TORONTO AND ITS EXHIBITION
Montreal, like Quebec, is rich in historic associations, fine old
buildings, and French-Canadians. To stand on Mount Royal—a precipitous
park rising to a height of seven hundred and forty feet—and look down
over the magnificent, ruddy city of domes and spires, with the St.
Lawrence sweeping away into a lilac haze of Canadian geography, is a
thrilling experience one never forgets. When I last saw that scene,
little birds were singing in overhanging trees, and I heard the peaceful
music of bells ringing in the old convents far below.
In point of population, and because it is the headquarters of commerce,
shipping and railways, Montreal holds the title of the metropolis of
Canada. Its shops and theatres are superb, and greatly have I enjoyed my
sojourns in that city. It makes a wide appeal to one’s sympathies. It
belongs not only to the present, but to the past. It represents old
Canada and new Canada. It contains both Protestants and Catholics. And
because of its manifold merits and ineffable charms, Montreal misses the
quality that makes Toronto so fascinating.
Not that the two cities admit of comparison. As well might one weigh the
attractions of Bruges against those of New York, or set the useful
qualities of chalk against the nutritive value of cheese. Montreal is a
city of to-day and yesterday. Toronto is a city of to-day and to-morrow.
The history of Montreal would make an interesting fat volume; Toronto’s
two-pennyworth of history would go into a paragraph.
I admire Montreal. But I simply fell head over heels in love with
Toronto. It has a population of 350,000 progressive optimists. The whole
city is full of bustle, but of bustle without hustle. It is a hive of
healthy and vivacious industry. Toronto lives at the brisk pace that
keeps the blood in a healthy glow. The people have discovered the happy
mean between the hurry that wrecks nerves and the sloth that impairs
digestion. Everybody in Toronto seems to be busy for the sheer joy of
the thing. Tread on a man’s foot in that city and, instead of swearing,
he smiles—then goes bustling off on whatever matter of business may
happen to engage his enthusiasm. Nobody in Toronto gave me the
impression of working under a sense of mere necessity. Everybody seemed
to find his or her daily occupation an absorbing hobby.
In a word, the spirit of Toronto is the newest spirit of the New World,
undiluted. The life of Toronto is the life of modern Canada as developed
amid the amenities of a city; and the life of modern Canada is the life
of modern England—with the care and worry left out. The mechanic
commands his £5 a week; a living wage, with some margin for luxuries, is
accessible to everyone. The loss of a berth in London is apt to be a
catastrophe. The loss of a berth in Toronto doesn’t matter—you can
easily get another. Hence the prevailing optimism. And optimism is a
condition of progress. When a man is not living in daily dread of what
the morrow may bring forth he dares to do things.
Toronto is a dashing, go-ahead, clean, handsome, well-governed city. It
is not run in the interests of ground landlords and private monopolies.
The inhabitants, when they pay their five cents for a ride by electric
tramcar (and you go as far as you like for that), are putting money into
their own pockets. Indeed, the municipal revenue from the tramway
traffic since 1891 has totalled about £1,000,000, the annual instalments
having appreciably assisted to keep down the rates. The tramway system
is not a haphazard growth—it is not, as in some English cities, a
tangle of unrelated parts. It is a scientific unity supplying means of
quick transit over the twenty-eight square miles on which the city
stands. No one dreams of walking any distance in Toronto. Its electric
cars annually carry a number of passengers equal to the population of
the United States.
Toronto, I say, breathes the spirit of progress and of the opening
era—of the good new times controlled by a concern for the many, instead
of for the few. Still in its early youth, Toronto is already one of the
notable cities of the world. It is growing vigorously. Measure its
future greatness if you can.
There is no need to preach Garden City principles in Toronto. Its
administrators will never be under the necessity of seizing upon
half-rood burial grounds, and clearing off the gravestones, in order to
provide a gasping population with a little live air. In addition to
broad, tree-planted thoroughfares, Toronto has fifty parks and gardens,
covering an area of over fifteen hundred acres. Not that the city is in
any danger of running short of unpolluted atmosphere, since it is
situated beside a lake that is wider than many parts of the English
Channel and nearly two hundred miles longer. Moreover, electric power
from Niagara obviates the nuisance of smoky chimneys.
Another source of substantial civic revenue is the water supply—that
advantage being accompanied by the boon of low charges to the consumer.
For a four-roomed house the annual water rate is 8s. 4d., subject to an
increase of 2s. 1d. for every additional room, and to a like charge for
a bath; while by meter the tariff is a trifle over 3d. per 1,000 gallons
for ordinary manufacturers and nearly 8½d. for brewers. The local
exchequer also derives considerable assistance from a system of
licensing the vocations that derive profit from the organisation of a
populous city. Thus the bill-poster, the milkman, the fish pedlar, the
plumber, and the rag collector are among those who pay toll to the tune
of 4s. 2d. per annum; the cab-driver being let off lightly with a fee of
1s. 0½d. The proprietor of an ice-cream parlour or of a wax-work show
has to disburse £1 0s. 10d.; the auctioneer’s yearly tax is £10 8s. 4d.;
while the owner of each of Toronto’s one hundred and ten taverns has to
pay £340 for his annual licence. With regard to the last item, I may
mention that, Canada being a free country, there are places in Toronto
where a man may consume alcoholic refreshment, either in moderation or
to excess, according to his individual bent; but neither in Toronto nor
elsewhere in Canada do you find liquor shops at almost every corner, and
dotted along the principal streets, as in England.
But, as I have already hinted, what particularly took my fancy in the
Ontario capital was its population. When the people of Toronto do a
thing, they do it heartily, and therefore well. Let me give an instance
of their thoroughness.
