"But Heaven hath a hand in these events."
--Richard II, Act V.
The state of society in the nineteenth century would have but few
attractions for us of the twentieth, were we able to return along
the vista of a hundred years. Our manners and customs are so vastly
different from those of our great-grandfathers that we should feel
out of place indeed had we to go back, even for a short time, to
their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex
method of governing themselves, and their intricate political
machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated
to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being
overgoverned--not a special aptitude or genius for governing--must
have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders
made in directing public affairs, and from the manner in which
beneficial measures were opposed by the party out of office, it
appears quite certain that the instincts of true statesmanship did
not animate all classes then as now. Nevertheless our forefathers
went into the work of governing themselves and each other with
a great deal of vim. They had no well drawn out formulae to
work upon as we have, but they went at things in a sort of
rule-of-thumb, rough-and-ready style, and when one party had
dragged the country into the mire, the other dragged it out again.
It was customary for the party that was out of office to say that
the party that was in was corrupt and venal--that every man of it
was a liar, was a thief, was taking bribes, would soon be kicked
out, etc. Then the party that was in had to say that the party that
was out should look to its own sins and remember that everyone of
its men when they were in proved himself incapable, insensible to
every feeling of shame, with no susceptibilities except in his
pocket, corrupt in every fibre, being justly rewarded when hurled
from office by an indignant people, etc., etc. The wonder is that
the country ever got governed at all, but it seems that all public
men who had any fixed and sensible ideas and wished to see them
carried out, had to make themselves callous, pachydermatous,
hardened against this offensive mud-slinging. Of course politics
did not elevate the man, nor the man politics, while things went on
thus. A general demoralization and lowering of the tone of public
opinion naturally resulted, which did not improve till the stirring
events of the summer of 1887 brought men to their senses again.
The number of members sent to Parliament was something so enormous,
that it seems as if the people must have had a perfect mania for
being represented. Nowadays we get along splendidly with only
fifteen members (one for each Province) and a speaker. Formerly
several hundred was not thought too many, and before the
constitution was revised in 1935, there were actually over seven
hundred representatives assembled at Ottawa every year. Perhaps
this was all right under the circumstances, as there did not then
exist any organization for training men for Parliamentary duties,
or selecting them for candidature such as now exists; so there was
safety in numbers, though the floods of talk must at times have
been overwhelming. Besides the Central Parliament at Ottawa, there
was a Local Parliament to every Province, and in some Provinces two
Houses. It seems a mystery to us, now, how any measure could be got
through in less than twelve months, but our forefathers apparently
took pleasure in interminable harangues and oceans of verbosity,
and prominent men contrived to make themselves heard above the
universal clatter of tongues, so that good measures got pushed
through somehow to the satisfaction of a much-enduring public.
Nowadays our fifteen members put by as much work in two days as
would have kept an old Parliament talking for two years. Provincial
Parliaments, with their crowds of M.P.P's, were abolished in 1935,
and it was then also that the number of members at Ottawa was
reduced from the absurd total of 750 to 15, and the round million
or so which they cost the country saved. Members are not now paid;
the honor of the position is sufficient emolument. When these and
other changes were made, the expenses of government were enormously
reduced, so much so, that after ten years, that is in 1945, taxes
were abolished altogether, and from that time forward not a cent of
taxation has been put upon the people. The revenue is now obtained
in this way. Up to 1935 the revenue of the country stood at
something over $150,000,000. When the constitution was changed
the expenses of government were lessened to $50,000,000. It was
then agreed that for ten years longer the revenue should remain
at $150,000,000 (people were prosperous and willing enough to have
contributed double), so that every year of the ten $100,000,000
might be invested. Thus at the end of ten years the Government
possessed a capital of $1,000,000,000, and the interest of this
constitutes our present revenue. If any great public works are
being carried out, and more money is required, the municipalities
are appealed to, and public meetings are held. All the great
cities then vie with each other in presenting the Government with
large sums. How the poor over-burdened tax-payer of 1883 would
have rejoiced in all this!
