service system, and the method of it is at once a sort of insurance and
a stimulation to faithful service. Good service is a constant inducement
to retention, to promotion, and to increase of pension. The Canadians
say that the systems work well both in the federal and provincial
services, and in this respect, as well as in the matter of responsible
government, they think their government superior to ours.
The policy of the Dominion Government, when confederation had given
it the form and territory of a great nation, was to develop this into
reality and solidity by creating industries, building railways, and
filling up the country with settlers. As to the means of carrying out
this the two parties differed somewhat. The Conservatives favored active
stimulation to the extent of drawing on the future; the Liberals favored
what they call a more natural if a slower growth. To illustrate: the
Conservatives enacted a tariff, which was protective, to build up
industries, and it is now continued, as in their view a necessity
for raising the revenue needed for government expenses and for the
development of the country. The Liberals favored a low tariff, and
in the main the principles of free-trade. It might be impertinence
to attempt to say now whether the Canadian affiliations are with the
Democratic or the Republican party in the United States, but it is
historical to say that for the most part the Unionists had not the
sympathy of the Conservatives during our Civil War, and that they had
the sympathy of the Liberals generally, and that the sympathy of the
Liberals continued with the Republican party down to the Presidential
campaign of 1884. It seemed to the Conservatives a necessity for the
unity and growth of the Dominion to push railway construction. The
Liberals, if I understand their policy, opposed mortgaging the future,
and would rather let railways spring from local action and local
necessity throughout the Dominion. But whatever the policies of parties
may be, the Conservative Government has promoted by subsidies of money
and grants of land all the great so-called Dominion railways. The chief
of these in national importance, because it crosses the continent, is
the Canadian Pacific. In order that I might understand its relation
to the development of the country, and have some comprehension of the
extent of Canadian territory, I made the journey on this line—3000
miles—from Montreal to Vancouver.
The Canadians have contributed liberally to the promotion of railways.
The Hand-book of 1886 says that $187,000,000 have been given by the
governments (federal and provincial) and by the municipalities towards
the construction of the 13,000 miles of railways within the Dominion.
The same authority says that from 1881 to July, 1885, the Federal
Government gave $74,500,000 to the Canadian Pacific. The Conservatives
like to note that the railway development corresponds with the political
life of Sir John A. Macdonald, for upon his entrance upon political life
in 1844 there were only fourteen miles of railway in operation.
The Federal Government began surveys for the Canadian Pacific road in
1871, a company was chartered the same year to build it, but no results
followed. The Government then began the construction itself, and built
several disconnected sections. The present company was chartered in
1880. The Dominion Government granted it a subsidy of $25,000,000 and
25,000,000 acres of land, and transferred to it, free of cost, 713 miles
of railway which had been built by the Government, at a cost of
about $35,000,000. In November, 1885, considerably inside the time of
contract, the road was finished to the Pacific, and in 1886 cars were
running regularly its entire length. In point of time, and considering
the substantial character of the road, it is a marvellous achievement.
Subsequently, in order to obtain a line from Montreal to the maritime
ports, a subsidy of $186,000 per annum for a term of twenty years was
granted to the Atlantic and North-west Railway Company, which undertook
to build or acquire a line from Montreal via Sherbrooke, and across the
State of Maine to St. John, St. Andrews, and Halifax. This is one of the
leased lines of the Canadian Pacific, which finished it last December.
The main line, from Quebec to Montreal and Vancouver, is 3065 miles. The
leased lines measure 2412 miles, one under construction 112, making a
total mileage of 5589. Adding to this the lines in which the company’s
influence amounts to a control (including those on American soil to St.
Paul and Chicago), the total mileage of the company is over 6500. The
branch lines, built or acquired in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba,
are all necessary feeders to the main line. The cost of the Canadian
Pacific, including the line built by the Government and acquired
(not leased) lines, is: Cost of road, $170,689,629.51; equipment,
$10,570,933.22; amount of deposit with Government to guarantee three
per cent, on capital stock until August 17, 1893, $10,310,954.75. Total,
$191,571,517.48.
