CANADIAN PEEPS
Canada is the land of possibilities.
On September 1st, 1900, I landed at Quebec, with introductions from the
late Governor-General of Canada (the Earl of Aberdeen), to be warmly
welcomed by the great historian of that country, Sir James Le Moine. He
had written endless volumes on the Dominion, among the best known being
_The Legends of the St. Lawrence_ and _Picturesque Quebec_.
As to the writings of this Canadian “worthy,” to quote the word fitly
describing him, the following extract from an article dealing with them
will best explain to some who may not know what a work of filial love
was his in chronicling the history of his native province.
“Nearly half a century ago James Macpherson Le Moine, advocate, and
inspector of inland revenue for the district of Quebec, published a
modest little volume of historical and legendary lore relating to the
city and environs of Quebec, under the title of _Maple Leaves_. Little
had been accomplished, prior to that time, in the way of collecting
the scattered wealth of Lower Canadian legends and folklore, and
English-speaking Canadians knew scarcely anything of the extremely
valuable collections of manuscript sources of early Canadian history,
scattered through the vaults of various public buildings in Quebec. To
Le Moine, whose maternal grandfather was a Macpherson, though on his
father’s side the young author was a French-Canadian, belongs much of
the credit, through his English books, in interesting English-speaking
Canadians in the history, the traditions, and the archæology of
French Canada. It was at his initiative and under his presidency that
the Quebec Literary and Historical Society, founded by the Earl of
Dalhousie in 1824, undertook the publication of some of the most
important existing manuscripts concerning the early history of the
country.”
The morning after my arrival in Montreal, a week later, various people
presented themselves before me—they had seen long notices in the two
papers that morning, and came on errands of friendship, or through
introductions. One was announced as “Dr. Drummond.”
I looked up; the name conveyed nothing to me; and as I was not ill, I
wondered at the visit.
“If I can be of any service to you,” he said, “you have but to
command me. I knew your father, his profession is my profession, your
profession is mine too.”
“You write? Are you any connection of _the_ Dr. Drummond who wrote the
_Habitant_?” I asked.
“I am he.”
“Oh, then, you can indeed do something for me.”
“And that is?”
“Take me to see the Habitants in their own homes.”
Accordingly I spent several days among the farms and cottages of the
old French-Canadians with this large-hearted man. I shall never forget
his recitation of his own poems. They brought tears to my eyes and
lumps to my throat, they were so simple and so real. And these poor
folk loved him. It was a treat to see a man so respected and adored by
the people whom he had been at such pains to make understood. Drummond
was the Kipling—the Bret Harte of Canada. He was not much of a French
scholar. His accent was horrible, but he comprehended. He had that
human understanding and perception that count for more than mere words.
He would sit and smoke in the corner with an old man, and draw him out
to tell me stories while the wife made cakes for our tea.
Complimenting me on my French, he said:
“I can’t speak like you; often I can’t even say or ask what I want.”
“Perhaps if you knew more, you would not be able to make your poems so
quaint,” I replied.
“I believe you are right. I jot down the English or French words just
as I use them, as the Habitants use them, and perhaps if I knew more I
should not do that.”
He was so human, so lovable, and at that time so poor. Half a dozen
years afterwards Fortune smiled. His books were selling well; his
cobalt mines had begun to pay. Then he heard disease (smallpox I think
it was) had broken out at the far-away mines.
“I must go,” he said. “I cannot take the money these men are bringing
me, without going to their help.”
He went; but almost before he had had time to make his medical
knowledge of value to them, he was himself stricken and died.
Poor Drummond, a lovable character, and a genial comrade. The following
verses are a good specimen of his style. They are taken from “The
Habitant’s Jubilee Ode,” written at the time of the celebration of the
sixtieth year of Queen Victoria’s rule. Why, the Habitant is asking
himself, are the “children of Queen Victoriaw comin’ from far away? For
tole Madame w’at dey t’ink of her, an’ wishin’ her bonne santé.” The
answer is good French-Canadian and good sense:
If de moder come dead w’en you’re small garçon, leavin’ you dere
alone,
Wit’ nobody watchin’ for fear you fall, and hurt youse’f on de
stone,
An’ ’noder good woman she tak’ your han’ de sam’ your own moder do,
Is it right you don’t call her moder, is it right you don’t love
her too?
