any spoken words fly too swiftly it is because one bad habit, and one
only, exists among the politicians of Canada. It is this--and I am sure
you will realise the melancholy significance of the fact to which I am
so reluctantly compelled to allude--it is, that Canadian politicians do
not bring their wives with them to Ottawa. (Uproarious laughter.) I
hope the recently developed doctrines of constitutional duty may still
allow a Governor-General to take the initiative in making a suggestion,
and my suggestion would be that the ladies should favour us with their
presence at Ottawa, for I am certain that an alteration in this
practice would soon put a stop to the reports to which I have drawn
your attention, which some people may think may detract from the
position of our celebrated, and alas! at Ottawa, too often celebate
politicians. (Roars of laughter.) And now, gentlemen, I have only to
thank you repeatedly and most earnestly for your welcome, and the
citizens of Toronto I would thank, through you, at large for the
extreme kindness with which they have been pleased to receive us. But I
believe, gentlemen, it is not mere kindness that is shown by such
demonstrations as those we have recently seen. If it were that only, it
would perhaps lose some of its significance. In the display made we
have seen the outpouring of the heart of a people whose loyal passion
is strong for the unity which binds a great History to a greater
Present, and which, under the temperate sceptre of our beloved Queen,
is leading Canada and Britain together in freedom to an assured and yet
more glorious Future. (Cheers.)
During a visit in 1879 to St. John, a city then suffering from the
effects of a disastrous fire, he said:--
Although there may be temporary pressure, and partial failure in trade,
not a year elapses that does not indicate progress made in the material
welfare of the country as a whole. The Dominion is steadily and surely
rising in wealth, in unity of feeling, in all that makes a nation. Our
territories are enormous, and no one need travel far in any Province,
but he will find new clearings and fresh settlements; while land in
abundance and of great excellence, as compared with much in the old
country, can be had almost for the asking.
Throughout our greater Britain, and steadily and surely upon these our
eastern coasts, the people increase from decade to decade,
notwithstanding the great attractions offered by the prairie lands of
the interior. No one can look at the district you inhabit without
feeling certain that this increase will continue. Impatient, restless,
and ignorant of his true interests would that man be, indeed, who,
under such circumstances, would not desire to tread in the steps of his
fathers, to face, with British pluck and spirit, any difficulties that
may arise; and to rejoice that his lot has been cast in that Empire
which has withstood every danger, whose might has been moulded by
centuries, and whose flag has never waved over any people whose
character has not been ennobled by the free institutions it represents.
In reply to an address of the City Corporation, he said:--
To THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COMMONALTY, ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK:-Mr.
Mayor and Gentlemen,--The dignified and truthful words in which you
recall the trials through which many of your ancestors passed in this
country, now the happy home of their descendants, remind me how strong
to-day among you is the feeling of the duty of patriotism--a duty, the
fulfilment of which I rejoice to think is accompanied by no burden, but
brings with it the enjoyment of much political advantage. We have found
with pleasure that sufficient time has been at our disposal during this,
the first year after our arrival in the Dominion, when there have been
necessarily duties which have demanded attention at the capital and
journeys to be undertaken in other parts--to allow us to return to
those Maritime Provinces where we were first welcomed by a loyal people,
and to visit St. John, which must be regarded as the commercial capital
of even a wider district than is contained in New Brunswick itself.
Accept our thanks for meeting us here, on behalf of your city, and for
the genial reception tendered to us. I should indeed have considered
our first survey of our Dominion most incomplete had we been unable to
stay awhile among you.
Much we have been unable to see; many places in which we should wish to
spend some days, and where we might observe mining and other industries
successfully followed, we must hope to visit another year. In St. John
we arrive at once at one of the centres of life and activity on these
our eastern coasts. We observe with the greatest satisfaction the
evidences of the energy you bring to the aid of our common country, and
the important place you fill in promoting the welfare of our Federation.
The British people and foreign countries alike look upon the Dominion
as our Empire's eldest son, in whose life and character the nature
which has made the mother country stronger, the older it has grown, is
seen and recognised by all. You are entering on a glorious manhood,
which will, in future ages, stand forth in the beauty of strength and
pride of freedom, to be known in history as asserting a place among the
mighty of the earth.
The district is the scene of events wherein widely different actors
have played their parts, and interesting, indeed, is the development of
the story of which your harbour and town have been the theatre. Two
centuries ago the adventurer only knew this place--his company
stealing along the coast in small and battered craft, seeking a
settlement, obliged to guard against the savages of the forest, yet
full of visions of a great future for his new home, and endeavouring,
almost in vain, to interest Europe in his schemes. But the years
peopled the shores with sturdy colonists, who pushed their way,
although held down by difficulties of transport, by distance from other
settlements, by wars of race and by mutual jealousies. Now we see a
land whose natural loveliness and fertility is turned to the best
account, connected with all the life of Europe and America by countless
channels of communication, and using the arts of modern civilisation to
make the utmost of its political and geographical position.
