Criticisms by foreign authors--How Canada is regarded in other
countries--Passports--“Only a Colonist”--Virchow’s unwelcome
inference--Canadians are too modest--Imperfect guide-books--A
reciprocity treaty wanted.
In my readings from time to time I come across many remarks by foreign
and other authors, that I feel are belittling to our country. If we only
took to the self-laudation practised by our Yankee neighbors, such
arguments, or, rather, want of arguments--but rather noises--would at
least make us better known. I feel that we as a people are far too
modest. Remaining at home, or at least within our own boundaries, one
does not so keenly feel how little our country amounts to or is known
abroad. On travelling on the continent of Europe, now and then in
company with some Americans, and once getting away from the seaport
towns, I could not make the people understand that I was anything but a
Yankee. Since I came from America _du nord_, I must, of course, be a
Yankee, and no amount of explanation in the best French I could command
would make them understand that I was a British subject. One day
particularly, in Florence, Italy, I recollect buying a postage stamp, to
send a letter home, on which was the plain address, Canada. Being
somewhat in doubt if I had placed sufficient postage on the letter, I
asked “if that was enough for Canada.” “‘Tis all the same. All America,
all United States.” “But this is not for the United States.” “Oh, yes,
it’s all United States, all America, _du nord_.” And so my country
counted for nothing. The great Republic completely swamps us away from
home, disguise the fact as we may, and we may as well acknowledge it.
Even in Liverpool, I recollect when walking down the landing-stage,
valise in hand, about to board the steamer to sail for home two summers
ago, a little newsboy ran up before me and said, “Sir, don’t you want to
buy the New York _Herald_?” Of course I bought the paper for the little
urchin’s shrewdness in picking me out as being from America. I only
mention this simple anecdote to show that across the Atlantic it’s all
America and all the United States, almost without a discrimination. In
the matter of passports, now happily not nearly so necessary in Europe
as formerly, I have found at different times it is always better to be
provided with one for emergencies which may at any time arise. Going
down into Italy by the Monte Cenis route, the officials dumped us all
out at Modaire, through which town and depot the line between France and
Italy passed. I had to enter a door and pass a drawn-up guard of
soldiers and through a passage for the examination of passports. Ahead
of us were a number of Americans, who simply showed the eagle on the
seal of their passports, and who were allowed to pass unchallenged. My
turn came, and I showed the lion on my Canadian passport, and then my
trouble came. It was not British, the examiner said, but from America,
and did not bear an eagle like the Americans’ passports. I felt
humiliated and disgusted, that my own country with its five millions,
and the third naval (commercial) power of the world, was literally
unknown. Fortunately for me the examination was not very strict, and I
passed by parting with a small coin or two.
I would surely obtain a British passport if I were again travelling in
regions where passports are needed in order to get along easily and
without detentions.
Americans when abroad on the Continent very frequently call upon their
consul, and would return to the hotel, telling us of the delightful hour
spent in genial talk with their consul, and the information obtained
from him, and letters of admission to galleries, museums, etc.
Consistently I cannot pass myself off as a Yankee and go with them, but
determine to visit the British consul, who ought perforce to be my own;
and I call on him, and he looks at my passport, which he deliberately
folds, and hands back to me. He is too well bred to treat me positively
rudely, but the general air of his demeanor instantly makes me feel that
he considers me “only a colonist” and a person of no account in
particular, and not really worth very much of his consideration. One
experience of this kind suffices usually, and hereafter I let the
consuls alone. To be “only a colonist” at home does not seem to weigh
one down very much, but abroad to be told that a few times makes it
beyond human nature to not feel a spirit of resentment. As to being a
colonist it is quite right, and I am proud of the fact and do not wish
to change my position. If they would leave off the small word “only”
before “a colonist” it would take away all the sting, and make the
Canadian traveller feel that he is just as good as our British brothers
at home, our forefathers and relatives. When this “only a colonist” was
said to me, I generally felt it like the greeting accorded a son of some
obscure man; the son being exceedingly worthy, and having risen by his
talents, but “he’s only old Jones’s son,” and of course he can’t be
anybody. Canada is usually spoken of by foreign writers as a part of the
“frozen north.” This is really too bad when Ontario, which contains very
nearly one-half of the entire population of the Dominion, possesses a
climate far milder than the New England States, and quite as mild as
that of the great State of New York, just south of us. In an article on
“Acclimatization,” in the _Popular Science Monthly_, by so eminent an
author as Professor Virchow, is this sentence, “No one has, for example,
seen a people of the white race become black under the tropics, or
negroes transplanted to the polar regions, or to Canada, metamorphosed
into whites.” This coupling of us by implication with the frozen north,
coming from so eminent a man as Virchow, cuts. It is true that Canada
runs far to the north, but at the same time it would be just as fair to
speak of the United States as in the polar regions, since it has
Alaska, which is veritably in the Arctic zone, but at the same time, and
just the same as with us, but a very small part of their population is
there. Writers never speak of the United States as in the polar regions.
When we are not spoken of as inhabitants of the polar regions we are
described as French. Now, the inhabitants of Quebec have always
contended that they are the Canadians, and what the rest of us, the
great majority, are I can scarcely make out.