Bâ non, an’ dat was de way we feel, w’en de old Regime’s no more,
An’ de new wan come, but don’t change moche, w’y it’s jus’ lak’ it
be before,
Spikin’ Français lak’ we alway do, an’ de English dey mak’ no fuss,
An’ our law de sam’, wall, I don’t know me, ’twas better mebbe for
us.
So de sam’ as two broder we settle down, leevin’ dere han’ in han’,
Knowin’ each oder, we lak’ each oder, de French an’ de Englishman,
For it’s curi’s t’ing on dis worl’, I’m sure you see it agen an’ agen,
Dat offen de mos’ worse ennemi, he’s comin’ de bes’, bes’ frien’.
Drummond spent part of his boyhood among the woods and rivers of
Eastern Canada. His own record of these early days was graphic. He
said: “I lived in a typical mixed-up village—Bord à Plouffe—composed
of French and English-speaking raftsmen, or ‘voyageurs,’ as we call
them—the class of men who went with Wolseley to the Red River, and
later accompanied the same general up the Nile—men with rings in their
ears, dare-devils, Indians, half-breeds, French-Canadians, Scotch
and Irish-Canadians—a motley crew, but great ‘river men’ who ran the
rapids, sang their quaint old songs—‘En Roulant,’ ‘Par Derrière chez
ma Tante,’ and ‘Dans le prison de Nantes,’ songs forgotten in France,
but preserved in French Canada. Running the rapids with these men, I
learned to love them and their rough ways.”
At the poet’s funeral a poor countrywoman of Drummond—he was an
Irishman by birth—was heard to say:
“Shure, he was the doctor that come into yer sickroom like an
archangel.”
The amount of French still spoken in Canada is surprising to a
stranger. One hardly expects to find French policemen on English soil,
or the law courts conducted in the French tongue.
Some of the old French title-deeds in Canada are very amusing. A friend
wanted to buy a small piece of property a few years ago, adjoining some
he already possessed on the shores of the St. Lawrence. Apart from
acquiring the land itself, there were “certain obligations which formed
a charge upon the property,” and these were so wonderful they are worth
repeating.
“EXTRACT FROM DEED OF CESSION BETWEEN CERTAIN PARTIES.
“To pay, furnish, and deliver to the said transferor during his
life an annual rent and donation for life as follows: Six quintals
of good fine flour at All Saints, one fat pig of three hundred
pounds in December, thirty pounds of good butcher’s meat in
December, twenty pounds of sugar, one pound of coffee, two pounds
of good green teas on demand, twelve pounds of candles, fifteen
pounds of soap, four pounds of rice on demand, twenty bushels of
good fine potatoes on St. Michael’s Day, one bushel of cooking peas
in December, one measure of good rum at Christmas, four dozen eggs
as required.
“These articles every year, and the sum of thirty dollars in money
(about £7), payable half at St. Michael’s Day and half in April,
during his life, commencing on next St. Michael’s Day.
“And, further, they oblige themselves to furnish annually to the
transferor during his life a milch cow, to be fed, pastured, and
wintered by the transferees with their own, and renewed in case of
death, infirmity, or age; and the profits or increase shall belong
to the transferor; this cow to be delivered on the 15th of May and
retaken in the autumn when she ceases to give milk.
“The transferees also oblige themselves to furnish to the
transferor, their father, during his life and at his need a horse,
harnessed to a vehicle suitable to the season (carriage or sledge)
brought to his door at his demand, and unharnessed at his return,
also to go and bring the priest and the doctor in case of illness
and at the need of the transferor, and to take them back and to pay
the doctor.
