TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS IN 1914
Baseball--Parkman--Ticonderoga--Prairie Towns--Procession of
Ceres--Relics of the Past--A Moose--Prospects for Emigrants--Jasper
Park--The Great Divide--Algonquin Park.
In 1914, with little perception of how near we were to the greatest
event of the world’s history, we accepted an invitation from the
Canadian Government to inspect the National Reserve at Jasper Park in
the Northern Rockies. The Grand Trunk Railway (Canadian) made matters
easy for us by generously undertaking to pass us over their system and
to place a private car at our disposal. This proved to be a gloriously
comfortable and compact little home, consisting of a parlour, a
dining-room and a bedroom. It belonged to Mr. Chamberlin, the president
of the line, who allowed us the use of it. Full of anticipation we
started off in May upon our long and pleasant journey. Our first point
was New York, where we hoped to put in a week of sight-seeing, since my
wife had never been to America. Then we were to go North and meet our
kind hosts of Canada. At the Plaza Hotel of New York we found ourselves
in pleasant quarters for a hectic week. Here are a few impressions.
We went to see a baseball game at New York--a first-class match, as we
should say--or “some game,” as a native expert described it. I looked
on it all with the critical but sympathetic eyes of an experienced
though decrepit cricketer. The men were fine fellows, harder looking
than most of our professionals--indeed they train continually, and
some of the teams had even before the days of prohibition to practise
complete abstinence, which is said to show its good results not so
much in physical fitness as in the mental quickness which is very
essential in the game. The catching seemed to me extraordinarily good,
especially the judging of the long catches near the “bleachers,” as
the outfields which are far from any shade are called. The throwing
in is also remarkably hard and accurate, and, if applied to cricket,
would astonish some of our batsmen. The men earn anything from £1,000
to £1,500 in the season. This money question is a weak point of the
game, as it is among our own Soccer clubs, since it means that the
largest purse has the best team, and there is no necessary relation
between the player and the place he plays for. Thus we looked upon
New York defeating the Philadelphia Athletics, but there was no more
reason to suppose that New York had actually produced one team than
that Philadelphia had produced the other. For this reason the smaller
matches, such as are played between local teams or colleges, seem to me
to be more exciting, as they do represent something definite.
The pitcher is the man who commands the highest salary and has mastered
the hardest part of the game. His pace is remarkable, far faster, I
should say, than any bowling; but of course it is a throw, and as such
would not be possible in the cricket field. I had one uneasy moment
when I was asked in Canada to take the bat and open a baseball game.
The pitcher, fortunately, was merciful, and the ball came swift but
true. I steadied myself by trying to imagine that it was a bat which
I held in my grasp and that this was a full toss, which asked to be
hit over the ropes. Fortunately, I got it fairly in the middle and it
went on its appointed way, whizzing past the ear of a photographer,
who expected me to pat it. I should not care to have to duplicate the
performance--nor would the photographer.
I took the opportunity when I was in New York to inspect the two famous
prisons, The Tombs and Sing Sing. The Tombs is in the very heart of
the city, and a gloomy, ill-boding place it is when seen from without.
Within it is equally dismal. I walked round in a somewhat shamefaced
way, for it makes you feel so when you encounter human suffering which
you cannot relieve. Warders and prisoners seemed however to be cheerful
enough, and there was an off-hand way of doing things which seemed
strange after our rigid methods. A Chinese prisoner, for example,
was standing at the bottom of the lift, and I heard the warder shout
through the tube, “Have you got room for another Chink in number
three?” I had a talk with one strange Englishman who was barred in like
a wild beast. He spoke of the various prisons, of which he had a wide
acquaintance, exactly as if they were hotels which he was recommending
or condemning. “Toronto is a very poor show. The food is bad. I hope
I may never see Toronto Gaol again. Detroit is better. I had quite
a pleasant time in Detroit.” And so on. He spoke and looked like a
gentleman, but I could quite imagine, in spite of his genial manner,
that he was a dangerous crook. When I left him he said: “Well, bye-bye!
Sorry you have to go! We can’t all be out and about, can we?”
In the same week I went to Sing Sing, the State Penitentiary, which
is some twenty miles from the city on the banks of the Hudson. It is
an ancient building, dating from the middle of last century, and it
certainly should be condemned by a rich and prosperous community. By a
strange coincidence the convicts were having one of their few treats in
the year that day, and I was able to see them all assembled together in
the great hall, listening to a music-hall troupe from New York. Poor
devils, all the forced, vulgar gaiety of the songs and the antics of
half-clad women must have provoked a terrible reaction in their minds!
