AT MONTREAL, AND ON TO OTTAWA—INTERVIEWING AND INTERVIEWED.
One discovery I have made since I have been here is that Canada has its
clouded skies and its rainy days, and that a Canadian spring may be quite
as ungenial as an English one. Yet it is, I still see, the country for a
working man. And I write this in full knowledge of the fact that here at
Montreal the charitable, on whom the poor depend—for there is no poor-law
in this country, and let us hope, seeing what mischief has been done by
poor-laws, there may never be one—have been sorely exercised this winter
how to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked, and to find the outcast
a home. But, mind you, I only recommend the place for the poor
agricultural labourer or artisan; and already I find the larger portion
of such who have come out with me are in full work, and are thankful that
they have come, but they had to take anything that was offered. It is
clear this is not the country for clerks and shop-lads, and the secretary
of the Young Men’s Christian Association—which I find here to be a
flourishing institution—writes:
‘Young men are coming by each steamer. Many of them are introduced to us
with excellent recommendations, and have occupied good positions in
England. Some have left their situations on the representation of
railway and steamboat agents as to the opportunities in this country. We
find it absolutely impossible to secure employment for them in many
cases, business in every department has been so dull. Almost all the
houses have been employing hands that they could dispense with. Reports
from the West show the market glutted as bad as in Montreal.’ And I fear
things have not improved since.
It is cruel to get such young men out of England. They are worse off
here than they would be at home. It is curious to note, in connection
with emigration, the evident desire of the educated mechanic to keep his
rivals out. ‘By all means bid them stop at home,’ he cries, ‘or wages
will be lower in the colonies.’ Already I have been interviewed by a
working-class official here, and that is his cry. And I give it for what
it may be worth, merely remarking that such illustrations as he gave in
support of his views turned out to be the merest moonshine.
[Picture: Junction of the River Ottawa and St. Lawrence, Montreal]
Now let me speak of Montreal, which I entered with pleasure, and leave
with regret. It is the chief city of Canada, and is built on the
northern bank of the St. Lawrence, where the muddy Ottawa, after a course
of 600 miles, debouches into it. You arrive by a grand railway bridge,
which is one of the wonders of this part of the world. The population is
nearly 200,000, of which two-thirds are French or Irish, and Roman
Catholic. It abounds with every sign of prosperity, and, as a city,
would be a credit to the old country. The river front is lined with
steamers loading for England. The principal thoroughfares contain lofty
buildings, and shops as spacious as any of our best, whilst its hotels
altogether throw ours into the shade; and then, in the suburbs the
merchants live in palaces, whilst handsome churches attest the wealth, if
not the piety, of all classes of the population. I fear Mammon worship
is the prevailing form of idolatry, yet I cannot shut my eyes to the fact
that the early settlement of the place was the result of religious
enthusiasm, and that it was an attempt to found in America a veritable
kingdom of God as understood by the Roman Catholics; but all that is
past, and the chief topics of interest are the prices of pork, or the
state of the market as regards butter and cheese. Let me remind you that
such is the goodness of the cheese of Canada, all made in factories, that
nearly as much cheese finds its way into the English market from Montreal
as from New York.
One thing especially strikes me, and that is the muscular character of
the young men. Montreal is a great place for athletes. Montreal has
hundreds of such, as it is not only a centre of commerce, but the most
important manufacturing city in the Dominion—3,000 hands are employed in
the manufacture of boots and shoes. Then there are here the largest
sugar refineries and cotton mills and silk and cloth factories in Canada,
and the result is that, as these factories are nursed by Protection, the
towns are unnaturally crowded, and the people all over the country have
to pay high prices for inferior articles, and the Canadians, who ought to
be making cheese and butter, and growing corn for the artisans of
Lancashire, are doing all they can to reduce their best and most natural
customers to a state of starvation. ‘It is a shame,’ said a Canadian
manufacturer to me, only in language a little more emphatic, ‘that
England allows any of her colonies to put prohibitory duties on British
products.’ And I quite agree with my friend that it is a shame.
However, as long as the present Canadian Government are in power, there
is no chance of Free Trade. It was the Protection cry that placed the
Conservatives in power. With so many French as there are in Canada,
vainly dreaming of a restoration of French rule, it is idle to talk of
the interests of the mother country. Nor does Great Britain deserve very
well of the Canadians. Up to almost the present time it has held them to
be of little account, and, as we all know, it is not so very long since
it suffered Brother Jonathan to annex that part of Maine in which
Portland is situated, and thus to deprive Canada of its only winter
harbour.