“In case of the death of the transferor, the transferees will cause
him to be buried in the churchyard of the parish of St. L—— with
a service of the value of twenty dollars, the body being present
or on the nearest possible day, and the second of the value of ten
dollars at the end of the year, and they will have said for him as
soon as possible the number of twenty-five Low Masses or Requiems
for the repose of his soul.
“The transferees will be obliged to take care of their sisters,
Josephte and Esther, as long as they are unmarried; to lodge,
light, and feed them at their own tables, and have to keep them
in clothing, footgear, and headgear at need; and as they have
always been at the house of their father, and in case they be not
satisfied with the board of the transferees and decide to live
apart, the transferees shall pay them annually at the rate of ten
bushels of good corn, one hundred pounds of good pork, twenty
bushels of potatoes, twenty pounds of butcher’s beef, six pounds of
rice, three pounds of tea, three pounds of coffee, twelve pounds of
sugar, twelve pounds of soap—these articles every year.
“The transferees will also take them to and from church on Sundays
and on feast days.”
This extraordinary deed was only drawn in 1866. The old man is now
dead, also one of the girls; the other is in a convent out West, and
my friend managed to compromise with her for a small sum instead of
letting her sit at his table, keep her in clothing, or provide her with
potatoes.
In Ottawa I was the guest of the man who was probably doing more than
anyone else for the agricultural development of Canada. The great
strides with which in this Department she has surprised the world
were primarily due to the enterprise of a Scotchman, Professor James
Robertson, who held the post of Agricultural Commissioner from 1895
to 1904. He has written volumes on the subject, as well as being
successful practically. It will be remembered that this able man had
come to speak for me in London at the International Council of Women
earlier in the year. After writing London, I ought to have put _Eng._,
as no Canadian thinks of _our_ London unless it has “Eng.” after it.
As a boy he left his father’s farm in the Lowlands of Scotland, where
he had been working, and, full of enthusiasm and enterprise, sailed
for Canada. He had much practical knowledge at his back, and many
theoretical ideas in his mind, that he found difficult to work out in
the narrow limits of a Scotch homestead. That lad’s name is probably
one of the best known and most respected in Canada to-day, and yet it
is not so many years since he landed, for he is still in the prime of
life.
Professor James Robertson is a wonderful man; he retains his Scotch
accent, has made practical use of his shrewd, hard-headed, far-sighted
upbringing, and has about the most extraordinary capacity for work of
almost any man I know. His energy is unbounded, and his physical powers
of endurance marvellous.
Since I was in Canada in 1900, the increase of population and the
output of the land is simply amazing. Roughly speaking, the population
was then six millions; to-day it numbers over seven millions.
Growth! Growth! Growth! Wherever one turns there is growth in Canada;
her cultured lands; her enormous crops; her untold mineral and
forest wealth; her wonderful fisheries and water power; her gigantic
railroads; her large cities—one knows not where they end. The Dominion
Government with its experimental farms, and agricultural colleges, with
its free grants of land which in 1910 equalled half of Scotland in
area, affords, to Canadian and immigrant alike, facilities unparalleled
in history. With such bountiful natural resources, such able statesmen
at the helm, and such advantages from modern discoveries; when the
rapidity of locomotion binds the ends of the earth together, and
nations from divers continents hold daily converse with each other,
rendering the world’s contemporary history an open book, the young
country of the twentieth century has advantages never even dreamt of by
the pioneers of past ages.
Surely Canada should be the nursery of Empire builders, and her sons
the makers of history, and she will continue so, unless too much
laudation turns her head, and she ceases to strive.
Professor Robertson took me to see Dr. Parkin, of Upper Canada College,
Toronto, another of the best-known writers of the Dominion; his most
widely read work being _The Life of Edward Thring_, the great reformer
of boys’ schools, whose devoted admirer the Doctor is. Upper Canada
College is like Eton, Harrow, or Charterhouse. It is a magnificent
building, and everything seemed charmingly arranged.
