THE AFTER YEARS
Further extracts from the master's diary would not help the story I am
telling you, for it becomes such a record as many farmers keep,--when
they sowed and reaped, what they sold and bought. Having completed the
account of his first year's experience in the bush for his friend in
Scotland, he ceased noting down his daily happenings, which for him no
longer had the interest of novelty. The forest had been sufficiently
subdued to enable him to gain a living from the land, and his life
partook more and more of the routine of Canadian farmers. He was,
however, much more successful than the majority of them, due to his
energy and skill. His first decided start was due to the existence of
that swamp whose discovery filled him with dismay. The forage he got off
it enabled him to start keeping stock long before he otherwise could
have done. In the fall of 1826 he bought a cow and a couple of two-year
old heifers, and the following spring there was enough milk to enable
the mistress to make a few cheese. These gave the farm a reputation
which established a steady demand at a paying price. More cows were
got, no grain was sold, everything was fed, and the master, with the
help of the mistress, led in dairying. In Ayrshire she had the name of
making the best cheese in the parish and her skill stood the family in
good stead in Canada. That second summer the entire swamp was brought
into cultivation, and it proved to be the best land on the farm for
grass. When other pastures were dried up, cattle had a bite on the
swamp, for so it continued to be called long after it had lost all the
features of a swamp. The clearing of the forest went on steadily, so
that each fall saw a larger yield of grain and roots. In the fifth year
the master was rejoiced to find many of the stumps could be dragged out
by oxen, and a field secured on which he could use the long-handled plow
as in Scotland. An unlooked for result of the draining of the swamp and
the sweeping away of the forest in every direction was the gradual
drying up of the pond. A more striking instance was told me by a settler
who was led to choose a lot near lake Simcoe on account of a brook
prattling across it and which reminded him of Scotland. In twenty years
the brook was gone, the plow turning furrows on its bed. The one great
drawback to the progress of the three families was the lack of a road to
Yonge-street. In winter there was little difficulty for then snow made a
highway, but the rest of the year no wheeled vehicle could go over it.
At one of the sessions of the legislature, when the estimates for roads
and bridges was up, the owner of the 1200 acre block of land that was
the cause of our trouble, made a pathetic appeal for a grant to give an
outlet to three of the thriftiest and most deserving families he had any
acquaintance with, and his appeal resulted in a hundred dollars being
voted. Two years later, on being questioned by the master about the
grant, the honorable gentleman (for he had Hon. before his name) told
him he had drawn the money but there was no condition as to the time he
should start the work. In 1830 there set in an unprecedented influx of
immigrants, who wanted land. The honorable gentleman saw his opportunity
and sold every acre of the 1200. Those who bought had to cut out the
road, and making it passable for travel was hard work for years, on
account of the size of the stumps and of many parts having to be
corduroyed.
With the coming of these new neighbors, a school became necessary and in
it services were held on Sunday. The master sought the help of a
Presbyterian minister in Toronto. He came once; on finding how rude
everything was, he declined to return. A North of Ireland family was no
more successful with an Anglican minister. He had newly come out from a
cathedral city in the south of England and was shocked to find the log
school had not a robing-room. The end was that a Methodist circuit-rider
took in our settlement in his rounds, which resulted in a majority of
those who attended his services uniting with the Methodist church. The
ministers who came from the Old Country in those early days were
singularly unfit for new settlements. The Anglican on landing assumed he
was the only duly accredited clergyman, and was offended at his claim
being slighted, while his feelings were jarred by the lack of conditions
he considered essential to the proper conducting of worship. The
Presbyterian ministers were more amenable to the changes, yet their
ideals were of the parishes they had known in Scotland--a church, a
manse, a glebe, tiends, and a titled patron. The effects of State
established churches in the Old Land were thus felt in the backwoods,
which was shown more markedly in the strife to reproduce State churches
in Canada. I look back with distress to the bitter controversy which
went on from year to year over the possession of the revenue from the
clergy reserves. The cause of strife was not altogether the money, but
the proof of superiority the possession of the fund would give. With
many it was as much pride as covetousness. When we recall the energy
that characterized the agitation over the clergy reserves, I think of
what the same effort would have accomplished had it been directed to
evangelize the province.