Once I was in an office in Broadway, New York, and happened to state
that I was a Canadian. The Yankee manager of that office remarked “that
he as yet hardly knew how to classify Canadians--whether as Englishmen
or Americans--and, in fact, that the world had not yet made up its mind
what we were.” If we were all French (and I am not for a moment speaking
disparagingly of our _habitants_), we could then be easily classified.
But to be called “only a colonist” in Europe, and in New York neither an
Englishman nor an American, makes one’s position as a genuine Canadian a
little foggy. The effort to distinguish by the spelling “Canadians” for
the English-speaking, and “_Canadiens_” for the French-speaking, is all
very well, and will no doubt work well enough at home. But abroad the
average Englishman, if you spell Canadian with an “e,” will simply put
you down as an ignorant fellow and a poor speller. And now can you
wonder what the people of continental Europe will think of us, if they
think of us at all, as apart from the United States? The plain truth of
the case is that we are far too modest, as I said at the beginning of
this chapter, and do not “blow” enough about our own country to cause it
to be better known abroad. The great west of the United States was
surely made and settled by the Yankee “blowing.” Their papers are ever
full of “spread eagle,” and always telling about their boundless
country, always praising their own institutions, and pulling down those
of the “oppressed monarchy of Great Britain,” and always representing
their country as the earthly paradise.
Dr. Lyman Abbott, in the course of a visit to Ontario, frankly
admitted--privately, of course--that our free school system, and
likewise its management, were superior to those of the American States.
Then let us wake up, and since it seems to be absolutely necessary to
“blow” about ourselves, let us copy the apt example of the Yankees and
do it--and do it so strongly as to make up for past deficiencies.
Guide books of travel, published both in America and Europe, for travel
in Canada, send the tourist invariably from New York City up the Hudson
by steamer to Albany; then by the New York Central Railway to Niagara
Falls. They do admit that the Falls are worth seeing. Then they send the
tourist by steamer to Toronto, and tell him to take the Richelieu
steamers, down the St. Lawrence from there, and run the rapids to
Montreal. From Montreal he is to take the night boat for Quebec and come
back again to Montreal by the day boat, and then go south to Lake
George, and this is all the tourist is to see of Canada. Thousands of
American and British tourists form their opinions of us from what they
see on this water tour through Canada. Of course, going down Lake
Ontario they see next to nothing of us or our country, because the lake
is too big to see much on the shore. Entering the St. Lawrence, they
view shores studded with rocks, and have not the faintest idea of our
fertile lands and rich farms, which give to Ontario its wealth. The
wealth of Ontario is certainly in her comfortable homesteads and fertile
fields. Of this the tourist knows nothing, and he goes down to Quebec
city to see, as best he may in America to-day, the best example of a
city in the eighteenth century style; and he passes out of our borders,
having come almost wholly in contact with our French population, and
goes away considering our land a land of stones peopled by Frenchmen.
The tourist travels too quickly to get proper impressions of a country,
I think I hear many readers say. Granted, but still many impressions are
got of countries by tourists by such rapid travelling, and we cannot
help the fact. The only way we can help the matter appears to me to be
for our railways to join and offer a general tourist ticket, taking the
tourist all over our country at a reasonable rate, and allowing him to
stop off when and where he will. Such tickets ought to be advertised in
Great Britain and the United States, and be on sale there. If once
bought they would be used. While using such tickets the tourist could
scarcely fail to get considerable knowledge of us and of our country.
Tourists, as a rule, are persons of means and of influence at home. Many
of them might thus be induced to bring capital to our country and make
it their home, to our and their advantage.
Ontario would make a grand State, the Americans tell us, when they look
with coveting eyes over this way. Yes, indeed, she would, and any other
one of the States would not keep pace with us; but they are not going to
get us. Give our people a reciprocity treaty, so that we can trade with
our American cousins, and leave Ontario to manage Ontario’s affairs, and
she will remain content. If a vote of Ontario farm-owners were taken
to-day on the reciprocity question, nine out of every ten would vote for
it, and we should have it. Our people are loyal and attached to the
Mother Country, and have no thought of severing the tie, but Britain is
3,000 miles away, and the United States is beside us. It is obvious that
we can more easily trade with the United States than Britain; hence, to
us, a treaty is to-day the greatest element in our politics. Even with
all the restrictions now imposed by the United States and ourselves, our
trade with the United States is enormous.
Politicians may wrangle and fritter away our money at Ottawa, and cause
us to many times feel well-nigh disgusted at them; still, so long as
they do not resort to direct taxation at Ottawa our country people will
stand an almost untold amount of fraud without much complaint. If the
Mother Country desires us to be joined into the talked-of universal
confederation, we would first like to know how we are to be benefited
thereby. For, as we now feel, we think that Ontario bears nearly all the
burdens of our Dominion, and we do not want to have tacked on to us any
more burdens or some other poor relatives of colonies. If the Mother
Country would put on a tariff against all the world except her own
colonies, and allow us free trade with her, we could see some use to us
for such a gigantic union. Just now, as it is, we do not want to join
any such scheme for an idea, although we reverently love and honor our
common Mother Country.