Dr. Parkin is a delightful personality, a great scholar, a kindly
teacher, and a staunch friend; he now lives in England, having been
appointed—about two years after my visit—the organising representative
of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust.
At his house I met Colonel George Denison, who had just written
_Soldiering in Canada_, a book as well known on this side of the
Atlantic as on the other. It was his grandfather, a Yorkshireman,
who went out to Canada and founded “York,” now known as Toronto. The
Colonel is an interesting companion and a good _raconteur_.
Sir William Macdonald may perhaps be said to have been the chief mover
of education in Canada for many years. He was justly proud of McGill
University in Montreal, and must have been gratified at the success
of the manual training schools in different parts of Canada, which
owed so much to his generosity. To him also Canada is indebted for
the Macdonald Agricultural College at Ste. Anne de Bellevue, which he
established and endowed at enormous cost.
No word on Canada, however brief, would be right without reference to
Goldwin Smith.
Born in 1823, he died at a ripe age a few weeks after King Edward, to
whom he had once been tutor in English history, and of whom the teacher
said admiringly:
“He never once let me see he was bored, therefore I gathered he would
successfully fulfil the arduous duties of royalty.”
After leaving England for the United States in 1864, Goldwin Smith saw
something of the great Civil War. Later he came to Toronto, and there
lived out his days in a charming old house called “The Grange.”
He told me emphatically in 1900 that “within ten years Canada would be
annexed by the United States.” Goldwin Smith died just a decade later,
and Canada seemed then more Imperial, more British, more loyal than
ever. But a few months later came this wheat business in Washington,
and up sprang the old cry of annexation.
There are a number of interesting writers in Canada. Most of them were
born in England, and went there as children; there are others who were
born there and have migrated back to England. Of the latter class Dr.
Beattie Crozier is, at the present time, most before the public. He
describes his early days in Canada vividly in _My Inner Life_, but
_Intellectual Development_ is one of the most readable philosophies
ever written. He has a knack of putting the most abstruse subjects in
the clearest possible light. Dr. Crozier lives in London, where he
practises medicine. A few years ago a terrible affliction threatened
to befall him. He went nearly blind. His eyes are now better, but to
save them as much as possible, his wife writes everything for him
to his dictation, looks up his data, translates French and German
philosophies; in fact, is his helpmate in the true sense of the word.
They are a devoted couple. One of those pretty ideal homes one loves
to see, and which are often found in the busiest lives. The doctor
resembles a smart officer in appearance; no one would ever take him for
one of the profoundest thinkers of the day.
Sir Gilbert Parker is a Canadian; but he, like Dr. Crozier, now lives
in London.
Lord Strathcona is another of the wonderful men of Canada. He is indeed
their “Grand Old Man.”
One of the things that most struck Ibsen about the English-speaking
race was their capacity for strenuous work at an advanced age.
“Britishers often take up important positions in that span of life in
which men of other nations are laying down their arms,” he once said to
me.
It was at a dinner given to Sir Henniker Heaton, of Post Office fame,
on his retirement from Parliament (1910) by the Men of Kent, that I
was particularly struck by Lord Strathcona. I was sitting next the old
gentleman with Sir George Reid, the High Commissioner for Australia, on
my other side. It was really most remarkable to find a man of ninety
years of age so clear and concise, and practical and sensible in every
way. With the rather weak voice of an old man, he spoke well and to
the point, referring to the blessings of penny postage, which Henniker
Heaton had made possible to all the English-speaking world, comparing
it with the days when he first went to Canada seventy years before, and
each letter cost four shillings, and eight shillings for a double page,
and no envelopes were used, as they increased the weight.
A fine well-chiselled head, Lord Strathcona has become a greater old
man than he was a young man. His life has been remarkable for its
steady Scotch perseverance and extraordinary luck, which, through
the Hudson Bay Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway, gave him
affluence. It was not brilliancy or genius that brought him to the
position he attained, but just that hard-headed Scotch capacity for
plodding. Luck leads to nothing without pluck.