For one thing Montreal is to be highly commended, and that is on account
of its hotels. The Windsor Hotel, in Dominion Square, is one of the
finest hotels in America, and as you enter you are quite bewildered at
the magnificence of the entrance-hall. A curious thing happened to me
there. Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Barker, of the U.K. Alliance, had come there
after a pilgrimage in the States, and it was determined to give them a
reception. I had a ticket, and went for about an hour, chatting
pleasantly with readers, who had known me by repute, and were glad to
shake hands with me. Imagine my horror when, in the next morning’s
paper, I read that the reception had been got up by Temperance friends
for me, as well as Messrs. Hoyle and Barker, and that my humble name
figured first on the list. Perhaps this was meant as a consolation to
me. I had been interviewed on the previous day, and the papers had
spoken of me in such complimentary terms that I felt almost a lion.
Alas! in America interviewing is quite a common-place affair, and it
gives no _éclat_ to be interviewed. People sat smoking in the hall as I
passed, utterly unconscious of the fact. Yet the reporters did their
best. One of them called after I was gone to bed. He said he was not
going to be scooped out by the other fellow, whatever that may mean.
Virtue in his case was not rewarded. I kept to my bed, and left the
enterprising reporter to do the best he could.
I ought to say a word of the hotel at which I stopped—the Lawrence Hall,
in James’s Street—which I strongly recommend to all, especially to such
of my friends as may be contemplating a visit to Montreal. The bedrooms
are beautifully clean, the cooking is excellent, and the service is
admirable. It enjoys a tremendous amount of support. I was there just
forty-eight hours, and I counted as many as two hundred names of arrivals
after me, and yet, in spite of the crowd, there was ample accommodation
for all, and I and my friends dined as comfortably and quietly as if we
had been at home. The proprietor, Mr. Hogan, is a gentleman with whom it
is a pleasure to converse. Nor are his charges high.
It is a sight to sit in the hall and watch the ever-shifting crowd, or to
stray into the shaving apartment, where a dozen barbers are always hard
at work. I own I became a victim, and paid a shilling for a performance
which in London only costs me sixpence; but in London I simply have my
hair cut, here I was under the care of a ‘professional artist.’ I quote
his card: ‘Physiognomical hairdresser, facial operator, cranium
manipulator, and capillary abridger.’ I could not think of offering so
distinguished a professor less than a shilling. But the fact is, you
can’t travel cheaply either in Canada or the United States.
It goes sadly against the grain to pay fivepence for having one’s boots
blacked, and the way in which your change is doled out to you is not
pleasant, and adds materially to the difficulties of the situation. For
instance, I had a certain American coin the other day pressed into my
reluctant hands on the express understanding that it was to go for ten
cents. I paid it to a ferryman, who said it was only worth eight, and
then, on that supposition, he managed to cheat me; and I had to appeal to
a friend of mine, who told me that I had not the right change, before I
could get the man to give me my due; directly, however, the mistake was
pointed out he rectified it, thus acknowledging, in the most barefaced
manner, his attempt to cheat; and the beauty of it was, I was with a
great man of the place, who witnessed the whole transaction, and never
said a word, apparently looking upon it as a matter of course.
I fear there is a good deal of villainy in the world, and that it is not
confined to America. Travellers are bound to be victimised, and the best
thing you can do is to laugh. I own I did so at Liverpool the other day,
as I was waiting for the tugboat to take me off to the _Sarnia_. I knew
that I had not made a mistake, I knew that the tug was sure to come; yet
four big hulking fellows with brazen faces would have made me believe
that I was too late for the tug, and that my only chance of getting on
board was for me to let them row me out. In that case the attempt was
the more rascally, as from a small row-boat I could never have boarded
the _Sarnia_ had I tried. Yet there they stood—sullen and expectant—for
a quarter of an hour, taking me, possibly, for a bigger fool even than I
look.
‘It is a pity,’ said a Canadian lady to me, ‘that Queen Victoria’—for
whom all Canada prays that long may she reign over us, happy and
glorious—‘fixed upon Ottawa as the site of the Government.’