Many of them had, I observed, abnormalities of cranium or of features
which made it clear that they were not wholly responsible for their
actions. There was a good sprinkling of coloured men among them. Here
and there I noticed an intelligent and even a good face. One wondered
how they got there.
I was locked up afterwards in one of the cells--seven feet by four--and
I was also placed in the electrocution chair, a very ordinary, stout,
cane-bottomed seat, with a good many sinister wires dangling round it.
I had a long talk with the Governor, who seemed in himself to be a
humane man, but terribly hampered by the awful building which he had to
administer.
One morning of early June “my Lady Sunshine” and I--(if I may be
allowed to quote the charmingly appropriate name which the New York
Press had given to my wife) left New York for Parkman Land, which
I had long wished to explore. We were glad to get away as we had
been considerably harassed by the ubiquitous and energetic American
reporter.
This individual is really, in nine cases out of ten, a very good
fellow, and if you will treat him with decent civility he will make
the best of you with the public. It is absurd for travellers to be
rude to him, as is too often the attitude of the wandering Briton. The
man is under orders from his paper, and if he returns without results
it is not a compliment upon his delicacy which will await him. He is
out to see you and describe you, and if he finds you an ill-tempered,
cantankerous curmudgeon, he very naturally says so and turns out some
excellent spicy reading at your expense. The indignant Briton imagines
that this is done in revenge. The reporter would not be human if it
did not amuse him to do it, but it very often represents the exact
impression which the vituperative traveller has made upon the pressman,
himself as often as not an overworked and highly-strung man.
Reminiscences of interviews are occasionally amusing. I can remember
that on my previous visit I was approached one night by an interviewer
in a very marked state of intoxication. He was so drunk that I wondered
what in the world he would make of his subject, and I bought his paper
next day to see. To my amusement I found that I had made the worst
possible impression upon him. He had found no good in me at all. He may
even have attributed to me his own weakness, like the Scotch toper who
said: “Sandy drank that hard that by the end of the evening I couldn’t
see him.”
To return to Parkman Land. I am surprised to find how few Americans
and fewer Canadians there are who appreciate that great historian at
his true worth. I wonder whether any man of letters has ever devoted
himself to a task with such whole-hearted devotion as Parkman. He knew
the old bloody frontier as Scott knew the border marches. He was soaked
in New England tradition. He prepared himself for writing about Indians
by living for months in their wigwams. He was intimate with old French
life, and he spent some time in a religious house that he might catch
something of the spirit which played so great a part in the early
history of Canada. On the top of all this he had the well-balanced,
unprejudiced mind of the great chronicler, and he cultivated a style
which was equally removed from insipidity and from affectation. As
to his industry and resolution, they are shown by the fact that he
completed his volumes after he had been stricken by blindness. It is
hard to name any historian who has such an equipment as this. From his
“Pioneers of the New World” to his “Conspiracy of Pontiac” I have read
his twelve volumes twice over, and put some small reflection of them
into my “Refugees.”
We explored not only the beautiful, tragic Lake George, but also
its great neighbour Lake Champlain, almost as full of historical
reminiscence. Upon this, level with the head of the smaller lake,
stood Ticonderoga, the chief seat of the French Canadian power. Some
five miles separate it from Lake George, up which the British came
buzzing whenever they were strong enough to do so. Once in front of
the palisades of Ticonderoga, they met with heavy defeat, and yet once
again, by the valour of the newly-enrolled Black Watch, they swept the
place off the map. I wonder if Stevenson had actually been there before
he wrote his eerie haunting ballad--the second finest of the sort, in
my opinion, in our literature. It is more than likely, since he spent
some time in the neighbouring Adirondacks. Pious hands were restoring
the old fort of Ticonderoga, much of which has been uncovered. All day
we skirted Lake Champlain, into which the old French explorer first
found his way, and where he made the dreadful mistake of mixing in
Indian warfare, which brought the whole bloodthirsty vendetta of the
five nations upon the young French settlements. Up at the head of the
lake we saw Plattsburg, where the Americans gained a victory in the war
of 1812. The sight of these battle-fields, whether they mark British
or American successes, always fills me with horror. If the war of
1776 was, as I hold, a glorious mistake, that of 1812 was a senseless
blunder. Had neither occurred, the whole of North America would now
be one magnificent undivided country, pursuing its own independent
destiny, and yet united in such unblemished ties of blood and memory to
the old country that each could lean at all times upon the other. It is
best for Britishers, no doubt, that we should never lean upon anything
bigger than ourselves. But I see no glory in these struggles, and
little wisdom in the statesmen who waged them. Among them they split
the race from base to summit, and who has been the gainer? Not Britain,
who was alienated from so many of her very best children. Not America,
who lost Canada and had on her hands a civil war which a United Empire
could have avoided. Ah well, there is a controlling force somewhere,
and the highest wisdom is to believe that all things are ordered for
the best.