He talked quite cheerily of his next visit to Canada, the ocean holding
no terrors for him, and he explained that his house in Montreal was
always kept open and ready to step into. The same with his place at
Glencoe, where he had only been able to spend four days in the year,
much to his regret.
It was midnight before that old gentleman went home, to begin an early
and hard day the next morning, for he is indefatigable at his work for
Canada as High Commissioner, and is to be found every day and all day
in his office in Victoria Street at the age of ninety-two.
“Yes,” he said, “Canada has a great future, though we must send out
the right people. Ne’er-do-weels will do no good anywhere, and hard
workers will always get on. Hard workers will get a hundred per cent
greater reward in Canada than in Great Britain, while ne’er-do-weels
will do worse, as there are no philanthropic institutions to bolster
them up, or pamper them, as there are here.”
He is modest—almost shy and retiring. Very courtly in manner, in spite
of his humble origin; but, then, he is one of Nature’s gentlemen.
Short in stature—the red hair almost white, but still peeping through
the beard—his stoop and tottering, dragging gait denote age—also his
slowness of speech; but his mind is all there—alive and active and full
of thought and force.
Men may rise to great power in a new country if they only have the grit.
The life of another such in Canada, merely as known to the public by
newspaper notices, reads like a romance.
“The Hon. William S. Fielding, the Budget-maker of Canada,
has never forgotten that he was an office-boy in the _Halifax
Chronicle_. His loyalty to the people from whom he sprang is a
secret of his popularity. The finest proof of that popularity was
when last year (1910) anonymous friends contributed a purse of
£24,000 to become a trust fund for the Minister and his family. For
though he handles millions he is a poor man and latterly his health
has been indifferent, and Canadian Ministers on retirement receive
no pension.
“Mr. Fielding was born in 1848, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the age
of sixteen he entered the office of the _Halifax Chronicle_. Four
years later he was a leader writer; at twenty-seven he was editor.
He entered Nova Scotian politics in 1882. In 1884 he was Premier.
In 1896 he was called by Sir Wilfrid Laurier to be Dominion
Minister of Finance.”
His last night before leaving England in February, 1909, Mr. Fielding
wished to see the popular play _An Englishman’s Home_. There was
not a seat in the house; but by a little judicious management, with
some difficulty I secured two tickets at the last moment. I dined
with him at the “Savoy,” and then we went on to the theatre. Being
short-sighted, I was holding up my glasses. The theatre was darkened
during the act. Suddenly I found something warm and soft deposited in
my lap. Dropping the glasses, I felt, and, lo! to my amazement, it was
a head. A human, curly head. Naturally surprised, I wondered where it
came from, and whether the man—for man it was—had had a fit, or was
dying. I saw Mr. Fielding pushing him up from the other side. Then the
head, murmuring apologies _sotto voce_, rose, but it was too dark, and
the house too silent to find out what had really happened.
When the curtain came down and the lights went up, behold the poor
owner of the head, who was sitting on the floor, covered with confusion.
“I am very sorry, madam,” he said. “It was most unfortunate, but my
seat gave way.” In fact, the stall on which this good gentleman had
been sitting had collapsed, sending his head into my lap, and his legs
into the lap of the lady on the other side. A pretty predicament.
The rush on the play was so great that extra stalls had been added,
until we had barely room for our knees. These had evidently not been
properly coupled together: when at some exciting moment in the play,
the gentleman had presumably laughed or coughed, and his downfall
ensued.
There lay the blue plush seat on the ground, and under it, his top-hat
squashed flat.
What a furore that play made, and yet there was little or nothing in
it. But success came from the fact that it struck the right note, and
struck it at the moment when the nation was ready for the awakening.
How it was boomed! Men rushed to join the Territorials, and even I was
one of the first women to send in my name for the First Aid Nursing
Yeomanry Corps. But, as they asked me to go to a riding-school to
_learn_ to ride—I, who had ridden all my life—I really could not go
further in the matter.