Without going into the financial statement, nor appending the leases
and guarantees, any further than to note that the capital stock
is $65,000,000 and the first mortgage bonds (five per cent.) are
$34,999,633, it is only necessary to say that in the report the capital
foots up $112,908,019. The total earnings for 1885 were $8,308,493; for
1886, $10,081,803; for 1887, $11,600,412, while the working expenses for
1887 were $8,102,294. The gross earnings for 1888 are about $14,000,000,
and the net earnings about $4,000,000. These figures show the steady
growth of business.
Being a Dominion road, and favored, the company had a monopoly in
Manitoba for building roads south of its line and roads connecting with
foreign lines. This monopoly was surrendered in 1887 upon agreement
of the Dominion Government to guarantee 3 1/2 per cent, interest on
$15,000,000 of the company’s land grant bonds for fifty years. The
company has paid its debt to the Government, partly by surrender of a
portion of its lands, and now absolutely owns its entire line free of
Government obligations. It has, however, a claim upon the Government of
something like six million dollars, now in litigation, on portions of
the mountain sections of the road built by the Government, which are not
up to the standard guaranteed in the contract with the company.
The road was extended to the Pacific as a necessity of the national
development, and the present Government is convinced that it is worth
to the country all it has cost. The Liberals’ criticism is that the
Government has spent a vast sum for what it can show no assets, and that
it has enriched a private company instead of owning the road itself. The
property is no doubt a good one, for the road is well built as to grades
and road-bed, excellently equipped, and notwithstanding the heavy Lake
Superior and mountain work, at a less cost than some roads that preceded
it.
The full significance of this transcontinental line to Canada, Great
Britain, and the United States will appear upon emphasizing the value of
the line across the State of Maine to connect with St. John and
Halifax; upon the fact that its western terminus is in regular steamer
communication with Hong-Kong via Yokohama; that the company is building
new and swift steamers for this line, to which the British Government
has granted an annual subsidy of £60,000, and the Dominion one of
$15,000; that a line will run from Vancouver to Australia; and that
a part of this round-the-world route is to be a line of fast steamers
between Halifax and England. The Canadian Pacific is England’s shortest
route to her Pacific colonies, and to Japan and China; and in case of a
blockade in the Suez Canal it would become of the first importance for
Australia and India. It is noted as significant by an enthusiast of
the line that the first loaded train that passed over its entire length
carried British naval stores transferred from Quebec to Vancouver, and
that the first car of merchandise was a cargo of Jamaica sugar refined
at Halifax and sent to British Columbia.
II.
We left Montreal, attached to the regular train, on the evening of
September 22d. The company runs six through trains a week, omitting the
despatch of a train on Sunday from each terminus. The time is six
days and rive nights. We travelled in the private ear of Mr. T. G.
Shaughnessy, the manager, who was on a tour of inspection, and took it
leisurely, stopping at points of interest on the way. The weather was
bad, rainy and cold, in eastern Canada, as it was all over New England,
and as it continued to be through September and October. During our
absence there was snow both in Montreal and Quebec. We passed out of the
rain into lovely weather north of Lake Superior; encountered rain again
at Winnipeg; but a hundred miles west of there, on the prairie, we
were blessed with as delightful weather as the globe can furnish, which
continued all through the remainder of the trip until our return to
Montreal, October 12th. The climate just east of the Rocky Mountains
was a little warmer than was needed for comfort (at the time Ontario and
Quebec had snow), but the air was always pure and exhilarating; and
all through the mountains we had the perfection of lovely days. On the
Pacific it was still the dry season, though the autumn rains, which
continue all winter, with scarcely any snow, were not far off. For mere
physical pleasure of living and breathing, I know no atmosphere superior
to that we encountered on the rolling lands east of the Rockies.