Another agitation, less prolonged but fiercer while it lasted, was that
which reached its head in the rebellion year. As was unavoidable, the
rule of the province on its being organized, fell into the hands of the
people who first came. They divided its public offices among themselves
and managed its affairs. In time these first-comers were outnumbered by
immigrants, but there was no change--the first-comers held to the reins.
Had they used their power in the public interest, that would have been
submitted to, but they did not--they abused their power for their own
interests. They multiplied offices, increased salaries, grabbed the
public lands, and laid the foundation of a national debt by borrowing
money. There were instances of stealing of public funds, with no
punishment following. Farmers became restless under an iniquitous
administration of public lands. The discontent, which was as wide as the
province, was taken advantage of by men who designed Canada should
become a republic, and began an agitation to bring that about. Men, like
the master, who ardently wished reforms, were repelled when they found
the main object of the leaders of the agitation was the separation of
Canada from Britain and would have nothing to do with them. The first
time the master met Mackenzie he took a dislike to him, perceiving his
overweening vanity, his habit of contradiction, and his lack of
judgment. He said he was a specimen of the unpleasant type of Scot who
meddled and denounced to attract attention and make himself of
consequence. When he saw him shaping a rebellion he declared it would be
a ridiculous failure, that no such whitrick of a creature could lead in
the people's cause. There were grievous wrongs to be righted, but he
held the advocacy of the changes called for by such men as Mackenzie was
a hindrance instead of a help to their being secured. Brodie's oldest
son was somewhat conceited, and had come to believe he was born to be
something else than a farmer. I think the isolation of farm life
conduces to develop that notion. The boy brought little in contact with
his fellows, does not have his pretensions rubbed down, and comes to
think he is superior to them. I have seen many such, who thinking they
were business men, or would shine in some public capacity, or were
fitted to adorn a profession, made shipwreck of their lives in leaving
the plow. Hugh was one of those. A good fellow and a good worker with
his father, he began by frequenting corner-stores at night and before
long considered himself an authority in politics and was ready to argue
in a long-winded and dreary fashion with any who disputed his crude
assertions. Taken notice of by leaders in the agitation going on,
appointed to committees and consulted as to plans on foot, he became
carried away and neglected his home duties. When the explosion took
place in December, 1837, he was one of those who met at Montgomery's
tavern. A decisive blow could have been struck had the men there
gathered marched to Toronto and seized the guns stored in the city hall.
There was no man to take the lead. Mackenzie vapored and complained of
others, formed plans one hour to change the next, and demonstrated the
weakness of his shallow nature. Seeing this, farmers sincerely desirous
of a change in the rule of the province, left for their homes, and the
handful left were routed without trouble. Hugh was among those made
prisoners and placed in Toronto jail. His father was in great distress
and implored me to help to get him released. My stay in Toronto had
given a knowledge of its officials and I told him if he was willing to
pay it might be done. We went to the home of the prosecutor for the
crown. The father told his tale and, in piteous terms, begged the return
of his son to his distracted mother. Perceiving what he said had no
effect, I took the gentleman aside and told him the father might give
cash bail. 'How much is he ready to deposit?' was asked. I thought he
had $25 in his pocket. 'Not enough,' he replied. 'The lad can be
indicted for treason which means hanging.' 'You cannot get evidence
against him on that charge. Say what you want?' Turning to Brodie he
said if he would deposit ten pounds, and enter into the proper
recognizances he would give him an order to the jailor for his son's
release. Without a word of demur the father counted out $40 of his
painfully gathered savings and the chancellor scribbled the order. On
reaching the prison the jailor raised objections. It was now dark and
after hours and the lad had been boarded four days and the fees of the
constables who had arrested him had to be paid. I cut him short by
asking 'How much?' The fellow eyed the father as if calculating the
extent of his ability to pay. 'Two pound ten,' he said. 'Nonsense,' I
replied, 'farmers have not that much money to give away; say one pound
ten and I will advance it for him.' He nodded and I passed the money.