I am very much inclined to a similar feeling. At Montreal the change of
water affected me very disagreeably. At Ottawa I was completely floored.
It is a curious fact that almost everyone who goes to Ottawa is taken
ill. I was complaining of my first terrible night to Sir Leonard Tilley,
the Finance Minister, and he said that when he first came to Ottawa it
was the same with him.
A lady told me that Lady Tupper, who has just left the Colony for
England, where, it is said, her lord and master hopes to find a seat in
the Imperial Parliament—a consummation devoutly to be wished, as to my
mind it is clear that all our colonies should have representatives in
Parliament—made a similar complaint as to the effect of the place on her
children, and I have it on the best authority that scarcely a session
passes but an M.P. pays the penalty of a residence in Ottawa.
In my case I was preserved, as the man in the ‘Arabian Nights’ says, for
the greater misfortunes yet to befall me by the use of Dr. Browne’s
far-famed ‘Chlorodyne’—an indispensable requisite, I am bound to say,
when an emigrant takes his trial trip to Canada. I know not who is the
inventor—I believe it is what we call a patent medicine—that is, a
medicine not sanctioned by the faculty—but, as has been observed of the
Pickwick pen, it is indeed a boon and a blessing to men. I used
‘Chlorodyne,’ and was soon all right. Sir Leonard Tilley told me he did
the same, and no one should go to Ottawa without having a small bottle of
it in his carpet-bag.
Yet Ottawa is not without a certain freshness of beauty that one
associates _primâ facie_ with perfect health. The stately Government
buildings, all of grey stone, are placed on a hill, whence you have a
peerless view of river and country and distant hill, and far away forests
all around. A more picturesque site it would be assuredly most difficult
to find. As to the town itself, it is a curious compound—almost Irish in
that respect—of splendour and meanness. There are magnificent shops—and
then you come to wooden shanties, which in such a city ought long ere
this to have been improved off the face of the earth. If on a rainy day,
unless very careful, you attempt to cross the streets, you are in danger
of sticking in the mud, which no one seems to ever think of removing, and
in many parts there are disgraceful holes in the plank pavement on which
you walk, which are dangerous, especially to the aged and infirm.
In Ottawa the contrasts are more violent than I have seen elsewhere.
Everyone comes to the place. It is the headquarters of the Dominion. I
met there statesmen, adventurers, wild men of the woods, or prairie,
deputies from Manitoba, lawyers from Quebec, sharpers and honest men, all
staying at one hotel; and it seemed strange to sit at dinner and see
great rough fellows, with the manners of ploughmen, quaffing their costly
champagne, and fancying themselves patterns of gentility and taste. In
one thing they disappointed me. Sir Charles Tupper was to leave for
England, and his admirers met outside the hotel to see him off. There
was a carriage and four to convey him to the station, and other carriages
followed. There was a military band in attendance, much to the disgust
of the Opposition journals—and yet, in spite of all, the cheers which
followed the departing statesman were so faint as to be perfectly
ridiculous to a British ear, and seemed quite out of proportion to all
the display that had been made. Certainly they seemed quite childish
compared with those which greeted a certain individual, whose name
delicacy forbids my mentioning, when, on the last night on board the
_Sarnia_, he ventured humbly to reply to the toast of the Press which had
been given in the smoking-room by a Quebec artist returning home from
study in Paris.
In Ottawa, certainly, there is no demand for emigrants, unless it be good
female servants, who are wanted much more, and can have much more
comfortable living, at home. A lady asked me to send her a few good
servants from England. I replied that my wife wanted them as much as she
did, and that it was my duty to attend to her requirements first.
It is curious the airs the raw servant-girls from Ireland give themselves
out here. One day, when I was at Peterborough, one of the head-quarters
of the lumber trade—which yesterday was a dense forest, and is now a town
of 8,000 people—I heard of the arrival of a lot of girls from Galway.
The drill-hall was set apart for their use, and there they were
respectfully waited on by the chief ladies of the district in need of
that rarest of created beings—a good maid-of-all-work. In this
particular case one of the arrivals was fixed on.
‘What can you do?’ said the lady.
The girl seemed uncertain on that point.
‘Can you wash?’
‘Oh no!’
‘Can you cook?’
‘Oh no!’
‘Can you do housemaid’s work?’
Well, she thought she could.
Then came the question of wages.