Another great blessing to us is that war has ceased all the world
over. It became, at last, too destructive to be indulged in at all.
During the last great European war in 1932, while three emperors,
two kings and several princes were parleying together, a monster
oxyhydrogen shell exploded near them and created fearful havoc.
All the royal personages were blown to atoms, as were also many of
their attendants. Their armies hardly had a chance of getting near
each other, so fearful was the execution of the shells. Since then
the world has been free from war, and, but for gathering clouds in
Asia, would seem likely to remain so. Anyhow, we in Canada, have
not the shadow of a standing army, nor a single keel to represent
a navy. We are too well occupied to wish to be aggressive, and no
power except the United States could ever attack us, and even if
Americans coveted our possessions they are not likely to resort to
such an old-fashioned expedient as warfare to gain them. They could
only annex us by so improving their constitution, as to make it
plainly very much superior to ours. If they ever do this (and as
yet there are no signs of it) there might be some chance of a
union. At present the chances are all the other way. The only
sort of union that is quite likely to come about is the joining
by the Americans of the United Empire, or Confederation of all
English-speaking nations, with which we have been connected for
some years. The seat of the Imperial Government has hitherto been
London, but British influence has made such strides in the East
that there is every probability of another city being chosen
for the capital, and of the seat of Government being made more
central. Should one of the now restored ancient cities of
the East become the metropolis of this glorious Imperial
Confederation, the United States would certainly come into
the Confederation, as great numbers of Americans have already
migrated to the Orient.
A word on the changes which have come over the East will not be
inappropriate, lest we should be tempted to boast too much of the
progress of Canada. Ever since the conquest of Egypt by the British,
as long ago as 1882, Anglo-Saxon institutions have been gaining
ground from the Nile to the Euphrates, and from the Euphrates to
the Indus. Soon after the great stroke of diplomacy in 1887, by
which Great Britain practically became ruler of all this vast
territory, the railroad was introduced, and before many years had
passed the railroad system of Europe was linked with that of India.
The pent-up riches of the fertile Euphrates valley thenceforth
began to find channels of commerce, and to be distributed through
less fertile regions. The ancient historic cities of these lands,
Damascus especially, began at once to increase. Jerusalem, as soon
as the Turk departed and the Anglo-Saxon entered, was purified,
cleansed, and finally rebuilt. Great numbers of Jews from all parts
of the world then returned and gave the city the benefit of their
wealth, but all the commerce of the East keeps in the hands of
Britons and Americans. English is, therefore, the chief language
spoken from Beyrout to Bombay.
There is, however, a great cloud hanging over the East which causes
dismay to thinking men, and threatens to mar the general prosperity
of all the lands. Great as has been the increase of the Anglo-Saxon
race, the numbers of the Sclavonic race have kept pace. The Sclavs,
unfortunately, retain much of their old brutish disposition and
ferocity in the midst of all the civilizing influences of modern
times, so that statesmen foresee an inevitable collision in the
not distant future between the Sclav and the Anglo-Saxon. It is
disheartening in these days of splendid progress, when we had
hoped that war was for ever banished from the world, to find that
humanity has yet to endure the old horrors once more. How fearful
these horrors will be, and how great the destruction of life, it is
hardly possible to conceive, so terrible are the forces at man's
command nowadays, if he uses them simply for destructive purposes.
The Sclav has spread from South-Eastern Europe and multiplied
greatly in Asia, till his boundaries are coterminous with British
territory, and it is his inveterate aggressive disposition which
causes all the gloomy forebodings. Before we return to our own
happy Canada, let us glance at Africa, the "dark continent" of the
last century. Civilization has long penetrated to the upper waters
of the Nile, and to the great fresh water lakes which rival our
Huron and Superior. The beautiful country in which the mighty
Congo and the Nile take their rise, is all open to the world's
commerce, and highways now exist stretching from Alexandria
through these magnificent regions to the Transvaal and the Cape.
