The first concern of conservation is necessarily with natural resources, but it does give a significant purpose to all the activities of a nation and of an individual. The large, inclusive aim of Canada in conservation is that Canada shall be great in the character of her people, great enough to match the matchless heritage that has come to her in blood and ideals, in possessions and institutions, in opportunities and obligations. Canada's contribution to humanity in a large, uplifting way will be in the perfection by a composite people, diverse in origin of race, language and religion,—the perfection by such a people of the finest of all fine arts, the fine art of living happily and prosperously together, while working with intelligent skill and unfaltering will for ends believed to be for the common good. These large ends include the improvement of the material and social setting of every home, the refinement of the inherited quality of life of every child and the reformation from generation to generation of the habits, standards and ideals of the people. All to the end that we may find satisfactions, large, broad and lasting, through invigorating labor, social service and abiding good will amongst ourselves and also extended to all our neighbors.
Let me give you a very brief glimpse, merely an indication, a suggestion, here and there, of what we are trying to do. First of all, a word on what we have in possessions to conserve; then a glimpse or two of what we are doing with our estate; afterwards a glance at what we are seeking for ourselves; and finally a look in on what we stand for as a young people among other kindly and competing nations.
On What We Have
We have a great deal. Never before in the history of the race did seven millions of people have such a heritage come into their free possession. Half a continent wide and a whole continent long,—that is our estate. We are happy in the setting of our national life. A very brief survey of what it means to us and what it is in itself must suffice this morning. Who knows it? I hear people speak of Canada as a red patch on the map, as a stretch of prairies where wheat grows, as the northern fringe of the glorious free republic of the United States. These hardly shed a candle power of light on our estate. Half a continent wide and one-sixth of the way around the globe! If Europe were eleven in area, we are twelve, and much of it habitable, destined to be the setting of fine homes of a robust people.
Let us take Canada in four areas, in thousand-mile stretches. We can afford to speak of ourselves in those dimensions. A thousand miles in from the Atlantic,—where else do you find a better place for homes for a dominant people whose purpose it is to pull up by strength and intelligence and justice and good will, and not to crush down and hold back? Dominant because the human race can be at its best in physique, in endurance, in tenacity, in capacity, in aspiration, where apple trees grow in beauty and bounty and the summer air is full of the fragrance of clover blossoms. Think back through your books, and over the globe, and into the lives of the people. Recall the old stories, the apple trees of Eden and the land flowing with milk and honey. After all, physical setting means much for the glory of human life. This is a fine stretch of a thousand miles for homes, of apple trees and clover blossoms with plenty of running water, with skies decked in beauty by clouds, with showers and sunshine in alternate abundance, and farm houses with yards full of children rolling on the grass picking flowers and climbing the apple trees. That is worth while,—to have a thousand miles filling up with homes, willing for more to come and share their joy.
Then we have a thousand miles of wilderness, a great reservoir north of the Great Lakes. It tempts the adventurous to seek gold and silver; great areas for trees, and lakes to refresh the thirsty land on both sides by the genial droppings from the rains gathered from the wastes.
Then come a thousand miles of prairies, stretching out to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It took a thousand times a thousand years to make that place fit for our possession and habitation now. The frugality of prodigal nature was storing in the soil plant food for crops for thousands of years, not that men might ship wheat, but that boys and girls should have the finest chance that the race had known hitherto to be a strong, dominant, lovely and loving people. A thousand miles of prairies! Why do your people flock over to those prairies? Not for greed of money. I have been enough in the States to know that you libel yourselves in one unkind way. You say the American worships the almighty dollar. Chase the charge down and he wants the dollar for the sake of a home, for the pleasure of conquest, for the worship of some boy or girl, to give him and her a better footing and a better start. The call of Canada is not merely from property and a chance to get it. The call of Canada is the call of a wide chance for possessions, for a piece of good land to own for oneself. It is also the call of the land where law is respected, as well as obeyed. It is most loudly and convincingly the call of a land with chances for children. That is what pulls them here, the chances for children; and these newcomers are amongst the foremost of those who see that the biggest and best and best-sustained building in the place is the public school.
Then we have five hundred miles, half a thousand, going over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean. It is a piece of the great Creator's fine art in the rough, with the impressiveness of nature's majesty and the instability which endures. Tucked in between the mountains are fertile valleys with peaches and plums and wheat and all good things to sustain the homes. A great asset is that five-hundred mile strip, the mountains pregnant with coal and gold and silver, and the streams teeming with fish from the inexhaustible feeding places of the north.
That is a glimpse, merely the head-lines, of our national home, our real estate; and we believe the people will be quite a match for it. We come to feel the responsibility for that now.
Only a word or two of detail. We have forests in vast areas, some of them as yet unsurveyed, and a climate and soil which lets nature far more than restore the lumberman's cut. Our forests are inexhaustible in the abundance of their serving power for coming generations; now that we have begun to conserve them by preventing fires, by providing patrols, and also by diffusing knowledge, training and conviction throughout the common schools. Then we have fisheries. Many of you come up here and regale your friends for evenings afterwards by fish stories. I speak of the great value to Canada of fish and fishing. When I go to the coasts, how I glory in the conservation of life by fishing! I fish a little. One of my pawky friends once gave me a book called "Fishin' Jimmy." It had one sentence with which I comfort myself when I feel disposed to fish when I should be otherwise diligently employed. It was this, "Young man, the good Lord, when He needed fellows to help Him for the biggest job ever taken up, picked out chaps who caught fish." Think of Nova Scotia, the fishing smacks, the men who are not afraid, those who go down to the deep in ships, they see the wonders of the Lord while they do their duty for their families. There is conservation of the quality of life by the un-boasting and the uncomplaining, heroic commonplaces of daily toil. With quiet tenacity, against conditions of discomfort which cannot be escaped, and carelessness of personal ease such men teach us how to live. Then we have waterways, and water powers, not merely to illuminate houses and run cars, but to enlarge leisure by having our heaviest tasks done by man's further alliance with the electric current. Then we have minerals and lands. Each of these merits more than a discourse for itself. I feel the incompleteness, the insufficiency, of my statements of our resources and our efforts towards conservation. However, just a word about lands, good land and fertile land.