CANADA THE POOR MAN’S COUNTRY.—DISADVANTAGES OF INEXPERIENCE.—TOWNSHIP
OF HARVEY SETTLEMENT.—PAUPER EMIGRATION.—SUPERIOR ADVANTAGES OF THE
LABOURER COLONIST.—TEMPERANCE AND TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.—A DRY ANSWER TO
WATERY ARGUMENTS.—BRITISH AND FOREIGN TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.
There is no colony belonging to the British Crown better adapted for
the poor industrious emigrant than the Canadas, particularly the Upper
Province, which is essentially the poor man’s country. Twenty-five
years ago, the expense of the voyage out to Quebec, and the difficulty,
delay, and additional outlay of the inland journey put it completely
out of the power of the needy agriculturist or artizan to emigrate; the
very classes, however, who, from their having been brought up from
their infancy to hard labour, and used to all sorts of privations, were
the best fitted to cope with the dangers and hardships attending the
settlement of a new country. The impossibility of the working hand
raising funds for emigration, confined the colonists to a set of men
less calculated to contend with difficulties—namely, half-pay officers
and gentlemen of better family than income, who were almost invariably
the pioneers of every new settlement.
Many high-spirited gentlemen were, doubtless, tempted by the grants of
land bestowed upon them by the Government, which made actual settlement
one of the conditions of the grant. It followed, as a matter of course,
that the majority of these persons were physically disqualified for
such an undertaking, a fact which many deserted farms in the rear
townships of the county in which I reside painfully indicate.
Eighteen or twenty years ago a number of gentlemen located themselves
in the township of Harvey. The spot chosen by them was one of great
natural beauty; but it possessed no other advantages, except an
abundance of game, which was no small inducement to them. They spent
several thousand pounds in building fancy log-houses and making large
clearings which they had neither the ability nor industry to cultivate.
But, even if they had possessed sufficient perseverance, their great
distance from a market, bad roads, want of knowledge in cropping after
they had cleared the land, lack of bridges, and poor soil, would have
been a great drawback to the chance of effecting a prosperous
settlement. In a few years not a settler remained of this little
colony. Some stayed till their means were thoroughly exhausted; others,
more wise, purchased ready-cleared farms in the settlements or followed
some profession more congenial to their taste, or more suited to their
abilities.
The only persons fit to undertake the hardships of a bush-life, are
those who have obtained a certain degree of experience in their own
country upon the paternal estate or farm. Men who have large families
to provide for, and who have been successful in wood-clearing, are
generally willing to sell their improvements, and purchase wild land
for their families, whose united industry soon places them in a better
farm than they owned before. They are thus rendered greater
capitalists, with increased means of providing for their children, who
soon take up their standing in society as its favoured class. Indeed, I
would strongly advise gentlemen of small capital to purchase
ready-cleared farms, which can be obtained in most parts of the
country, with almost every convenience, for half what the clearing of
bush-land would cost, especially by an inexperienced settler. In fact,
since grants of land are no longer given to the emigrant, there is less
inducement to go so far back into the woods.
Since 1826, a steady influx of the working classes from Great Britain
and Ireland has taken place. This has tended much to the prosperity of
the country, by cheapening labour, and the settlement of vast tracts of
wild land.
Several experiments have been made by Government in sending out pauper
emigration: that from the south of Ireland, under the superintendance
of the late Hon. Peter Robinson in 1824, was the most extensive, and
came more immediately under my own observation. I have understood that
some most obnoxious and dangerous characters were shipped off in this
expedition—no doubt to the great comfort of landlords, agents, and
tithe-proctors.
The Government behaved very liberally to these settlers. A grant of a
hundred acres of good land was given to each head of a family, and to
every son above twenty-one years of age.
A good milch cow, and rations of pork and flour were assigned to each
emigrant family. These provisions they continued to receive for upwards
of eighteen months, besides a variety of stores, such as axes, hammers,
saws, nails, grindstones, &c. A good log-shanty was also built on each
settler’s lot. These people have done as well as could be expected,
considering the material of which they were composed. It has been
observed that, whenever these people were located amongst the
Protestant population, they made much better settlers than when
remaining with Catholics.
In fact, a great improvement is perceptible in the morality, industry
and education of the rising generation, who grow up more virtuous and
less bigoted to their exclusive religious opinions.
As a general rule, the English, Scotch, and north of Ireland men make
much better and more independent colonists than emigrants from the
south of Ireland.
Seven years after the location of Robinson’s emigrants, a colony of
Wiltshire people settled in the township of Dummer under many more
disadvantages than those placed by Government in the township of Douro.
The Dummer people had no shanties built for them, no cows, and were
given much worse land; and yet they have done much more in a shorter
time. An air of comfort and cleanliness pervades their dwellings, and
there is a neatness about their farms and homesteads which is generally
wanted in the former.
It must, however, be borne in mind that paupers sent out by the
Government, or by their own parishes, are not a fair specimen by which
to judge the working classes, who emigrated at their own expenses. Of
the latter, I know hundreds who, upon their arrival in the Upper
Province, had spent their last shilling, and who, by persevering
industry, are now worth hundreds of pounds. No person need starve in
Canada, where there is plenty of work and good wages for every man who
is willing to labour, and who keeps himself sober. The working man with
a family of grown children, when fairly established on his farm, is
fully on a par, as regards his prospects, with the gentleman, the owner
of a similar farm, and possessing an income of 100 pounds per annum.
The reason is obvious. The gentleman and his family have been used to
wear finer clothes, keep better company, and maintain a more
respectable appearance, and if he has children, to give them a more
expensive education.