Madagascar, fair, fertile and wealthy, has developed, under
Anglo-Saxon influence, her wonderful latent resources for all
men's good. In addition to mineral treasures she had wealth to
bestow in the shape of healing plants, whose benefits were greater
to suffering humanity than tons of gold and silver. The botanical
gardens at New Westminster, and the conservatories at Churchill,
are greatly indebted to the flora of Madagascar. But let us now
return to Canada and continue our contrasts.
Much of the success of our modern social movements has been due to
the exertions of the noble Society of Benefactors. The members of
this Society, as we well know, are now mostly men of independent
means. Their chief idea is to bring together and combine social
forces for the public good, which were formerly wasted. The
Society has already existed for two generations, so that our
rising generation is reaping the full benefit of its exertions.
It is chiefly to these exertions that the improved tone of public
opinion is due, and the general, moral and intellectual elevation
of the present day are largely owing to the same cause. In the old
benighted times before 1900 much wealth and ability were, for want
of organization, allowed to run almost to waste as far as the
general good of society was concerned. Men of means led aimless
lives, squandering their riches in foreign cities, or staying at
home to accumulate more and more, forgetting, or never considering
what a powerful means of ameliorating the condition of their fellow
creatures was within their reach. It was not only the lower classes
that needed improvement, but the whole mass of society in all its
aims, ideas and pursuits. Improvement on this large scale would
never have been accomplished by the elaborate theorising and much
preaching of the nineteenth century. Action, bold and fearless
action, was wanted, and until men were found with minds entirely
free from morbid theories, but full of the courage of their new
convictions, the world had to wait in tantalizing suspense for
improvement, always hoping that each new scientific discovery would
enlighten mankind in the desired direction, but always doomed to
be disappointed and to see humanity growing either more savage or
physically weaker, simultaneously with each phase of enlightenment.
These things are perhaps truer of society in Europe, and in some
of the States, than in our young Dominion, where everything was
necessarily in a somewhat inchoate condition. Yet had it not been
for the great men who providentially appeared in our midst--our
history, our manners and customs, our whole career as a nation
would simply have been a repetition of European civilization with
all its defects, failures and vices. Statistics of the period
show that neither in the States nor in Canada, amidst all the
surrounding newness, had there arisen any new social condition
peculiar to this continent which remedied to any extent the evils
rampant in old countries. Lunatic asylums, in ghastly sarcasm on
a self-styled intellectual age, reared their colossal facades and
enclosed their thousands of human wrecks. Huge prisons had to be
built in every large town. Hospitals were frequently crowded with
victims of foul diseases. Great cities abounded with filthy lanes,
alleys, and dwellings like dens of wild beasts. Epidemic diseases
occurred from brutal disregard of sanitary measures. Murder and
suicide were rife. Horrible accidents from preventible causes
occurred daily. Great fires were continually destroying valuable
city property, and ruinous monetary panics happened every few
years. And all this in an age that prided itself on being advanced!
An age that produced the telephone, but crowded up lunatic asylums!
That cabled messages all round the world, but filled its prisons to
the doors! That named the metals in the sun, but could not cleanse
its cities! An age, in fact, that was but one remove from the
unmitigated barbarism of medieval times! How marvellous is the
change wrought by a hundred years! We have not been shocked by
a murder in Canada for more than fifty years, nor has a suicide
been heard of for a very long period. Epidemic diseases belong
to the past. The sewage question, that source of vexation to the
municipalities of old, has been scientifically settled--to the
saving of enormous sums of money, and to the permanent benefit
of the community's health. Malignant scourges, like consumption,
epilepsy, cancer, etc., are never heard of except in less favored
countries. There is but one prison to a province, and that is
sometimes empty. Our cities are all fire-proof, and the night
air is never startled now by the hideous jangling of fire-bells,
arousing the citizens from sleep to view the destruction of their
city. So rational and interesting has daily life become, that mind
and body are constantly in healthy occupation; the fearful nervous
hurry of old times, that broke down so many minds and bodies,
having died out, to give way to a robust force of character which
accomplishes much more with half the fuss. Of course, advantages
such as these, did not spring upon society all at once; they have
come about by comparatively slow degrees.