About evening we crossed the Canadian frontier, the Richelieu River,
down which the old Iroquois scalping parties used to creep, gleaming
coldly in the twilight. There is nothing to show where you have crossed
that border. There is the same sort of country, the same cultivation,
the same plain wooden houses. Nothing was changed save that suddenly I
saw a little old ensign flying on a gable, and it gives you a thrill
when you have not seen it for a time.
It is not until one has reached the Prairie country that the traveller
meets with new conditions and new problems. He traverses Ontario
with its prosperous mixed farms and its fruit-growing villages, but
the general effect is the same as in Eastern America. Then comes the
enormous stretch of the Great Lakes, those wonderful inland seas, with
great ocean-going steamers. We saw the newly built _Noronic_, destined
altogether for passenger traffic, and worthy to compare, both in
internal fittings and outward appearance, with many an Atlantic liner.
The Indians looked in amazement at La Salle’s little vessel. I wondered
what La Salle and his men would think of the _Noronic_! For two days
in great comfort we voyaged over the inland waters. They lay peaceful
for our passage, but we heard grim stories of winter gusts and of ships
which were never heard of more. It is not surprising that there should
be accidents, for the number of vessels is extraordinary, and being
constructed with the one idea of carrying the maximum of cargo, they
appeared to be not very stable. I am speaking now of the whale-back
freight carriers and not of the fine passenger service, which could not
be beaten.
I have said that the number of vessels is extraordinary. I have been
told that the tonnage passing through Sault Ste. Marie, where the lakes
join, is greater than that of any port in the world. All the supplies
and manufactures for the West move one way, while the corn of the
great prairie, and the ores from the Lake Superior copper and iron
mines move the other. In the Fall there comes the triumphant procession
of the harvest. Surely in more poetic days banners might have waved
and cymbals clashed, and priests of Ceres sung their hymns in the
vanguard, as this flotilla of mercy moved majestically over the face
of the waters to the aid of hungry Europe. However, we have cut out
the frills, to use the vernacular, though life would be none the worse
could we tinge it a little with the iridescence of romance.
We stopped at Sault Ste. Marie, the neck of the hour-glass between the
two great lakes of Huron and Superior. There were several things there
which are worthy of record. The lakes are of a different level, and
the lock which avoids the dangerous rapids is on an enormous scale;
but, beside it, unnoticed save by those who know where to look and what
to look for, there is a little stone-lined cutting no larger than an
uncovered drain--it is the detour by which for centuries the voyageurs,
trappers, and explorers moved their canoes round the Sault or fall on
their journey to the great solitudes beyond. Close by it is one of
the old Hudson Bay log forts, with its fireproof roof, its loop-holed
walls, and every other device for Indian fighting. Very small and mean
these things look by the side of the great locks and the huge steamers
within them. But where would locks and steamers have been had these
others not taken their lives in their hands to clear the way?
The twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, at the head of Lake
Superior, form the most growing community of Canada. They call them
twin cities, but I expect, like their Siamese predecessors, they will
grow into one. Already the suburbs join each other, though proximity
does not always lead to amalgamation or even to cordiality, as in
the adjacent towns of St. Paul and Minneapolis. When the little
American boy was asked in Sunday school who persecuted Saint Paul,
he “guessed it was Minneapolis.” But in the case of Fort William and
Port Arthur they are so evidently interdependent that it is difficult
to believe that they will fail to coalesce; when they do, I am of
opinion that they may grow to be a Canadian Chicago, and possibly
become the greatest city in the country. All lines converge there,
as does all the lake traffic, and everything from East to West must
pass through it. If I were a rich man and wished to become richer,
I should assuredly buy land in the twin cities. Though they lie in
the very centre of the broadest portion of the continent, the water
communications are so wonderful that an ocean-going steamer from
Liverpool or Glasgow can now unload at their quays.