Some thirty-and-odd years ago the authorities of the province decided to
institute an annual Provincial Exhibition, and the people of Toronto
assisted the project on the understanding that their city was to be the
scene of the event for two succeeding years. This concession, if it were
ever made, was withdrawn; whereupon Toronto felt spurred to institute a
more important annual exhibition (on national, instead of provincial,
lines) that should perpetually recur within its boundaries.
For this purpose it set apart an area of 260 acres in the heart of the
city and having a frontage to Lake Ontario extending for a mile and a
half. On that area it erected exhibition buildings—not temporary
edifices of wood and plaster, but huge, handsome structures of brick,
stone, concrete and steel. Then it beautified the surroundings with
terraces, promenades and flower gardens.
Control was vested in a board of twenty-five directors, eight being
elected by the City Council, eight by the manufacturing interests of
Canada, and eight by agricultural associations, the remaining seat being
allotted to the Minister of Agriculture. The first exhibition, held in
1879, was a success, the number of visitors being 101,794, and the
receipts reaching a total of £11,400, while £3,400 was given away in
prizes. Year by year the scope of the Exhibition has been enlarged, and
year by year the success of the Exhibition has increased. Last year
(1910) the visitors numbered 837,200, the receipts were £58,000, and the
value of prizes £10,260. And note these two remarkable facts: the
Exhibition is open for only a fortnight every year, and it always shows
a handsome margin of profit. The amount in 1909 was £13,000. This
surplus is handed over to the City Council, to be used in extending the
buildings and improving the grounds. When not in use for the Exhibition
the place is available as a public park.
Thus the Toronto Exhibition is popular, prosperous, and permanent.
Special excursions are run to it from all settled regions of Canada, the
railway and steamboat companies granting reduced rates for the occasion.
Also the event always attracts a host of Americans.
It is said—and I believe with justice—that so successful an
institution of this character is to be found in no other country. What
is the explanation, the reader will ask, of this remarkable achievement
of a Canadian city? The only answer I can suggest is—enthusiastic
thoroughness.
Let us glance at the scope of the Exhibition. From each section of the
Dominion the Provincial Government sends a representative collection of
local products. Distinct buildings are allotted to agriculture,
manufactures, industries, art, transportation, dairying and machinery.
In addition, there are an “Applied Art Building,” a “Women’s Building,”
an “Administration Building,” a “Press Building,” a “Dog Building,” and
a “Poultry Building.” Stabling is provided for 1,500 horses, 1,200 head
of cattle, and 600 swine. A livestock arena was recently constructed at
a cost of £22,000. There is a grand stand (having a length of 725 feet
and seating accommodation for 16,800 persons), which cost £46,000, and
is built of brick, steel and concrete. Including police and fire
stations, telegraph and telephone offices, a bank, restaurants, rest
rooms, etc., the Exhibition buildings represent a value of nearly half a
million pounds sterling. Apart from visitors, there is a permanent
population of ten thousand persons on the grounds during the annual
fortnight.
[Illustration: THE PERMANENT EXHIBITION AT TORONTO: ONE OF THE
BUILDINGS]
To each day belongs a special interest. Thus, last year’s diary was as
follows: Saturday (August 27th), Preparation Day; Monday, Opening Day;
Tuesday, Inauguration Day; Wednesday, School Children’s Day; Thursday,
Manufacturers’ Day; Friday, Press Day; Saturday, Commercial Travellers’
Day; Monday, Labour Day; Tuesday, Stock Breeders’ and Fruit Growers’
Day; Wednesday, Farmers’ Day; Thursday, Americans’ Day; Friday,
Fraternal Society and Review Day; Saturday, Citizens’ Day; and Monday
(September 12th), Break-up Day.
Everything that Canada makes and that other countries sell to Canada is
found at the Exhibition. In 1909 that represented a mammoth collection
of goods which filled the four large buildings devoted to manufactures,
transportation, industries and machinery, besides overflowing into a
Manufacturers’ Annexe, and into a vast area beneath the grand stand.
Even so, the collection was cramped, so last year, to relieve the
pressure, a special building was provided for British exhibits. Goods in
process of manufacture are a feature of the Manufacturers’ department,
and dense crowds gather daily to witness the making of silks, cotton,
shoes, and a hundred and one other articles.
The Exhibition attracts the finest collection of horses and cattle to be
seen in Canada, the number of animals totalling about ten thousand, and
including many herds specially imported to compete against those bred in
the Dominion.
The Art Loan Exhibit, selected by a resident agent in England, affords
Canadians an opportunity to see examples of the great European Masters.
Prominence is given to work done in the public schools of Canada, the
co-operation of manual training colleges of the United States giving an
international interest to this department. New inventions are another
strong feature of the Exhibition. The first electric railway to be seen
on the Continent was operated there, and that may also be said of the
important developments in telegraphy, telephony, and other branches of
applied science that recent years have witnessed. Nor does the energetic
Board fail to provide high quality in music, military tournaments, and
such frivolities as fireworks and variety-concert performances.
I cannot forbear in conclusion to quote the words used by the
public-spirited directors to describe their achievement. “The Canadian
National Exhibition,” they say, “is the one place to see Canada at a
glance. It shows all that Canada makes, mines, and grows. It gathers the
products of her homes, her farms, her forests, her waters, her mines and
her industries, within the limits of the finest Exhibition Park on the
North American Continent. It is recognised from coast to coast, and from
the frozen north to the Gulf of Mexico, as the greatest of all annual
Exhibitions, distinctly Canadian in its characteristics, and educational
in its tendencies, and yet including so many high-class amusements and
attractions as to make it the annual holiday centre for three-quarters
of a million people drawn from all parts of North America. And the
number is increasing every year.”
Bravo, Toronto!