Mr. Fielding is a most interesting personality and character.
“We are so apt to forget the good things of life,” he said that
evening. “I wanted a motor-bus just now. There was none at the corner,
and I had to walk. I felt annoyed. Then I pulled myself up, and
thought—How many dozen times have I caught this bus just at the moment
I wanted it! Did I ever feel or express gratitude? Yet when I miss it
I growl—now is this fair?—and I shook myself and felt ashamed.”
“Very noble of you,” I said.
“Not at all. But I am always saying to myself I have no right to
grumble, no right to be annoyed while I omit to be thankful and
grateful for the manifold blessings around me.”
Speaking of nervousness being the cause of my refusal to go to Leeds
that week to address five thousand people, Mr. Fielding laughed.
“How I sympathise with you! For twenty years I have been before the
public, and yet have never made a speech without a little twinge.”
Of his chief, Laurier, he remarked: “It is an astonishing thing how
much more English than French he has become. Forty years of constant
communication with, and work amongst, British-speaking people has
moulded him along British lines, and although the French manner and
charm remain, British determination, doggedness, clear sight, and broad
views are dominant. In fact, I far more often find him reading an
English book than a French one, when I enter his library.”
Then briefly touching on his own doings:
“I’ve been in England two months, and sail to-morrow morning—came for
two things, and accomplished both. First, the trade treaty with France
begun eighteen months ago. Secondly, to raise six million sterling in
London. I’ve also done that this week; and am now going home with the
money, chiefly for our trans-continental railway.
“Treaty? Well, as a rule, only kings can make treaties, but in Canada
we are given a good deal of power. This is the second time I have been
made a Plenipotentiary in a way—a one-man affair when ready, signed by
Sir Francis Bertie.”
“A treaty with France, and you don’t know French.”
“Ah, but I know my subject, Mam. Don’t scorn me for my want of French.
In the province where I was born it was not wanted, and when it was
needed I was too busy to learn; telephone bells or messengers were
going all the time, so I had to give it up, but I’ll learn it yet, I
hope.”
“Do you require French in the Canadian House?”
“No, we are mostly English members, and although some of the Frenchmen
speak in French, and all things by law are read in both languages, the
Frenchmen generally stop the reading and consent to take it as read.
Laurier for twenty years has always spoken in English; perfect English.
Lemieux speaks in English. In fact, to get the ear of the House one
must speak in English.”
“Are the French-Canadians as loyal as the English-Canadians?”
“Yes, but in a different way. We are loyal because it is born in the
blood; they are loyal from gratitude, and because they know England
gave them freedom. They are more loyal than we should have been to
France if that fight on the Plains of Abraham had been won by the
French.”
Sir Wilfrid Laurier I do not know as I know Mr. Fielding or Mr.
Lemieux, but Sir Wilfrid Laurier is a great personality. He struck me
as a wonderful type when I first went up in a lift with him at the
Windsor Hotel in Montreal, although I did not then know who he was.
There is a rugged strength about his face that impresses. He is a
scholar and a gentleman, speaks perfect English, and has great charm of
manner.
He said in the Dominion House of Commons:
“I would say to Great Britain, ‘If you want us to help you, call us to
your councils.’”
Another time, when talking of Lloyd George’s Budget, W. S. Fielding
remarked:
“I have made thirteen Budgets, the only man who ever did such a thing,
I should imagine; and I know from experience people always grumble.
They grumble at everything and anything. To-day at Ascot (1910) a man
was abusing Lloyd George’s Budget. ‘There are a few thousand people
in the Royal Enclosure,’ I said, ‘and I should think every one of
them disapproves. They are rich, and it hits them. There are tens of
thousands of people over there on the race-course. They are poor, and
they are glad. Was not Lloyd George right, therefore, to consider the
millions?’”
Mr. Fielding possesses an enormous power for work. On one occasion,
after a _tête-à-tête_ dinner with me, he went home about eleven, and
finding letters and documents awaiting him, sat up till five a.m. and
finished them, also deciphering long Government telegrams in code.