The grain elevators of Fort William are really majestic erections, and
with a little change of their construction might be æsthetic as well.
Even now the huge cylinders into which they are divided look at a
little distance not unlike the columns of Luxor. This branch of human
ingenuity has been pushed at Fort William to its extreme. The last word
has been said there upon every question covering the handling of grain.
By some process, which is far beyond my unmechanical brain, the stuff
is even divided automatically according to its quality, and there are
special hospital elevators where damaged grain can be worked up into a
more perfect article.
By the way, it was here, while lying at a steamship wharf on the very
edge of the city, that I first made the acquaintance of one of the
original inhabitants of Canada. A cleared plain stretched from the ship
to a wood some hundreds of yards off. As I stood upon deck I saw what
I imagined to be a horse wander out of the wood and begin to graze in
the clearing. The creature seemed ewe-necked beyond all possibility,
and looking closer I saw to my surprise that it was a wild hornless
moose. Could anything be more characteristic of the present condition
of Canada--the great mechanical developments of Fort William within
gunshot of me on one side, and this shy wanderer of the wilderness on
the other? In a few years the dweller in the great city will read of
my experience with the same mixture of incredulity and surprise with
which we read the occasional correspondent’s whose grandfather shot a
woodcock in Maida Vale.
The true division between the East and West of Canada is not the Great
Lakes, which are so valuable as a waterway, but lies in the 500 miles
of country between the Lakes and Winnipeg. It is barren, but beautiful,
covered with forest which is not large enough to be of value as lumber.
It is a country of rolling plains covered with low trees with rivers
in the valleys. The soil is poor. It is really a problem what to do
with this belt, which is small according to Canadian distance, but is
none the less broader than the distance between London and Edinburgh.
Unless minerals are found in it, I should think that it will be to
Canada what the Highlands of Scotland are to Britain--a region set
apart for sport because it has no other economic use. The singular
thing about this barren tree-land is that it quite suddenly changes to
the fertile prairie at a point to the east of Winnipeg. I presume that
there is some geological reason, but it was strange to see the fertile
plain run up to the barren woods with as clear a division as there is
between the sea and the shore.
And now one reaches the west of Winnipeg and that prairie which
means so much both to Canada and to the world. It was wonderfully
impressive to travel swiftly all day from the early summer dawn to the
latest evening light, and to see always the same little clusters of
houses, always the same distant farms, always the same huge expanse
stretching to the distant skyline, mottled with cattle, or green with
the half-grown crops. You think these people are lonely. What about
the people beyond them and beyond them again, each family in its rude
barracks in the midst of the 160 acres which form the minimum farm?
No doubt they are lonely, and yet there are alleviations. When men
or women are working on their own property and seeing their fortune
growing, they have pleasant thoughts to bear them company. It is the
women, I am told, who feel it most, and who go prairie-mad. Now they
have rigged telephone circles which connect up small groups of farms
and enable the women to relieve their lives by a little friendly
gossip, when the whole district thrills to the news that Mrs. Jones
has been in the cars to Winnipeg and bought a new bonnet. At the worst
the loneliness of the prairie can never, one would think, have the
soul-killing effect of loneliness in a town. “There is always the wind
on the heath, brother.” Besides, the wireless has now arrived, and that
is the best friend of the lonely man.
Land is not so easily picked up by the emigrant as in the old days,
when 160 acres beside the railroad were given away free. There was
still in 1914 free land to be had, but it was in the back country.