In expressing to you our gratitude for the welcome you now give us,
accept our best wishes for your welfare, and let us utter a fervent
hope that the energy here exhibited, which no depression in trade can
master, and which even the ruin of fire has only been able, temporarily,
to affect, may receive full reward in the future prosperity of your
loyal and flourishing city.
During His Excellency's visit to Fredericton, the capital of the
Province of New Brunswick, he replied as follows to an address:--
TO THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FREDERICTON:--Mr. Mayor
and Gentlemen,--This is not the first time, as you remind me, that the
Queen's children have visited your people, and have received at their
hands the proofs of an affection for our Sovereign which animates all
Her Majesty's subjects. The Queen has now reigned for a longer period
than has been vouchsafed to most of our monarchs, over a prosperous and
united nation, whose strength has, during her life, been greatly
increased by development and consolidation of this her great Dominion.
Her Majesty possesses here the love of a people more numerous than was
the English nation when it achieved the glories which the trumpet of
fame, moved by Shakespeare's breath, made a household word among all
nations.
In Canada, I am able to receive with pride testimonials of respect,
reverence, and love for her rule, from men whose Government represents
a force, if population and material resources be taken into account,
far greater than that possessed of old by England, even in those days
which ring with the deeds of her heroes, and have been called the
"spacious times of great Elizabeth."
And while we must look upon this country as rapidly becoming one of the
moving influences of the world, we cannot forget what an advantageous
variety of position and power, within the sphere of the Dominion, is
possessed by the various Provinces. Here, in the Province of which this
city is the capital, you have the great ocean and highways so near you
that your brave and hardy maritime population can furnish your
mercantile marine with many of the best sailors in America. In the
territory, comprised within your limits, you occupy a central position
through which much of the land traffic of this part of the American
continent is likely to be conducted, and your climate gives to all who
cultivate your soil abundance of agricultural resources in corn and
pasture land.
It may not be unappropriate now, when you give us your kindly and
hospitable welcome to the capital of your Province, to ask you to
receive with our thanks the expression of our hope that the members
selected as the representatives of the Province, and who assemble here,
may be granted wisdom by the Most High to further the welfare and
promote the best interests of a true and loyal people.
During this visit to New Brunswick, he said, in reply to the Warden and
Members of the Municipality of Kings County:--
Gentlemen,--The duties connected with the high office with which I am
honoured cannot indeed be considered to impose any heavy burdens, when
their performance leads me to visit populations so kindly in their
sympathies as are those of this Province, where we meet men always glad
to testify their affection for the institutions under which they live
by their reception of the representatives of the Queen. Perhaps in no
other country in the world is it possible for the representative of any
sovereign to travel for thousands of miles, and to be everywhere
greeted with the same assurances of contentment with political
condition and affection for the throne. I thank you, especially on the
Princess's behalf, for the words you have spoken in reference to her.
She will always associate herself gladly in anything tending to the
welfare of the people of this Dominion. In so doing she will fulfil the
wish of her father the Prince Consort, whose desire it was that his
children should identify themselves with the interests of our Colonial
Empire. I hear with gladness the assurance you give of the firm and
unswerving loyalty of the people of the county of Kings, and I desire
to tender to them my sincere thanks.
The first visit to Toronto took place in 1879. A loyal and kindly
address having been read, His Excellency replied:--
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,--I remember well that the first time I saw
Toronto was when, a good many years ago, the city was pointed out to me,
where far off, over the waters its houses were visible from a spot not
distant from Niagara. This first gave me an idea of the size and
importance of your town. Men who were then with me told me that thirty
or forty years before there would not only have been nothing visible at
that distance, but only a very small settlement when viewed much nearer.
But just as the city can be seen from afar, so is its position now so
important that you cannot think of Ontario, wide as are its limits, or
indeed of Canada itself, without seeing in the mind Toronto, the
capital of our most populous Province. Here are combined things rarely
found closely united, namely, great commercial prosperity with great
literary activity. If you are proving that you can lead the way in
commerce, it is as great a distinction that you can, by the ability of
your literary men, do much towards guiding and influencing the thoughts
of your fellow-citizens of the Dominion. I thank you for your loyal
words in our Queen's name. They express the feeling I expected to find
among you, but I must speak my grateful acknowledgments for the cordial
manner in which you have given utterance to them. Adhesion to our
Empire and love for its Sovereign I knew I should find; but the
character of this great reception, the magnificence of your
preparations to welcome the representatives of the Sovereign, form a
demonstration for which I confess I was not prepared. It has been our
fortune to be kindly received by great communities, both in the old
world and in the new; but I never returned my thanks with a more
heartfelt gratitude than I do now to you, the citizens of Toronto, for
the manner, at once so splendid and so sympathetic, in which you have
been pleased to receive us. In December last, delegates from many of
the towns of Ontario came to Ottawa to give us their greeting.