‘Will you take eight dollars a month?’
No, she would not. Would she accept of nine? Oh no! Would she take
ten? Certainly not.
‘What do you want?’ said the lady, beginning to be alarmed.
‘They told me I was to have twelve dollars a month,’ said the girl, and
that put a stop to the negotiation.
When I state that an English sovereign is worth at this time four dollars
and eighty-six cents, I think you will agree with me that this charming
daughter of Erin somewhat overrated the value of her services. The
Canadians are a well-to-do people, but they cannot afford twelve dollars
a month for a mere housemaid. I think it would be well if the
respectable young women—of whom there are thousands in England who do not
care for the pittance given to a governess, and who prefer the life of a
lady-help—were to come out. They would soon be appreciated.
The average girl selected to be sent out to the colony, so far as I have
seen her, is not a model of loveliness or utility. Were I a Canadian
mother, I would sooner have a lady-help. Nor need the lady-help be
afraid of the roughness of her lot. In Ontario, all the difficulties of
the pioneers of civilization have long since disappeared. One hears
strange tales of what those brave men and delicately nurtured ladies had
to suffer.
I have seen two—whom I had known when a boy—who were familiar with the
best of London literary society, who figured in all the annuals of the
season, who were famous in their day, whose sires came over with William
the Conqueror. They were sisters, and married two officers, who had land
allotted to them in Canada, and brought out these wellborn and delicately
nurtured women into what was then a waste, howling wilderness, where they
had to slave as no servant-girl slaves in England, and to fight with the
severity of the climate in a way of which the present generation of
Canadians have no idea. Only think, for instance, of your joint roasting
at the fire on one side and freezing on the other! In the settled parts
of Canada, such horrors are now amongst the pleasant reminiscences of the
past.
But I must return to Ottawa, where the universal testimony of all the
heads of the Government was to the effect that Canada is the place for
the poor, hard-working man. There is an emigration-office in every town,
where the emigrant is sure to hear of work, if work is to be had.
Canada is a charming place for the traveller. He sees friends
everywhere. Mr. John H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, and Mr. John
Lowe, Secretary, were especially useful in aiding me. As I called on the
Minister of Finance, he insisted on my seeing the Premier—Sir John
Macdonald—who came out of a Council to give me a friendly chat for half
an hour, and who kindly asked me to call on him again on my return. In
Canada the Council sits almost daily, and the sitting generally lasts
from two till six, as all the business which is left in England to the
departments, in Canada is transacted in the Council. Sir John seemed to
think that a good deal of time was wasted in speeches in Parliament,
which were intended not for the House, but for the constituents outside:
in this respect the Canadian Parliament much resembles a more august
assembly nearer home.
I had also the honour of an interview with the Marquis of Lansdowne at
the Government House, in a pretty park about a mile out of the town. His
lordship enjoys his residence at Ottawa very much, and said he should
leave it with regret. His idea seemed to be that now was the time for
English farmers with a little capital to come out to Ontario, as the old
farmers are selling off their farms and going further, to take up large
tracts of land in the North-West; and I think many English farmers would
be wise if they adopted some such plan. The Province is called the
Garden of Canada.
At present I have seen no very superior land. There is a good deal of
sand where I have been and wheat-growing is out of the question; but the
barley is excellent, and is in great demand in the United States, and a
good deal of money is made by raising stock and horses. At any rate, no
farmer here is in danger of losing all his capital—most of them are well
off, and their sons and daughters prosper as well.
Let me give a few further particulars respecting Sir John
Macdonald—perhaps the most abused, and the hardest working man, in all
Canada. He has good Scotch blood in his veins. In the thirteenth
century one of his ancestors looms up as Lord of South Kintyre and the
Island of Islay. When the emigration movement to Canada began, a
descendant of this Macdonald settled in Kingston, then the most important
town in Upper Canada, and, next to Halifax and Quebec, the strongest
fortress in British North America. He was accompanied by the future
Premier, then a lad of five years of age. The boy was placed at the
Royal Grammar School of Kingston, under the tuition of Dr. Wilson, a
fellow of the University of Oxford, and subsequently under that of Mr.
George Baxter. Meanwhile, his father moved to Quinté Bay, near the Lake
of the Mountain, a lonely, wild country, in which the future Canadian
statesman was often to be seen in the holiday time, with a fishing rod in
his hand, with other companions as gay-hearted as himself. At that time
he is described as having ‘a very intelligent and pleasing face, strange
furry-looking hair, that curled in a dark mass, and a striking nose.’