However, this back country of to-day is always liable to be opened
up by the branch railway lines to-morrow. On the whole, however, it
seems to be more economical, if the emigrant has the money, to buy
a partially developed well-situated farm than to take up a virgin
homestead. That is what the American emigrants do who have been pouring
into the country, and they know best the value of such farms, having
usually come from exactly similar ones just across the border, the only
difference being that they can get ten acres in Canada for the price
of one in Minnesota or Iowa. They hasten to take out their papers of
naturalization, and make, it is said, most excellent and contented
citizens. Their energy and industry are remarkable. A body of them had
reached the land which they proposed to buy about the time that we were
in the West; they had come over the border with their wagons, their
horses, and their ploughs. Being taken to the spot by the land agent,
the leader of the party tested the soil, cast a rapid glance over the
general prairie, and then cried: “I guess this will do, boys. Get off
the ploughs.” The agent who was present told me that they had broken
an acre of the prairie before they slept that night. These men were
German Lutherans from Minnesota, and they settled in the neighbourhood
of Scott. The gains on the farms are very considerable. It is not
unusual for a man to pay every expense which he has incurred, including
the price of the land, within the first two years. After that, with
decent luck, he should be a prosperous man, able to bring up a family
in ease and comfort. If he be British, and desires to return to the
Old Country, it should not be difficult for him to save enough in
ten or twelve years to make himself, after selling his farm, more or
less independent for life. That is, as it seems to me, an important
consideration for many people who hesitate to break all the old ties
and feel that they are leaving their motherland for ever.
So much about farms and farming. I cannot see how one can write about
this western part and avoid the subject which is written in green and
gold from sky to sky. There is nothing else. Nowhere is there any sign
of yesterday--not a cairn, not a monument. Life has passed here, but
has left no footstep behind. But stay, the one thing which the old
life still leaves is just this one thing--footsteps. Look at them in
the little narrow black paths which converge to the water--little dark
ruts which wind and twist. Those are the buffalo runs of old. Gone
are the Cree and Blackfoot hunters who shot them down. Gone, too, the
fur-traders who bought the skins. Chief Factor MacTavish, who entered
into the great Company’s service as a boy, spent his life in slow
promotion from Fort This to Fort That, and made a decent Presbyterian
woman of some Indian squaw, finally saw with horror in his old age that
the world was crowding his wild beasts out of their pastures. Gone
are the great herds upon which both Indian hunter and fur-trader were
parasitical. Indian, trader and buffalo all have passed, and here on
the great plains are these narrow runways as the last remaining sign of
a vanished world.
Edmonton is the capital of the western side of the prairie, even as
Winnipeg is of the eastern. I do not suppose the average Briton has the
least conception of the amenities of Winnipeg. He would probably be
surprised to hear that the Fort Garry Hotel there is nearly as modern
and luxurious as any hotel in Northumberland Avenue. There were no such
luxuries in 1914 in Edmonton. The town was in a strangely half-formed
condition, rude and raw, but with a great atmosphere of energy, bustle,
and future greatness. With its railway connections and waterways it is
bound to be a large city. At the time of our visit the streets were
full of out-of-works, great husky men, some of them of magnificent
physique, who found themselves at a loss, on account of cessations in
railroad construction. They told me that they would soon be reabsorbed,
but meantime the situation was the rudest object-lesson in economics
that I have ever witnessed. Here were these splendid men, ready and
willing to work. Here was a new country calling in every direction for
labour. How come the two things to be even temporarily disconnected?
There could be but one word. It was want of capital. And why was the
capital wanting? Why was the work of the railroads held up? Because the
money market was tight in London--London which finds, according to the
most recent figures, 73 per cent of all the moneys with which Canada is
developed. Such was the state of things. What will amend it? How can
capital be made to flow into the best channels? By encouragement and
security and the hope of good returns. I never heard of any system of
socialism which did not seem to defeat the very object which it had at
heart. And yet it was surely deplorable that the men should be there,
and that the work should be there, and that none could command the link
which would unite them.
A line of low distant hills broke the interminable plain which has
extended with hardly a rising for 1,500 miles. Above them was, here and
there, a peak of snow. Shades of Mayne Reid, they were the Rockies--my
old familiar Rockies! Have I been here before? What an absurd question,
when I lived here for about ten years of my life in all the hours of
dreamland. What deeds have I not done among Redskins and trappers and
grizzlies within their wilds! And here they were at last glimmering
bright in the rising morning sun. At least, I have seen my dream
mountains. Most boys never do.