Accompanying the addresses presented to us was an offering which, while
it showed a feeling of personal regard, might well, I believe, serve as
an emblem of the patriotism of Ontario. It was a wreath of that plant
which in the old country loads the air with perfume wherever moss and
mountain are most green with moisture. Reared among morasses, it grows
only where around its roots the soil is firm; and where it springs, the
foot may safely tread and securely stand. It was therefore, in olden
days, taken as my clan's badge to signify a firm faith and steady trust,
and with this signification I looked upon the wreath of marsh myrtle
given to us on the part of so many communities in Ontario last December,
as a fit emblem and just expression of that steady, firm, and faithful
support which our Queen will ever find wherever a citizen of Ontario
lives to assert his rights and freedom in upholding the honour, the
dignity, and the power of our united Empire.
To an address in German, presented in 1879 at Berlin, Ontario, the
Governor-General answered:--
Meine Herren und Damen!--Die Prinzessin und ich finden es eine unserer
angenehmsten Pflichten, Ihnen einen Besuch hier zu machen, um uns von
der Fruchtbarkeit, welche Ihre Kolonie charakterisirt, zu überzeugen.
Wir freuen uns um so mehr, da Ihre Zuschrift uns in der lieben
deutschen Sprache ein Willkommen sagt, und die Versicherung deutscher
Treue aus deutschem Munde kommt.
Wir wissen, daß Sie als Zeichen der Gesinnung Ihrer deutschen
Bevölkerung in Kanada den Spruch, der seit Jahrhunderten dem
Sächsischen Hause angehört:--"Treu und fest," als ihr Motto nehmen
könnten.
Obgleich Sie uns in so treuer Weise empfangen, und der Königin Ihre
Ehrerbietung beweisen, bleiben Sie dennoch gute Deutsche, und sind
darauf stolz, daß Sie Ihre Kinder und Kindeskinder in der kräftigen
Muttersprache erziehen können.
Die Liebe für das alte, deutsche Vaterland sollte nie aussterben; es
verhindert jedoch nicht, daß Sie auch die englische Sprache benützen,
die doch so sehr mit der deutschen verwandt ist.
Die schönen Worte, die der Poet Arndt geschrieben hat, find Ihnen wohl
alle bekannt und wir können sie hier, wo Sie ein anderes Land zu Ihrem Land
gemacht haben, wohl gebrauchen:
"Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?
Ist's Preußenland? Ist's Schwabenland?
Ist's wo am Rhein die Rebe blüht?
Ist's wo am Belt die Möve zieht?
Doch Nein! Nein! Nein!
Sein Vaterland muß größer sein!"
Kann man nicht hier diesen Worten eine weitere Deutung geben?--Können
Sie nicht als Mitbürger und Gründer einer neuen Nation dieselbe mit
allem Edlen, was von dem alten Lande kommt, lenken und stärken?
Es ist uns eine wahre Freude, von allen Seiten zu hören, wie man die
deutschen Ansiedler achtet und schätzt und sie als einen wichtigen
Zusatz zu unseren Kräften betrachtet. Ihre Wissenschaft, ihre Liebe für
die gute Erziehung der Jugend, sowohl in höheren Studien, als in den
Studien, durch welche die gewerblichen Fortbildungsschulen in
Deutschland sich einen so ruhmhaften Namen gemacht haben; ihre
Sparsamkeit und ihr Fleiß, sind Canada viele Tausend Quadratmeilen
Landes werth.--Die häuslichen Tugenden ihrer Frauen und Töchter sind
ein schönes Beispiel für Alle.
Ich hoffe, daß die Zahl deutscher Einwanderer sich mehren wird und
werde in meinen Erwartungen dadurch bestärkt, daß es bei Ihnen daheim
gewiß Viele giebt, die überzeugt sind, daß das Vaterland nicht
geschwächt wird, wenn deutsche Töchter jenseits des atlantischen Meeres
gute Männer finden. Es wird uns sehr angenehm sein, der deutschen
kaiserlichen Familie sagen zu können, wie Sie in Canada glücklich
leben, und als Männer, die dem Lande Glück bringen, angesehen werden.