The first president of the Society of Benefactors, who died some
years ago at an advanced age, was the man who started the new order
of things. When he commenced to give the world the benefit of his
views, he met with a good deal of opposition and ridicule, being
told that the world was going on all right and was improving all
the time, and that if people would only stop preaching and set to
work at doing a little more, things would get better more quickly.
He could not be convinced, however, that society had any grounds
for its satisfaction, but he took the hint about preaching and
stopped his lectures, which he had been giving all through the
country. He then set to work at organization, and as he had
inherited ample means from a millionaire father, he commenced
under good auspices. He went into his work with great eagerness,
gathering together all sorts of people, who held views similar to
his own, though usually in a vague unpractical way, and formed
his first committee of a bishop, celebrated for his enlightened
opinions, two physicians, two lawyers, several wealthy merchants,
and several working men who were good speakers and had influence
among their fellows. His capacity for organization was great,
and his success in gaining over to his side young men of means,
remarkable. From the very beginning the committee never lacked
money. Though they were actuated by purely philanthropic motives,
it was one of their first principles never to sink large sums
of money in any undertaking that would not pay its own expenses
ultimately. There was, therefore, a healthy business-like tone
about whatever they did, that distinguished their efforts from many
well-intentioned, but sickly, undertakings of the same day, which
one after another came to grief, doing nearly as much harm as good.
One of their first works was to buy up lots and dwellings in the
worst districts of Toronto, where miserable shanties and hovels
stood in fetid slums, as foul as any in London or Glasgow. The
hovels and shanties were then torn down, and respectable dwellings
erected in their stead. The unfortunate wretches, the victims of
drink, crime, or thriftlessness, who inhabited such places, were
not turned away to seek a fouler footing elsewhere, but were taken
in hand by the working-men on the committee, and were started
afresh in life with every encouragement. They were generally
permanently rescued from degradation, but if some fell back their
children were saved, and so the next generation was spared a family
of criminals. Montreal was next visited and the same thing done
there; attention was then turned to Quebec and Winnipeg. Successful
attempts were afterwards made to control the liquor traffic, not by
sudden prohibition, which always increased the evil, but by common
sense methods, necessarily somewhat slow, but sure. When the
Society had been at work ten years, there was a very perceptible
diminution in the amount of crime and smaller offences in all their
spheres of action. Police forces could be decreased, and a prison
here and there closed. This had a tendency to lessen the rates,
so the taxpayer became touched in his tenderest part--his pocket.
His heart and his conscience then immediately softened toward the
Society's work, though years of preaching and the existence of all
abominable evils close to his door had failed to move him. When
this point had been reached, the Society began to be looked upon
as one of the great remedial agents of the age, and work was much
easier. One evil after another was grappled with, and in time
subdued. Scientific researches were set on foot in hygiene,
medicine, and every subject from which the community at large
could derive benefit, till in twenty years time so much general
improvement had been effected that Canada's ways of doing things
came to be quoted in other countries as a precedent. Our cities
were the best built, best drained, cleanest and healthiest, and
our city populations the most orderly and most enlightened. The
Society's roll of members now included a great number of eminent
men, and their operations were extended over the whole Dominion,
and works of all kinds were carried on simultaneously in all parts.
Outside the Society, it had become quite fashionable for all
classes to take the most eager interest in everything concerning
the public welfare, so the Dominion continued to prosper and
advance with wonderful rapidity. Thus it happened that we came to
take the lead among nations and have been able to keep foremost
ever since, though with our 93,000,000 we are not by any means
the largest nation.