Jasper Park is one of the great national playgrounds and health resorts
which the Canadian Government with great wisdom has laid out for the
benefit of the citizens. When Canada has filled up and carries a large
population, she will bless the foresight of the administrators who
took possession of broad tracts of the most picturesque land and put
them for ever out of the power of the speculative dealer. The National
Park at Banff has for twenty years been a Mecca for tourists. That at
Algonquin gives a great pleasure-ground to those who cannot extend
their travels beyond Eastern Canada. But this new Jasper Park is the
latest and the wildest of all these reserves. Some years ago it was
absolute wilderness, and much of it impenetrable. Now, through the
energy of Colonel Rogers, trails have been cut through it in various
directions, and a great number of adventurous trips into country which
is practically unknown can be carried out with ease and comfort. The
packer plays the part of a dragoman in the East, arranging the whole
expedition, food, cooking, and everything else on inclusive terms; and
once in the hands of a first-class Rocky Mountain packer, a man of
the standing of Fred Stephens or the Otto Brothers, the traveller can
rely upon a square deal and the companionship of one whom he will find
to be a most excellent comrade. There is no shooting in the park--it is
a preserve for all wild animals--but there is excellent fishing, and
everywhere there are the most wonderful excursions, where you sleep at
night under the stars upon the balsamic fir branches which the packer
gathers for your couch. I could not imagine an experience which would
be more likely to give a freshet of vitality when the stream runs thin.
For a week we lived the life of simplicity and nature.
[Illustration: THE FAMILY IN THE WILDS OF CANADA.]
The park is not as full of wild creatures as it will be after a few
years of preservation. The Indians who lived in this part rounded up
everything that they could before moving to their reservation. But even
now, the bear lumbers through the brushwood, the eagle soars above the
lake, the timber wolf still skulks in the night, and the deer graze in
the valleys. Above, near the snow-line, the wild goat is not uncommon,
while at a lower altitude are found the mountain sheep. On the last
day of our visit the rare cinnamon bear exposed his yellow coat upon a
clearing within a few hundred yards of the village. I saw his clumsy
good-humoured head looking at me from over a dead trunk, and I thanked
the kindly Canadian law which has given him a place of sanctuary.
What a bloodthirsty baboon man must appear to the lower animals! If
any superhuman demon treated us exactly as we treat the pheasants, we
should begin to reconsider our views as to what is sport.
The porcupine is another creature which abounded in the woods. I did
not see any, but a friend described an encounter between one and his
dog. The creature’s quills are detachable when he wishes to be nasty,
and at the end of the fight it was not easy to say which was the dog
and which the porcupine.
Life in Jasper interested me as an experience of the first stage
of a raw Canadian town. It will certainly grow into a considerable
place, but at that time, bar Colonel Rogers’ house and the station,
there were only log-huts and small wooden dwellings. Christianity was
apostolic in its simplicity and in its freedom from strife--though
one has to go back remarkably early in apostolic times to find those
characteristics. Two churches were being built, the pastor in each
case acting also as head mason and carpenter. One, the corner-stone of
which I had the honour of laying, was to be used in turn by several
Nonconformist bodies. To the ceremony came the Anglican parson, grimy
from his labours on the opposition building, and prayed for the
well-being of his rival. The whole function, with its simplicity and
earnestness, carried out by a group of ill-clad men standing bareheaded
in a drizzle of rain, seemed to me to have in it the essence of
religion. As I ventured to remark to them, Kikuyu and Jasper can give
some lessons to London.
We made a day’s excursion by rail to the Tête Jaune Cache, which is
across the British Columbian border and marks the watershed between
East and West. Here we saw the Fraser, already a formidable river,
rushing down to the Pacific. At the head of the pass stands the village
of the railway workers, exactly like one of the mining townships of
Bret Harte, save that the bad man is never allowed to be too bad. There
is a worse man in a red serge coat and a Stetson hat, who is told off
by the State to look after him, and does his duty in such fashion that
the most fire-eating desperado from across the border falls into the
line of law. But apart from the gunman, this village presented exactly
the same queer cabins, strange signs, and gambling rooms which the
great American master has made so familiar to us.
And now we were homeward bound! Back through Edmonton, back through
Winnipeg, back through that young giant, Fort William--but not back
across the Great Lakes. Instead of that transit we took train, by the
courtesy of the Canadian Pacific, round the northern shore of Superior,
a beautiful wooded desolate country, which, without minerals, offers
little prospect for the future. Some 200 miles north of it, the Grand
Trunk, that enterprising pioneer of empire, has opened up another line
which extends for a thousand miles, and should develop a new corn and
lumber district. Canada is like an expanding flower; wherever you look
you see some fresh petal unrolling.