Between Ottawa and Winnipeg (from midnight of the 22d till the morning
of the 25th) there is not much to interest the tourist, unless he is
engaged in lumbering or mining. What we saw was mainly a monotonous
wilderness of rocks and small poplars, though the country has
agricultural capacities after leaving Rat Portage (north of Lake of the
Woods), just before coming upon the Manitoba prairies. There were
more new villages and greater crowds of people at the stations than I
expected. From Sudbury the company runs a line to the Sault Sainte Marie
to connect with lines it controls to Duluth and St. Paul. At Port Arthur
and Fort William is evidence of great transportation activity, and all
along the Lake Superior Division there are signs that the expectations
of profitable business in lumber and minerals will be realized. At Port
Arthur we strike the Western Division. On the Western, Mountain, and
Pacific divisions the company has adopted the 24-hour system, by which
a.m. and P.M. are abolished, and the hours from noon till midnight are
counted as from 12 to 24 o’clock. For instance, the train reaches Eagle
River at 24.55, Winnipeg at 9.30, and Brandon at 16.10.
At Winnipeg we come into the real North-west, and a condition of soil,
climate, and political development as different from eastern Canada as
Montana is from New England. This town, at the junction of the Red
and Assiniboin rivers, in a valley which is one of the finest
wheat-producing sections of the world, is a very important place.
Railways, built and projected, radiate from it like spokes from a wheel
hub. Its growth has been marvellous. Formerly known as Fort Garry, the
chief post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, it had in 1871 a population of
only one hundred. It is now the capital of the province of Manitoba,
contains the chief workshops of the Canadian Pacific between Montreal
and Vancouver, and has a population of 25,000. It is laid out on a grand
scale, with very broad streets—Main Street is 200 feet wide—has
many substantial public and business buildings, streetcars, and
electric-lights, and abundant facilities for trade. At present it is
in a condition of subsided “boom;” the whole province has not more
than 120,000 people, and the city for that number is out of proportion.
Winnipeg must wait a little for the development of the country. It
seems to the people that the town would start up again if it had more
railroads. Among the projects much discussed is a road northward between
Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba, turning eastward to York Factory on
Hudson’s Bay. The idea is to reach a short water route to Europe. From
all the testimony I have read as to ice in Hudson’s Bay harbors and in
the straits, the short period the straits are open, and the uncertainty
from year to year as to the months they will be open, this route seems
chimerical. But it does not seem so to its advocates, and there is no
doubt that a portion of the line between the lakes first named would
develop a good country and pay. A more important line—indeed, of the
first importance—is built for 200 miles north-west from Portage la
Prairie, destined to go to Prince Albert, on the North Saskatchewan.
This is the Manitoba and North-west, and it makes its connection
from Portage la Prairie with Winnipeg over the Canadian Pacific. An
antagonism has grown up ill Manitoba towards the Canadian Pacific. This
arose from the monopoly privileges enjoyed by it as a Dominion road. The
province could build no road with extra-territorial connections. This
monopoly was surrendered in consideration of the guarantee spoken of
from the Government. The people of Winnipeg also say that the company
discriminated against them in the matter of rates, and that the
province must have a competing outlet. The company says that it did not
discriminate, but treated Winnipeg like other towns on the line, having
an eye to the development of the whole prairie region, and that the
trouble was that it refused to discriminate in favor of Winnipeg, so
that it might become the distributing-point of the whole North-west.
Whatever the truth may be, the province grew increasingly restless, and
determined to build another road. The Canadian Pacific has two lines on
either side of the Red River, connecting at Emerson and Gretna with the
Red River branches of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba. It has
also two branches running westward south of its main line, penetrating
the fertile wheat-fields of Manitoba. The province graded a third
road, paralleling the two to the border, and the river, southward from
Winnipeg to the border connecting there with a branch of the Northern
Pacific, which was eager to reach the rich wheat,-fields of the
North-west. The provincial Red River Railway also proposed to cross the
branches of the Canadian Pacific, and connect at Portage la Prairie with
the Manitoba and North-west. The Canadian Pacific, which had offered
to sell to the province its Emerson branch, saying that there was not
business enough for three parallel routes, insisted upon its legal
rights and resisted this crossing. Hence the provincial and railroad
conflict of the fall of 1888. The province built the new road, but
it was alleged that the Northern Pacific was the real party, and that
Manitoba has so far put itself into the hands of that corporation.