Indeed, Sir John’s admirers see in him a resemblance to the late Lord
Beaconsfield, and that there is a slight resemblance the most superficial
observer must admit. As a lad, Sir John seems to have specially
distinguished himself in mathematics. His master also, we are told,
frequently exhibited the clean-kept books of young Macdonald to some
careless student for emulation, and as often selected specimens of the
neat penmanship of the boy, to put to shame some of the slovenly writers
of his class.
At sixteen young Macdonald commenced the study of law, to which he
devoted three years. The gentleman to whom he was articled speaks of him
as the most diligent student he had ever seen. Before he was twenty-one
years of age he was admitted to the Bar, opened an office at Kingston,
and at once began to practise his profession. ‘He was,’ says a
fellow-student, ‘an exemplary young man, and had the goodwill of
everybody. He remained closely at his business, never went about
spreeing, or losing his time, with the young men of his own age and
standing, did not drive fast horses, but was always to be found at his
post in his office, courteous, obliging, and prompt.’ When Sir John
commenced his legal career, the country was full of revolution, and every
county in Canada had its Radicals ready to take up muskets or pitchforks
against the oppressor. Sir John, though a Tory, was often the means of
doing good service to his friends of the opposite party. In defending a
rebel who was tried for murder, the future Premier gained his first legal
success. It was a time of intense excitement, and crowds thronged to see
the prisoners and hear the trials. Everyone was struck with the masterly
character of Sir John’s defence; and though they knew it was not within
the power of human tongue or brain to save the prisoner, they admired the
skill with which he marshalled his arguments, the tact he displayed in
his appeal to the judges, and, above all, the deep interest he displayed
in the cause of his unfortunate client. This was in 1838; from that date
Sir John was looked to as a rising man. In a little while afterwards he
commenced his stormy political career.
In 1841 Kingston was made the seat of Government, and Sir John was
returned to Parliament, in place of a politician who had lost his
popularity. The assembly was an excited one, and everyone made furious
speeches, with the exception of the new member, who sat unmoved at his
desk while the fray went on, looking, says a gentleman who well remembers
him there, half contemptuous and half careless. In 1844, he commenced
his executive career by being appointed to the Standing Orders Committee.
His first speech was delivered with an easy air of confidence, as
captivating as it was rare. The time ripened rapidly. The old Tory
Compact Party was being swiftly broken up, and when Lord Elgin arrived in
Canada, a new Government was formed, with Sir John as Receiver-General.
In a little while he was moved to the Office of Crown Lands, then the
most important department in the public service, and one that in the past
had been most shamefully, if not most criminally abused, but he was soon
out of office, and a new Ministry came into force, pledged to a Bill for
the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property had been
destroyed in the rebellion. There were awful riots. The Parliament
buildings in Montreal were burned, and it seemed as if the old feud
between Frenchman and Englishman had been roused, never more to die.
Lord Elgin was ready to return to England The reformers were strong, but
Macdonald did not despair. The new Government, amongst other things,
were pledged to increased parliamentary representation, the abolition of
seignorial tenure, and the secularization of the Clergy Reserves. Of the
Government that attempted to do this, Sir John was a bitter opponent, on
the ground that they had hesitated about questions which had set the
country in a blaze. The Government had to retire, and in the
Liberal-Conservative Ministry which succeeded to office we find Mr.
Macdonald Attorney General, and he held office till he was defeated in
his Militia Bill. He returned to office, however, in time to carry a
confederation of the Colonies, and to become Premier, when Lord Monck was
Governor-General.
Since he has been at the head of affairs the Hudson Bay Company has
handed over its gigantic territory in the North West to the Dominion.
That great work, the Canada Pacific Railway, has nearly been brought to a
successful termination, and Canada has taken a leap upwards and onwards
to matured life and independence, of which not yet have we seen the end.
It is a terrible scene of personal attack, political life in Canada.
Even since Parliamentary Government has been established, the fight
between the ins and the outs has been bitter and constant. No one can
understand it, unless he is a native of the country; and it says much for
Sir John that he has risen to the top, and kept himself there so long.
To have done so, he must have possessed more merit than his enemies give
him credit for.