The improved hygienic conditions under which we live have had the
effect of very largely increasing the population. Our forefathers
in their wisdom spent large sums of money in attracting immigrants
to our shores, but it did not occur to them to increase the
population by preventing people from dying. Very few persons die
now, except from old age, and the tremendous and almost incredible
mortality of old times among infants is stopped, consequently the
death rate is very low, and the excess of births over deaths very
great. There are only three doctors to each large city, and they
are subsidised by government or the town councils, because there
are not enough sick people from whom they could make a living as
of yore. The good health of the public is also in some measure
due to the fact of our scientific men having been able, since a
few years past, to gain a good deal of control over the weather.
By means of captive balloons, currents of electricity between
the higher atmosphere and the earth are kept passing regularly.
By other electrical contrivances as well as these, rain can now
be nearly always made to come at night and can be prevented from
falling during the day. Hurricanes and desolating storms are
also held very much under control.
Our contrasts are now drawing to a close. Enough has been said to
make it plain to the slowest intellect among us, what is gained
by having been born in the twentieth century, instead of in the
nineteenth, and by being born a Canadian, instead of to any other
land. There can hardly be to-day such a woeful creature as a
Canadian who does not realise and is not proud of the grandeur of
his heritage. Our race, owing to the splendid hygienic and social
conditions that have been dilated upon, is one of the healthiest
and strongest on the face of the earth. We are not demoralized
or effeminated by the luxury and abundance which are ours, but
elevated rather, and strengthened by the very magnificence and
opulence of our circumstances, and by the perfect freedom, under
healthful restraint, which we enjoy through the community's
strong, vigorous, moral and intellectual tone.
As there is nothing more wonderful about the present age, or more
characteristic of the times, than our mode of travelling, these
few pages shall be concluded with a plan of a very simple journey,
a journey which can be strongly recommended to all who are wishing
for change of scene and are somewhat bewildered in choosing a
route among the innumerable places in the world which have claims
on their attention. We will imagine that a party of twenty has
been made up, and that the start is from Halifax, the direction
eastward, and the destination Constantinople. The car which is
timed to start at 7 a.m., is standing at rest on the sloping side,
while the passengers, say fifty in number, are taking their seats
in the luxurious chamber within. The first stop is at Sydney,
Cape Breton, and the car is pointed accurately in that direction.
At three minutes to 7 the engineers and conductor come on board;
the former to place the powerful oxyhydrogen charge in the great
breech-loading tube, the latter to close the doors against ingress
or egress. Precisely at 7 the signal is given. A furious and
powerful hissing is then heard, as well as a momentary scraping of
the car on its runners. In another second she is high in the air,
and already Halifax has nearly receded from the engineer's sight.
The rate of a mile in three seconds is kept up till Sydney rapidly
appears in view. In the next few seconds the engineer exerts his
skill and the car lands gracefully on the slide, still in brisk
motion. After a little scraping and crunching on the runners,
she pulls up at the station platform at the bottom of the decline,
ten minutes only after leaving Halifax. The next spring is made
to St. John's, Newfoundland, which is reached in fourteen minutes.
Here a few minutes are taken up in pointing the car accurately
for Galway. Great caution is necessary, and very delicate and
beautiful instruments are employed. When all are on board again
and ready for the supermarine voyage, the engineer loads up with
a much more powerful charge than before. He prepares at the start
for a speed of a mile in three seconds, then, when fairly out
over the sea, a stronger electric current is applied to the huge
charge, and a speed of a mile, or even more, a second is obtained.
This fearful velocity is not permitted overland, for fear of
collisions, as car routes cross each other. But no routes cross
over the sea between St. John's and Galway, nor is the Galway car
allowed to leave till the St. John's car has arrived, and vice
versa, therefore the highest speed attainable is permitted. Before
land again looms in view, speed is much slackened, and now the
engineer requires all his experience and his utmost skill. The
high winds across the ocean may have caused his car to deviate
slightly from its path, so as soon as land appears the deviation
has to be corrected, and only two or three seconds remain in which
to correct it. However, the engineer is equal to his task, and
the car is now in the same manner as before, brought to a stand
in Galway at 6 minutes to 8, just 30 minutes out from St. John's
and 54 from Halifax. At 8 o'clock Dublin is reached, next comes
Holyhead, and then London at 8.20. Here passengers for the South
of Europe change cars. As the car for the South does not start
till 8.30, there is time for a hasty glance at the enormous
central depot just arrived at--one of the wonders of the world.