Going upstairs he threw open a door, and we saw in the hall, or rather
corridor, a crowd of men. They were silent with the exception of one who
was denouncing his being held as an outrage, for he was as loyal as the
governor himself. The rest of them were enduring their condition in
sullen silence. Among them were industrious farmers who had warrants
issued against them because they had been known to threaten officials in
the land-office for not getting patents for the lots they had paid for,
farmers arrested on informations lodged by men who owed them, others by
officials who expected to share in their property when confiscated, and
barroom politicians who had expressed their opinions too freely about
those in power. A few, however, were thoughtless young fellows who had
been drawn to visit Montgomery's tavern from mere curiosity and love of
excitement. The room was lighted dimly by two lamps hung on the walls;
the heat was stifling, the odor sickening. We looked among the throng
for Hugh. His father pulled my sleeve and pointed to a far corner, where
he was squat on the floor with his face to the wall in the stupor of
despair. The jailer jostled his way to him, and grasped his collar. Hugh
turned his face in agonized apprehension of his fate, for he told us
afterwards he expected to be hanged, and that he was wanted. Dragging
him to where we stood the poor fellow collapsed at sight of his father
and fell on his neck. Hastening downstairs the jailer opened the wicket
and we were on the street. Hugh was dazed when he saw the jailer did not
follow 'Where are we going, father?' 'Going home.' 'Have I not to go
back to prison?' 'No, you are free.' Hugh broke down and cried. 'We will
have supper and then we will hitch up.' 'No, no,' sobbed Hugh, 'let us
go home now.' On shaking hands with them as the horse started, I saw
poor Hugh was thuroly humbled and penitent. It was not for a brief time,
for on going home he proved what his boyhood had promised, an obedient
son and steady worker. 'He never has now a word of complaint about what
is set on the table,' whispered his mother to me.
This ridiculous attempt at a revolution had one good and one bad effect.
The good, was a change in the government that made conditions more
tolerable; the bad, was in giving color to fastening upon Liberals the
stigma of disloyalty. The leaders in the attempted rising had declared
for separation from Britain, and those of them who escaped across the
frontier became avowed annexationists. What they were the Tories
asserted all Liberals were and the maintenance of British connection
depended upon their being kept out of office. The many years that have
passed have made that pretension traditional, and whenever there is an
election, I hear the charge of disloyalty imputed to Liberals and the
claim to exclusive loyalty made by their opponents.
The passing years have wrought a marvellous change in the face of the
country. Our drive up Yonge-street in 1825 was like a boat tracing a
narrow channel of the sea. On either hand was a continuous wall of
forest, and where an attempt had been made to push it back the uncarved
bush projected like rocky promontories. The houses passed at wide
intervals were shanties; the clearances in which they were set cluttered
with stumps. How different now. Handsome residences have replaced the
log-shanties, the bush has become a graceful fringe in the background of
smooth, well-tilled fields. Like the ocean which keeps no trace of the
keels that have furrowed its wastes, these beautiful fields are the
speechless bequest of the men and women who redeemed them from savagery
at the cost of painful privations, of exhausting, never ceasing toil, of
premature decay of strength. They fought and overcame and succeeding
generations enjoy the fruits of their labors--fruits they barely lived
to taste. These were the men and women who made Canada, the founders of
its prosperity, the true Makers of the nation to which it has grown. It
is common for politicians and their newspapers to steal for their
party-idols credit to which they have no claim, by styling them the
Makers of Canada, but no suppression of facts, no titles the crown is
misled to confer, no Windsor uniforms, no strutting in swords and cocked
hats, no declarations and resolutions of parliament, no blare of party
conventions, no lies graven on marble, nor statues of bronze, can change
the truth, that the True Makers of Canada were those who, in obscurity
and poverty, made it with ax and spade, with plow and scythe, with sweat
of face and strength of arm.
I would not imply that being first is necessarily a merit in itself.