In 1880, it was resolved that an Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition,
supported by a Federal grant, should each year be held at some city of
the Dominion. The first of these central and national meetings took
place at Ottawa. It was largely attended, and opened by the
Governor-General with these remarks:--
Mr. President and Gentlemen,--I thank you for the address which you
have read to me, expressing that deep loyalty to the Queen which, not
merely from hearsay, but from observation of the sentiments which
animate the people of Canada, whether in the cities or in the country,
I know to be real and universal. The Princess joins with me in asking
you to accept our gratitude for your recognition of the interest we
feel in the great efforts at present made, in various parts of Canada,
to display to the best advantage the industrial achievements of our
artisans. Some of the handiwork of our two largest Provinces can be
seen in this building, while others are not unrepresented; and we have
evidence of the skill which graces the strength of a new brother--the
young giant of the west. [1] Everywhere proof is given that the Canadian
can hold his own in the rivalry that brings Art to bear on the great
natural products around us, and this is not surprising when we know
that he comes from the races which in Europe have been the most renowned
for the taste, the ingenuity, and the solidity of their workmanship.
Where so many regions have but recently been peopled, there is, it need
hardly be said, much to be done, and it is most satisfactory to see how
each city and town is bending itself to the task to prove that there is
no laggard in the patriotic competition. I have gladly attended several
of these shows, and it is a feature peculiar to this country that the
industrial exhibition so generally accompanies the agricultural show.
Whether this shall always be the case as in the gathering inaugurated
to-day, it will be of course for you to determine by experience of
success in your venture in thus combining them. This is, perhaps,
the first meeting to which more than a local character has been given.
It will be a matter for your consideration, and for all in Canada
interested in your endeavours, whether a novel practice be established
here in moving to each Province in succession the Central Exhibition,
without injury to the local fairs, which will, in any case, be held.
If you decide to move the agricultural show from Province to Province
in successive years, no new practice would thereby be espoused, for
such has been the custom of the national societies of England,
Scotland, and Ireland. In the old countries the spaces to be traversed
are much smaller, but the need of comparison between the various
exhibits is also much less. The local shows are held there in almost
every county, but the advantage derived from the annual moving of the
national societies has been well expressed in the words of a former
and justly beloved Viceroy of Ireland, who said that the experience
the National Society had earned for itself had, by its annual movement,
been carried through every part of the land, through each Province
in turn; and this had tended to ruse together the knowledge of the
best specialties of each, whether in tillage or in pasture, in cereals
or in green crops, or in the breeding and fattening of cattle. With
us in Canada, if a similar practice were followed, we might perhaps
add that comparison would benefit the proper employment of the best
agricultural machinery, for the manufacture of which our Canadian
artisans have won high commendation at the greatest international
contests. If you discuss these questions, I am sure you will do so,
not with the view of benefiting one city or Province only, but in
the spirit which sees in all common efforts a means of uniting
our Canadian people, and an instrument to make a national feeling
create a national prosperity. We may congratulate our countrymen that
in the live stock of all kinds shown to-day, we have a representation
of those vast resources which yield so much in excess of our own
requirements that we can relieve the wants of older lands; and how
great is the difference between the bygone traffic from the new world
to enrich Europe and what we now witness! In other days the southern
seas were covered with the towering galleons of Spain, bringing the
ingots of gold and silver, wrought in the mines of America through the
cruel labour of thousands of enslaved Indians. This was the wealth
which poured into the treasuries of a nation whose riches reared the
colossal palaces of the Escorial, and the wondrous Minster of Seville.
The creation of such prosperity meant a short-lived reign of luxury and
cruelty--the lifting up of an old country for a time--the abasement of
a new land. How different the happy and more lasting wealth with which
we are able to endow Europe from Canada, when the parent land and the
Dominion alike reap equal fruits from a bounteous harvest. Our treasure
fleets are now laden with golden grain, and flocks and herds; with
riches wrung from no servitude, but derived from the free and noble
toil of a liberty-loving, independent, and self-reliant people. It is
to the men who have cleared the tangled forests, or have tilled the
prairie lands, that we owe such great shows of agricultural wealth as
those we have lately seen, and which prove how rich and inexhaustible
are the veins of ore from which we can give enough and to spare.
May the endeavour of such a society as this, assisted as it has been
chiefly by individual efforts, but countenanced by the Dominion
Government, be to extend for the general good of our country, the
experience it earns and whatever success is secured by the co-operation
of the citizens.
[1] Manitoba.
[During the delivery of the address the gates had been opened and the
people allowed to come in so as to hear His Excellency's reply, and at
its close they gave hearty cheering.]
The first Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art took place at
Ottawa in 1880. The experiment of collecting together the work of
artists resident in the country, was a success from the commencement,
and the annual meetings since held have fully warranted the formation
of a National Society for the Promotion of Art. The Governor-General
gave the opening address as follows:--