There can be no doubt that Manitoba will have its road and connect the
Northern Pacific with the Saskatchewan country, and very likely will
parallel the main line of the Canadian Pacific. But whether it will get
from the Northern Pacific the relief it thought itself refused by the
Canadian, many people in Winnipeg begin to doubt; for however eager
rival railways may be for new territory, they are apt to come to an
understanding in order to keep up profitable rates. They must live.
I went down on the southern branch of the Canadian Pacific, which runs
west, not far from our border, as far as Boissevain. It is a magnificent
wheat country, and already very well settled and sprinkled with
villages. The whole prairie was covered with yellow wheat-stacks, and
teams loaded with wheat were wending their way from all directions to
the elevators on the line. There has been quite an emigration of Russian
Mennonites to this region, said to be 9000 of them. We passed near two
of their villages—a couple of rows of square unbeautiful houses facing
each other, with a street of mud between, as we see them in pictures
of Russian communes. These people are a peculiar and somewhat mystical
sect, separate and unassimilated in habits, customs, and faith from
their neighbors, but peaceful, industrious, and thrifty. I shall have
occasion to speak of other peculiar immigration, encouraged by the
governments and by private companies.
There can be no doubt of the fertility of all the prairie region of
Manitoba and Assiniboin. Great heat is developed in the summers, but
cereals are liable, as in Dakota, to be touched, as in 1888, by early
frost. The great drawback from Winnipeg on westward is the intense cold
of winter, regarded not as either agreeable or disagreeable, but as
a matter of economy. The region, by reason of extra expense for fuel,
clothing, and housing, must always be more expensive to live in than,
say, Ontario.
The province of Manitoba is an interesting political and social study.
It is very unlike Ontario or British Columbia. Its development has been,
in freedom and self-help, very like one of our Western Territories,
and it is like them in its free, independent spirit. It has a spirit
to resist any imposed authority. We read of the conflicts between
the Hudson’s Bay and the Northwestern Fur companies and the Selkirk
settlers, who began to come in in 1812. Gradually the vast territory
of the North-west had a large number of “freemen,” independent of any
company, and of half-breed Frenchmen. Other free settlers sifted in.
The territory was remote from the Government, and had no facilities
of communication with the East, even after the union. The rebellion of
1870-71 was repeated in 1885, when Riel was called back from Montana
to head the discontented. The settlers could not get patents for their
lands, and they had many grievances, which they demanded should be
redressed in a “bill of rights.” There were aspects of the insurrection,
not connected with the race question, with which many well-disposed
persons sympathized. But the discontent became a violent rebellion,
and had to be suppressed. The execution of Riel, which some of the
Conservatives thought ill-advised, raised a race storm throughout
Canada; the French element was in a tumult, and some of the Liberals
made opposition capital out of the event. In the province of Quebec it
is still a deep grievance, for party purposes partly, as was shown in
the recent election of a federal member of Parliament in Montreal.
Manitoba is Western in its spirit and its sympathies. Before the
building of the Canadian Pacific its communication was with Minnesota.
Its interests now largely lie with its southern neighbors. It has a
feeling of irritation with too much federal dictation, and frets under
the still somewhat undefined relations of power between the federal
and the provincial governments, as was seen in the railway conflict.
Besides, the natural exchange of products between south and
north—between the lower Mississippi and the Red River of the North
and the north-west prairies—is going to increase; the north and south
railway lines will have, with the development of industries and exchange
of various sorts, a growing importance compared with the great east and
west lines. Nothing can stop this exchange and the need of it along our
whole border west of Lake Superior. It is already active and growing,
even on the Pacific, between Washington Territory and British Columbia.