Then, again, the gentleman and his family are physically less qualified
to undergo the hardships and toil of a practical farmer’s life. On the
other hand, the working man thinks it no degradation to send his sons
and daughters out to service, and the united product of their wages
amount, probably to eight or ten pounds per month. He is contented with
home-spun cloth, while the spinning and knitting—and sometimes
weaving—required by the family, are done at home. Labour, indeed, is
money; and hence in a few years the gentleman with his income is soon
distanced, and the working hand becomes the man of wealth, while his
children eventually form a part of the aristocracy of the country, if
the father gives them a suitable education.
There is one thing, however, to be said in favour of the
gentleman—namely, his education, which fits him for offices and
professions which must remain for ever out of the reach of the
half-ignorant. It is, therefore, only in agricultural pursuits, and
mechanical operations, that the working man is able to obtain a
superiority; and then only if he be sober and industrious, for whiskey
has been the great bane of the colony. Hundreds of our cleverest
mechanics, and many of gentler blood, have fallen victims to its
influence.
It is said that temperance societies have done a great deal towards
checking this evil, and that the new society, the “Sons of Temperance,”
will complete what the others began. I am quite willing to admit it as
a fact, because I believe that the practice of temperance has gained
ground, both in Canada and the United States. But I am unwilling to
allow that the means taken to effect that much-desired object are the
best that might be adopted. Indeed, I think, in some instances, the
endeavour to prohibit the use of fermented drink altogether, has been
carried to unchristian lengths.
I believe that, if the same amount of money had been expended in
propagating the gospel, as has been laid out by these total abstinence
societies, more real converts to temperance would have been gained,
because principle and true religion would have been the bases on which
the reformation was founded.
Throughout the whole Bible and Testament, there is not a single command
to abstain totally from either wine or strong drink; but there is a
positive one respecting the abuse, and dreadful denunciations against
the drunkard. Then in respect to the prohibition, the false prophet
has, in the Koran, forbidden his followers to use wine at all. Now,
which do we profess to follow,—the precepts of Jesus Christ, or those
of Mahomet? But some will say, if your brother offends by his
intemperate habits, you should abstain altogether, that you may become
a good example to him. By the same rule, if my brother is a glutton, I
should abstain from food also. Now, I believe with the Apostle, “that
all the creatures of God are good,” and lawful for us to use; but we
are not to abuse them, “but to be temperate in all things,” thus acting
up to the rule of scripture, and setting a better example than if we
wholly abstained from fermented drink. Any other rule, excepting in
cases of notorious drunkenness, is, in my opinion, anti-scriptural, and
therefore wrong.
The new American society, “The Sons of Temperance,” which now takes the
lead of all other temperance or tee-total societies, is a secret and
benefit society, having its signs and pass-words. In the hands of
clever leaders and designing men, may not a society of this kind become
a great political engine?
Sometimes very ludicrous scenes occur at temperance meetings. A few
years ago, when this question was first agitated in Canada, a meeting
was held in a school-house on the English line, in the township of
Dummer. The lecturer, on that occasion, was an itinerant preacher of
the Methodist persuasion. After descanting some time in a very fluent
manner, on the evils arising from intemperance, and the great numbers
who had lost their lives by violent means, “for my part,” said the
lecturer, “I have known nearly three hundred cases of this kind
myself.”
This broad assertion was too much for one of the audience, an old
Wiltshire man, who exclaimed, in his peculiar dialect, “Now, I know
that ’ere be a lie. Can you swear that you did ever see three out of
them three hundred violent deaths you speak on?”
“Well, I have heard and read of them in books and newspapers; and I
once saw a man lying dead on the road, and a jar, half full of whiskey,
beside him, which, I think, you will allow is proof enough.”
“I thought your three hundred cases would turn out like the boy’s cats
in his grandmother’s garden. Now, I will tell thee, that I did know
three men that did kill themselves by drinking of cold water. There was
John H——, that over-heated hisself, walking from Cobourg, and drank so
much water at the cold springs, that he fell down and died in a few
minutes. Then there was that workman of Elliott’s, in Smith, who
dropped in the harvest-field, from the same cause; and the Irishman
from Asphodel, whose name I forget. So, you see, that more people do
die from drinking cold water than whiskey.” Then he turned round to a
neighbour, who, like himself, was not over-fond of cold water, and
said, “I say, Jerome, which would you rather have, a glass of cold
water, or a drap of good beer?”
“I know which I would take,” exclaimed Jerome; “I would like a drap of
good beer best, I do know.”
This dialogue raised such a laugh against the apostle of temperance,
that the meeting was fairly broken up, leaving the Wiltshire man
triumphing in his victory over cold water and oratory, in the person of
the lecturer. The dryness of his arguments prevailed against the
refreshing and copious draughts of the pure element recommended by his
discomfited opponent.
A good joke is not, however, a good argument, though it stood for one
at this meeting. Total abstinence is the best plan to be adopted by
habitual drunkards, who, if they can get at strong drink at all, seldom
keep their pledge of sobriety. The British and Foreign Temperance
Society, in fact, advises the habitually intemperate to abstain
altogether, while, at the same time, it aims at bringing the man to
repentance and reformation, by the renovating influence of the gospel.
If I differ in some respects from that society, in its prohibition
against the use of spirits altogether, in such a climate as Canada, I
still must consider its views far more liberal, and more consistent
with scripture rules, than that of any other for the promotion of
temperance, as, indeed, possessing more of that charity, without which
even the most fervent zeal is worse than useless.