Next morning he began work at ten again.
Quiet, gentle, reserved, Fielding strikes one as a delightful,
grey-headed old gentleman of honest, homely kindliness. He never
says an unkind thing of anyone. Toleration is his dominant note, and
yet with all that calm exterior he has proved himself the greatest
treaty-maker of his age, as well as the most successful handler of
budgets and manœuvrer of great Government loans; but he failed over
Reciprocity.
This chapter would be incomplete without mention of the late Canadian
“Ministre des postes,” M. Lemieux, of whom Fielding said: “He is one of
the cleverest men in Canada.”
“Your King, my King, our King, is the most perfect gentleman I have
ever met. _Il est tout à fait gentilhomme_,” so remarked the Hon.
Rodolphe Lemieux, K.C., when Postmaster-General of Canada, to me in
my little library, immediately on his return from Windsor, when King
Edward was still our Sovereign.
Then one of the most prominent politicians in Canada, for he was not
only P.M.G., but Minister of Labour for the Dominion, M. Lemieux
is another man still in his prime. He was born about 1860. A
French-Canadian by birth, he speaks English almost faultlessly, an
accomplishment learnt by habit and ear during the last few years, and
not from a lesson-book.
When I first met M. Lemieux in Canada about 1900, he hardly knew any
English. Six or seven years later he could get up and address a large
audience in our tongue with ease and fluency. Yet this art has been
acquired during the most strenuous years of his life.
“I’m in London,” he replied to a question one day, “to try to settle
the All Red Route cable between Britain and her Colony.”
Lemieux is an extraordinarily strong character. Of medium height,
inclined to be stout, sallow of skin, clean-shaven, with slightly grey
hair, standing up straight like a Frenchman’s; great charm of manner,
not fulsome, but gracious, and at times commanding. He gets excited and
marches about the room, waving his hands—nice hands, broad, but small
for his sex—and pursing his mouth. A man of strength, and a gentle,
kindly being. Very ambitious, and yet, as he says truly, “What is
success, when once attained?”
One night I was to dine with him. Nothing would do but he must fetch
me in a taxi. We went to the “Ritz,” where he had ordered an excellent
little dinner, and where a lovely bunch of roses and lilies was beside
my plate. When he went at five to order the dinner, he had ordered the
flowers and a pin!
The day after his arrival at his London hotel his little jewel-case was
stolen. He told me almost in tears. “Recollections, souvenirs, gone,
my wife’s first present to me—a scarf-pin. Her great-grandmother’s
earring. My ring as Professor of Law, gone. I feel I have lost real
friends—friends of years and friends I valued. Their worth was little,
their sentiment untold.”
A treaty between Canada and Japan allowed free emigration. At once
ten thousand Japanese descended on Canada. Yellow peril was imminent.
Lemieux was sent to Japan. After delicate manipulation he got the
treaty altered, so that only four hundred Japanese should land in a
year, a regulation that brought him much renown.
Then the Lemieux Act, which means amicable discussion between parties
before arbitration, was brought in. One representative from each side
and one representative of the Minister of Labour meet; everything is
sifted to the bottom and published, with the result that few cases
ever go to arbitration, but are generally settled by this intermediate
body. It works so successfully that Roosevelt sent people from the
United States to study its working, and the sooner Great Britain does
something to settle her strikes along the same lines the better.
Yes, Canada impressed me, charmed me, and as I am proud to reckon,
after ten years, two of the late Cabinet Ministers among my best
friends, not forgetting one of the leading spirits in agriculture,
I have followed the remarkable development of Canada with interest.
She will expand even more in the next ten years. Canada is a land to
reckon with. She can produce wealth, and as long as the Socialist does
not enter to destroy that wealth, and distribute it, Canada will forge
ahead. No one was more surprised than the Liberal Cabinet at their
overthrow in 1911; they were more surprised even than Borden at his
great victory.