We spent three days at Algonquin Park. This place is within easy
distance of Montreal or Ottawa, and should become a resort of British
fishermen and lovers of nature. After all, it is little more than a
week from London, and many a river in Finland takes nearly as long
to reach. There is good hotel accommodation, and out of the thousand
odd lakes in this enormous natural preserve one can find all sorts
of fishing, though the best is naturally the most remote. I had no
particular luck myself, but my wife caught an eight-pound trout, which
Mr. Bartlett, the courteous superintendent of the park, mounted, so
as to confound all doubters. Deer abound in the park, and the black
bear is not uncommon, while wolves can often be heard howling in the
night-time.
What will be the destiny of Canada? Some people talk as if it were
in doubt. Personally, I have none upon the point. Canada will remain
exactly as she is for two more generations. At the end of that time
there must be reconsideration of the subject, especially on the part of
Great Britain, who will find herself with a child as large as herself
under the same roof.
I see no argument for the union of Canada with the United States. There
is excellent feeling between the two countries, but they could no more
join at this period of their history than a great oak could combine
with a well-rooted pine to make one tree. The roots of each are far too
deep. It is impossible.
Then there is the alternative of Canada becoming an independent nation.
That is not so impossible as a union with the States, but it is in the
last degree improbable. Why should Canada wish her independence? She
has it now in every essential. But her first need is the capital and
the population which will develop her enormous territory and resources.
This capital she now receives from the Mother-Country to the extent in
1914 of 73 per cent, the United States finding 14 per cent, and Canada
herself the remaining 13. Her dependence upon the Mother-Country for
emigrants, though not so great as her financial dependence, is still
the greatest from any single source. Besides all this, she has the
vast insurance policy, which is called the British Navy, presented to
her for nothing--though honour demands some premium from her in the
future--and she has the British diplomatic service for her use unpaid.
Altogether, looking at it from the material side, Canada’s interests
lie deeply in the present arrangement. But there is a higher and more
unselfish view which works even more strongly in the same direction.
Many of the most representative Canadians are descendants of those
United Empire Loyalists who in 1782 gave up everything and emigrated
from the United States in order to remain under the flag. Their
imperialism is as warm or warmer than our own. And everywhere there is
a consciousness of the glory of the empire, its magnificent future, and
the wonderful possibilities of these great nations all growing up under
the same flag with the same language and destinies. This sentiment
joins with material advantages, and will prevent Canada from having any
aspiration towards independence.
Yes, it will remain exactly as it is for the remainder of this century.
At the end of that time her population and resources will probably
considerably exceed those of the Mother Land, and problems will arise
which our children’s children may have some difficulty in solving. As
to the French-Canadian, he will always be a conservative force--let
him call himself what he will. His occasional weakness for flying
the French flag is not to be resented, but is rather a pathetic and
sentimental tribute to a lost cause, like that which adorns every year
the pedestal of Charles at Whitehall.
I had some presentiment of coming trouble during the time we were in
Canada, though I never imagined that we were so close to the edge of
a world-war. One incident which struck me forcibly was the arrival
at Vancouver of a ship full of Sikhs who demanded to be admitted to
Canada. This demand was resisted on account of the immigration laws.
The whole incident seemed to me to be so grotesque--for why should
sun-loving Hindoos force themselves upon Canada--that I was convinced
some larger purpose lay behind it. That purpose was, as we can now see,
to promote discord among the races under the British flag. There can be
no doubt that it was German money that chartered that ship.
I had several opportunities of addressing large and influential
Canadian audiences, and I never failed to insist upon the sound state
of the home population. The Canadians judge us too often by our
ne’er-do-weels and remittance men, who are the sample Englishmen
who come before them. In defence even of these samples it should be
stated that they bulked very large in the first Canadian Division. I
told the Canadians of our magnificent Boy Scout movement, and also
of the movement of old soldiers to form a national guard. “A country
where both the old and the young can start new, unselfish, patriotic
movements is a live country,” I said, “and if we are tested we will
prove just as good as ever our fathers were.” I did not dream how near
the test would be, how hard it would press, or how gloriously it would
be met.
And now I turn to the war, the physical climax of my life as it must
be of the life of every living man and woman. Each was caught as a
separate chip and swept into that fearsome whirlpool, where we all
gyrated for four years, some sinking for ever, some washed up all
twisted and bent, and all of us showing in our souls and bodies some
mark of the terrible forces which had controlled us so long. I will
show presently how the war reacted upon me, and also, if one may speak
without presumption, how in a minute way I in turn reacted upon the
war.