A Scotsman came to Canada about forty years ago, with nothing but his hands to help himself. He had been used to farming at home, and here he hired himself out to a farmer. Year after year he toiled on, worked and saved. In about fifteen years he found that he had saved enough to buy and pay cash for a farm. You, no doubt, reader, think it a long time to work for the first start, but just wait and see what he did when he got a start. He marries his employer’s daughter and sets up farming for himself. If he was a good hired man, he was equally good as a boss, and his farm began to bloom and season after season to look neater. Keeping right on, even with the low prices which he then got for his grain, he added to his farm until he owned absolutely and farmed 150 acres of Ontario’s best lands. Now he is on the high road to success, but the big Scotch heart within him went out to his father-in-law, and this came near being his ruin. His father-in-law had been a wealthy man, but became involved, and the son-in-law endorsed for the father-in-law for a sum as great as his land was then worth. It is only the old history of such endorsations to repeat: the endorser had to pay, of course. The father-in-law failed, leaving the young man almost penniless. Neighbors, not of the sterling stuff he was made of, advised him to sell his stock, because that was not mortgaged, and take the money and run away.
“I will pay every cent,” said the honest Scot, “only give me time.” Away he went to the holders of the notes, and plainly and squarely told them that he could not pay them now, but if they would wait he would pay them every cent.
“Then you are not going to run away?”
“Never! I will work it all out in a little while if you will only wait.”
And wait they did.
The merchants with whom he dealt, knowing the sterling qualities of the man, came forward and told him that he should have anything he wanted. And he bared his arms, went to work, and gradually paid off every dollar of his indebtedness, and stuck to his home when those who counselled him to run away had lost their homes and gone away west. He buys another farm, and with its aid, and the old farm as well, pays for it in a few seasons. A palatial home he erects, and his farm becomes one of the best cultivated in the locality. Now, had this man not been known as a man of sterling integrity, his property must have been all taken from him when those notes became due. But being so favorably regarded, he got the chance which put him on his feet again. His character stood him in good stead, for his merchants having lands they had taken for debts, offered them to our Scot on favorable terms, with easy terms of payment, and the Scot finds himself the absolute owner of five hundred acres of first-class land, besides money at his credit in the banks, and a large farm stock at home. In thirty-five years this penniless Scot makes about $70,000, after the reverses he had suffered from his large-heartedness. Money honestly, fairly acquired, a respected member of the community all the time, a man whose word no one dare impugn, manifestly his course was far better than if he had run away, and it is probable had he run away in his adversity that to-day he would have been in very moderate circumstances. Again, I doubt if any country in this world shows better possibilities than Ontario does for a man to rise. And these are not particularly isolated instances. Many more I might cite of what may be achieved in this glorious Ontario of ours.
Before drawing this chapter to a close, I wish to speak of one more class of Ontario persons, whom I never recollect to have seen mentioned in print before, and these are the Ontario Shylocks. Usually these persons came from the British Isles, mainly from England, fifty years or so ago. They would ordinarily be younger sons of a good family, and not being able to inherit much under the British law of primogeniture, took their one thousand sovereigns or so, and came to Canada. Arriving here at that early day, and there being but little money in the country, their cash commanded large rates of interest. At first they lent their money at 15 per cent, or so, and were for a time satisfied. But as time wore on, the greed of inordinate gain gained upon them, and they began to demand a bonus of 10 per cent, beside their 15 per cent, interest. Getting on in this way, it is almost superfluous to add that they soon doubled and trebled their means. Was some unfortunate settler unable to pay at the appointed time, an additional bonus of 10 per cent or so would satisfy the lender. Lands he would not acquire, for they would never be valuable, he thought, and nothing was worth anything but money. The consequence was that these Shylocks became wealthy. But I almost defy any reader to fix upon any such person to-day, or the family of such a person, who are worth anything now. It appears according to the eternal fitness of things that money so got by extortion does not stick. A Temperance Society of England offers a prize of one hundred guineas to any one who will trace money down to the third generation, got by the sale of liquors. But here in Ontario we do not need to go down further than the second generation to find that money got by extortion does not stick. To-day those very settlers who paid the 15 per cent. interest and a bonus besides, and kept their lands, are still at the fore, and their descendants will inherit many broad acres.
CHAPTER XXI.
Manitoba and Ontario compared—Some instances from real life—Ontario compared with Michigan—With Germany—“Canada as a Winter Resort”—Inexpediency of ice-palaces and the like—Untruthful to represent this as a land of winter—Grant Allen’s strictures on Canada refuted—Lavish use of food by Ontario people—The delightful climate of Ontario.
When the Manitoba fever broke out a good many persons in this locality, and some of my own tenants among the number, became uneasy and thought of emigrating. Some did so, but notably those who were not located on farms here. For a time they sent back glowing reports, and all seemed well, and even Ontario would not seemingly begin to compete with Manitoba. It is not, however, to be supposed that there have been no disappointments. One instance will suffice. A tenant farmer from near Whitby, worth about $2,000, went to Manitoba a few years ago, and took up 320 acres of land. When the boom was on he wrote home that he could sell his land for $10,000. Next fall passed. His wife came down visiting, and said that they had sold one-half their land for $6.00 per acre in order to save the rest; also that they had threshed three days and only had fifty bushels of grain, and lamented that they had ever left their farm near Whitby as tenants, to become owners in Manitoba. It may be that this is an exceptional instance, but those now even tolerably well located in Ontario run a serious risk in pulling up for the North-West. When Ontario has lands which will produce seventeen crops of wheat in succession, and when we can raise cattle absolutely free from diseases, owing to our climate, what need have we to look to Manitoba? It is now an assured fact, that cattle coming to Canada from England, diseased, and remaining ninety days in quarantine, as they must, lose their diseases, and do not take them on again; hence we have a goodly inheritance in Ontario, in raising blooded cattle to sell to the Americans for breeding purposes, for the diseases which periodically break out in the West and South-West, among the cattle, are positively unknown in Ontario. I met a Southerner from Charleston, S.C., early this winter in Toronto, and in the course of conversation asked him what he thought of our climate. “Just like champagne,” said he. It is an established fact that our six months’ winter, in our clear cold atmosphere, precludes the possibility of cattle diseases among us, and is equally conducive to producing a lusty strong race of Canadians, in hardihood the equal of any race anywhere.