Cars are coming in every minute punctually on time from all parts
of the country and the world. The arrival slide is here shaped
like the inside or concavity of a shallow cone, two miles in
diameter, with the edge rather more than 150 feet from the ground.
In the centre, where the cars stop, is a hydraulic elevator, by
which they are immediately let down below to make room for the
next arrival. The passengers are then disembarked without hurry.
Those who are to continue their journey then go on board their
right car and are again started on time. The departure slide is
like a lower storey of the arrival one. It is immediately beneath
it, but its grade is not quite parallel. Near the centre, where
the cars start, the upper slide is twenty-five feet above the
lower one, but at the edge, a mile distant, in consequence of the
difference in grade, there is fifty feet between them. The path of
the cars before they emerge from the departure slide, is between
the supports of the upper one, yet the supports are so placed that
the cars can be pointed before starting for all the principal
routes. There is a through car to Constantinople, and in it the
twenty passengers from Halifax take their seats. At 8.30 the
first spring is made, and Paris is reached in 10 minutes.
Another spring, and in 10 minutes more Strasbourg appears. Then
successively: Munich in 8 minutes, Vienna in 10, Belgrade in 15,
and lastly Constantinople in 20, or at 9.43, that is just one hour
and thirteen minutes from leaving London, and two hours and 43
minutes from Halifax. It is still early in the day--well that is
where a surprise awaits the traveller who has not considered that
he has been journeying eastward through more than ninety degrees
of longitude, so that instead of being a quarter to ten in the
morning, it is a good six hours later, or just about four in the
afternoon. Two out of the twenty Haligonians are on business only,
and intend to return the same night; the other eighteen, after
seeing the lions of Constantinople intend visiting Jerusalem, the
Persian Gulf, Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Pekin, and Yokohama,
staying a day or two in each city. The car services on this route
have been in existence a good many years and are well organized.
From Yokohama a long flight over the Pacific will be taken and
Canadian soil again struck at Victoria. We will not follow the
eighteen travellers in their eight or ten days sight-seeing, but
will return to the two Haligonians at Constantinople, who have got
through their business in a few hours, and must go back to Halifax
at once. They start for London at 10 p.m., Constantinople time,
arriving there in one hour and thirteen minutes over the route
they traversed in the morning. They change cars, and in ten
minutes are off again via Holyhead, Dublin, Galway, St. John's
and Sydney, C. B., for Halifax, where they arrive in one hour and
20 minutes from London, or forty-three minutes after midnight by
Constantinople time, but more than six hours earlier, or about
6.30 in the evening by Halifax time. They have therefore got ahead
of the sun in his apparent journey round the world, for he had
set for at least two hours when they started from Constantinople,
but they caught up with him when over the Atlantic, and to the
engineer it appeared as if he were rising in the west. This is
a daily experience of travellers going west, which never fails
at first to create great surprise. Our two voyagers are now safe
back, at the port from which they set out a little less than
twelve hours before. They are quite accustomed to such travelling,
and have done nothing but what thousands are doing daily. But what
would have been thought, if such a journey had been described
a hundred years ago, in 1883? And how will the world travel a
hundred years hence, in 2083? It is hard to say, or even to
imagine. Yet inventive skill is unceasingly active, and in all
probability speed will eventually be still further accelerated.
And now our task of contrasting Canada in 1983 with Canada in 1883
is concluded, and surely in this epitome of the works of a century
there is food for reflection for the inventor, the statesman,
the moralist and the philanthropist. All, when pondering on
the gradual, but sure improvement that has come about in their
respective paths, can take heart and nerve themselves for renewed
effort, or be induced to stand firm till success comes to reward
their courage. No man can despair who ponders on the position of
the Dominion in 1983.