There must be a beginning to everything and to magnify the man who
felled the first tree or reared the first shanty is no honor if
unaccompanied by moral worth. I have seen many townships come into
existence and have known the men who first went into them, and my sorrow
is, that so few of them are worthy of remembrance. Recognizing this, I
pay no honor to a man who boasts he was the first to do this or that,
and who, though first, threw away his opportunity to benefit himself and
those who followed. I am tired of men who posture as pioneers and
founders and who have nothing else to claim. Unless they also had moral
worth, strove to give the right tone to the settlement of which, by
accident, they started, they are not deserving of more than passing
notice. Scores of times I have been struck by the differences in
settlements, how one is thrifty, and its neighbor shiftless; one sending
into the world young men and women of intelligence and high aspiration;
the other coarse people who gravitate downward. If a first settler is of
sterling character he moulds the community that gathers around him and
he deserves honor, but the first settler of gross habits it is well to
forget. The government that tries to make a selection among those who
seek its land acts wisely in the interest of coming generations. To give
land to all who ask it, regardless of what they are, will indeed till
the country, but will be of no benefit in the long run. I know of
townships where laziness, ignorance, prejudice, and gross habits
prevail to such a degree that it would have been better had the land
remained in bush. The bullet strikes as the rifle is pointed, and Canada
has never aimed to secure the best people as settlers. We need
population, has been the cry, get it and never mind of what quality it
is. What is more blamable, our legislature does not even try to secure
settlers who will assimilate. Business called me to a township one
summer where few of the settlers knew a word of English. Is that the way
to build up Canada as British?
Nature has designed Canada as an agricultural country and such it must
remain. It will prosper as its farmers prosper, and languish when they
are not doing well. It follows their welfare should be the first
consideration, and a mistake will be made if the fact is not recognized
when they work under unfavorable conditions.
The farmer in the Old Country can plow every month in the year and his
flocks and herds only need supplementary rations to keep them in
condition. How different it is here, where winter locks the soil in iron
bonds half the year and animals must be fed from October to May. What
our farmers raise in six months is consumed in the other six, so that
their labor half the year is to store up food for the other half. The
result is, that the earnings of our farmers are less than half of what
they would be had we England's climate. The public man who argues that
because the Old Country farmer can pay heavy rent to his landlord, bear
the burden of severe taxation, and yet make a living, the Canadian
farmer should be able to do likewise, shuts his eyes to the kind of
winter he has to fight against. That winter cuts his earnings more than
half, for, during the months the land is frozen he is unable to do any
kind of profitable farm work, indeed has spells of enforced idleness.
The Old Country farmer can keep hired help the year round, for he has
employment for them; the Canadian farmer needs extra hands only during
summer. The result is that his margin of profits is so narrow that he
can never pay such taxes as are collected from the agricultural class in
England. When public burdens draw on his income to the extent that he is
not left a living profit, the Anglo-Saxon will leave the land to be
occupied by an unenterprising class of people who are content to
vegetate, not to live. The pre-eminent essential in Canada's policy is
to make farming profitable and keep it so.
While the statement, that agriculture is the foundation of Canada's
life, is so often repeated that it has become a commonplace remark, is
it not extraordinary that none of its public men since Simcoe's day have
acted upon it? With the words on their lips, Canada rests upon the
farmer, it would be expected the welfare of the farmer would be their
solicitous concern. In the first element of agricultural prosperity, the
settlement of the land, they have kept back the progress of the country
by bestowing it, not on the men ready and anxious to cultivate it, but
upon individuals and companies who expect to make a profit by reselling
to the actual settler. By making the land a commodity to buy political
support, the settlement of the country has been kept back. The rule,
that the land be given only to those who will live upon it and crop it,
would have saved heartbreak to thousands of willing men who came to our
shores asking liberty to till its soil, and would have placed an
occupant on every lot fit to yield a living. The individuals and
companies who have been given grants of blocks of land under the
pretence that they would settle them, have been blights on the progress
of the country.
As to the danger of taxation increasing to a degree that will make the
working of the land unattractive to the intelligent and enterprising,
that menace comes from two classes--the projectors of public works who
agitate for them from self-interest, and from those who have raised a
clamor to encourage manufacturers by giving them bonuses in the form of
protective duties. Should a levy ever be made on the earnings of the
farmer to help a favored class, there will be a leaving of the land for
other countries and for better-paying occupations.
My desire is, to see Canada a land where every man who wishes may own a
part of God's footstool and, by industry, secure a decent living. Surely
it is a patriotic duty to make Canada a nation where toil and thrift
fetch the reward of independence, a nation without beggars or of men
willing to work and cannot get it, a nation of happy homes where there
is neither wealth nor luxury but enough of the world's means to ensure
comfort and to develop in its men and women what is best in human
nature.