy digging deep the foundations, spreading out the lines, and marking the inviolable boundaries upon and within which one of the most intelligent and happiest offsets of the English race is destined to develop into a proud and great nation. The very atmosphere seems impregnated with the exhilarating spirit of enterprise, contentment, and hope. The sights and sounds which caressed the senses of the Trojan wanderer in Dido’s Carthage are repeated and multiplied in a thousand different localities in Canada, where flourishing cities, towns, and villages are rising in every direction with the rapidity of a fairy tale. And better still, pari passu with the development of these material evidences of wealth and happiness is to be observed the growth of political wisdom, experience, and ability, perfectly capable of coping with the difficult problems which are presented in a country where new conditions, foreign to European experience, and complications arising out of ethnological and geographical circumstances, are constantly requiring the application of a statesmanship of the highest order.”