But in no country in the world do the people live better than they do in Ontario. Nor is there any country where the necessities and sumptuousness of life are more abundant. Go to one of our teas, or soirees, and see the vast amount of rich varied food there spread before the partakers. The richest cakes, the most varied, and the exceeding abundance there seen, must quickly convince even the most casual observer that our people are really well off, and are living in luxury. One sees nothing of this sort in Europe, and we really use food the most prodigally of any people in existence. An ordinary good Ontario family wastes more than a French peasant family uses at all. This is a fact which cannot be controverted. I might instance how carefully the German family lives, and show likewise that the Ontario family wastes nearly as much as these families consume; so even if we sometimes have exceedingly low prices, we fare as sumptuously as any people in this world.
The abundance in Ontario is something marvellous to the people of the Old World. Look into our orchards and see the bushels of fruit lying under the trees and going to waste, and this will convince the most persistent grumbler that we are all right after all, and have but little to grumble about. In thickly populated Europe all this fruit would have been picked up and put to some use as human food. Every apple would be used, and dried and stored away for future use. It is only the plentifulness of everything in Ontario which causes our people to be so wasteful. See our children take single bites from apples or pears, and throw them away, only to bite another. Wasteful again, because of exceeding abundance. Really our farmers have but little to grumble about, for our land literally flows with milk and honey, and is one of the most bountiful countries in the world.
Some of our citizens now and again cast longing eyes towards Florida, fancying that in that land of perpetual sunshine more pleasure can be experienced than in our own land, possessing the four seasons clearly and distinctly defined. It is quite a mistake. This beautiful Ontario of ours presents, as the seasons flow along, a variety of contrasts in scenes and foliage which the warm climates know not of. Our springs are incomparably finer and pleasanter than anything down south, and our foliage is greener and cleaner than hot countries can show. Our summers are just hot enough to give us a taste of what hot weather really is, and make us long for the russet fall season, with its golden grains, and red-cheeked fruits, and delightful sombre days, when our atmosphere becomes veritable champagne in itself, followed by the forest pictures of bright colors as the frost touches the foliage. Our bright, crisp, clear, cold and jolly sleighing is life-giving to the uttermost human extremity, and we would not have a warm, muddy, rainy winter if we could. Then comes our spring season, just the interlude, as it were, between winter and summer, when the old drifted snowbanks are disappearing, and this is the season which gives us the “sugaring-off,” which cannot be duplicated anywhere out of our North American continent.
Ontarians have a glorious heritage in climate, soil, seasons, government, and pleasures, and we do not need to be casting about for anything better in this world, for it is not to be found. Any one of us who does not love our beautiful country is recreant to his best interests. Indeed, if he does not, I boldly assert it is only because of his want of knowledge of other lands to enable him to make comparisons with his own. Let us stick to our country and place it far to the fore, as it is now quickly attaining to that position.
CHAPTER XXII.
Criticisms by foreign authors—How Canada is regarded in other countries—Passports—“Only a Colonist”—Virchow’s unwelcome inference—Canadians are too modest—Imperfect guide-books—A reciprocity treaty wanted.
In my readings from time to time I come across many remarks by foreign and other authors, that I feel are belittling to our country. If we only took to the self-laudation practised by our Yankee neighbors, such arguments, or, rather, want of arguments—but rather noises—would at least make us better known. I feel that we as a people are far too modest. Remaining at home, or at least within our own boundaries, one does not so keenly feel how little our country amounts to or is known abroad. On travelling on the continent of Europe, now and then in company with some Americans, and once getting away from the seaport towns, I could not make the people understand that I was anything but a Yankee. Since I came from America du nord, I must, of course, be a Yankee, and no amount of explanation in the best French I could command would make them understand that I was a British subject. One day particularly, in Florence, Italy, I recollect buying a postage stamp, to send a letter home, on which was the plain address, Canada. Being somewhat in doubt if I had placed sufficient postage on the letter, I asked “if that was enough for Canada.” “’Tis all the same. All America, all United States.” “But this is not for the United States.” “Oh, yes, it’s all United States, all America, du nord.” And so my country counted for nothing. The great Republic completely swamps us away from home, disguise the fact as we may, and we may as well acknowledge it.
Even in Liverpool, I recollect when walking down the landing-stage, valise in hand, about to board the steamer to sail for home two summers ago, a little newsboy ran up before me and said, “Sir, don’t you want to buy the New York Herald?” Of course I bought the paper for the little urchin’s shrewdness in picking me out as being from America. I only mention this simple anecdote to show that across the Atlantic it’s all America and all the United States, almost without a discrimination. In the matter of passports, now happily not nearly so necessary in Europe as formerly, I have found at different times it is always better to be provided with one for emergencies which may at any time arise. Going down into Italy by the Monte Cenis route, the officials dumped us all out at Modaire, through which town and depot the line between France and Italy passed. I had to enter a door and pass a drawn-up guard of soldiers and through a passage for the examination of passports. Ahead of us were a number of Americans, who simply showed the eagle on the seal of their passports, and who were allowed to pass unchallenged. My turn came, and I showed the lion on my Canadian passport, and then my trouble came. It was not British, the examiner said, but from America, and did not bear an eagle like the Americans’ passports. I felt humiliated and disgusted, that my own country with its five millions, and the third naval (commercial) power of the world, was literally unknown. Fortunately for me the examination was not very strict, and I passed by parting with a small coin or two.
I would surely obtain a British passport if I were again travelling in regions where passports are needed in order to get along easily and without detentions.
Americans when abroad on the Continent very frequently call upon their consul, and would return to the hotel, telling us of the delightful hour spent in genial talk with their consul, and the information obtained from him, and letters of admission to galleries, museums, etc. Consistently I cannot pass myself off as a Yankee and go with them, but determine to visit the British consul, who ought perforce to be my own; and I call on him, and he looks at my passport, which he deliberately folds, and hands back to me. He is too well bred to treat me positively rudely, but the general air of his demeanor instantly makes me feel that he considers me “only a colonist” and a person of no account in particular, and not really worth very much of his consideration. One experience of this kind suffices usually, and hereafter I let the consuls alone. To be “only a colonist” at home does not seem to weigh one down very much, but abroad to be told that a few times makes it beyond human nature to not feel a spirit of resentment. As to being a colonist it is quite right, and I am proud of the fact and do not wish to change my position. If they would leave off the small word “only” before “a colonist” it would take away all the sting, and make the Canadian traveller feel that he is just as good as our British brothers at home, our forefathers and relatives. When this “only a colonist” was said to me, I generally felt it like the greeting accorded a son of some obscure man; the son being exceedingly worthy, and having risen by his talents, but “he’s only old Jones’s son,” and of course he can’t be anybody. Canada is usually spoken of by foreign writers as a part of the “frozen north.” This is really too bad when Ontario, which contains very nearly one-half of the entire population of the Dominion, possesses a climate far milder than the New England States, and quite as mild as that of the great State of New York, just south of us. In an article on “Acclimatization,” in the Popular Science Monthly, by so eminent an author as Professor Virchow, is this sentence, “No one has, for example, seen a people of the white race become black under the tropics, or negroes transplanted to the polar regions, or to Canada, metamorphosed into whites.” This coupling of us by implication with the frozen north, coming from so eminent a man as Virchow, cuts. It is true that Canada runs far to the north, but at the same time it would be just as fair to speak of the United States as in the polar regions, since it has Alaska, which is veritably in the Arctic zone, but at the same time, and just the same as with us, but a very small part of their population is there. Writers never speak of the United States as in the polar regions.