For these geographical reasons, and especially on account of similarity
of social and political development, I was strongly impressed with the
notion that if the Canadian Pacific Railway had not been built when it
was, Manitoba would by this time have gravitated to the United States,
and it would only have been a question of time when the remaining
Northwest should have fallen in. The line of the road is very well
settled, and yellow with wheat westward to Regina, but the farms are
often off from the line, as the railway sections are for the most part
still unoccupied; and there are many thriving villages: Portage la
Prairie, from which the Manitoba and North-western Railway starts
north-west, with a population of 3000; Brandon, a busy grain mart,
standing on a rise of ground 1150 feet above the sea, with a population
of 4000 and over; Qu’.ppelle, in the rich valley of the river of that
name, with 700; Regina, the capital of the North-west Territory, on a
vast plain, with 800; Moosejay, a market-town towards the western limit
of the settled country, with 600. This is all good land, but the winters
are severe.
Naturally, on the rail we saw little game, except ducks and geese on the
frequent fresh-water ponds, and occasionally coyotes and prairie-dogs.
But plenty of large game still can be found farther north. At Stony
Mountain, fifteen miles north of Winnipeg, the site of the Manitoba
penitentiary, we saw a team of moose, which Colonel Bedson, the
superintendent, drives—fleet animals, going easily fifteen miles an
hour. They were captured only thirty-five miles north of the prison,
where moose are abundant. Colonel Bedson has the only large herd of the
practically extinct buffalo. There are about a hundred of these uncouth
and picturesque animals, which have a range of twenty or thirty miles
over the plains, and are watched by mounted keepers. They were driven
in, bulls, cows, and calves, the day before our arrival—it seemed odd
that we could order up a herd of buffaloes by telephone, but we did—and
we saw the whole troop lumbering over the prairie, exactly as we were
familiar with them in pictures. The colonel is trying the experiment of
crossing them with common cattle. The result is a half-breed of large
size, with heavier hind-quarters and less hump than the buffalo, and
said to be good beef. The penitentiary has taken in all the convicts of
the North-west Territory, and there were only sixty-five of them. The
institution is a model one in its management. We were shown two separate
chapels—one for Catholics and another for Protestants.
All along the line settlers are sifting in, and there are everywhere
signs of promoted immigration. Not only is Canada making every effort
to fill up its lands, but England is interested in relieving itself
of troublesome people. The experiment has been tried of bringing out
East-Londoners. These barbarians of civilization are about as unfitted
for colonists as can be. Small bodies of them have been aided to make
settlements, but the trial is not very encouraging; very few of them
take to the new life. The Scotch crofters do better. They are accustomed
to labor and thrift, and are not a bad addition to the population. A
company under the management of Sir John Lister Kaye is making a larger
experiment. It has received sections from the Government and bought
contiguous sections from the railway, so as to have large blocks of land
on the road. A dozen settlements are projected. The company brings over
laborers and farmers, paying their expenses and wages for a year.
A large central house is built on each block, tools and cattle are
supplied, and the men are to begin the cultivation of the soil. At the
end of a year they may, if they choose, take up adjacent free Government
land and begin to make homes for themselves working meantime on the
company land, if they will. By this plan they are guaranteed support
for a year at least, and a chance to set up for themselves. The company
secures the breaking up of its land and a crop, and the nucleus of a
town. The further plan is to encourage farmers, with a capital of a
thousand dollars, to follow and settle in the neighborhood. There will
then be three ranks—the large company proprietors, the farmers with some
capital, and the laborers who are earning their capital. We saw some of
these settlements on the line that looked promising. About 150 settlers,
mostly men, arrived last fall, and with them were sent out English
tools and English cattle. The plan looks to making model communities, on
something of the old-world plan of proprietor, farmer, and laborer. It
would not work in the United States.