retaining the protective features, and enlarging the system of bounties
for the encouragement of industry which had been commenced in 1883.
The tariff was modified, however, by the establishment of a preference
for Great Britain, which, beginning at a reduction of one-eighth from
the general tariff, was increased to one-fourth, and finally in 1900 to
one-third. This reduction remained in force until 1906-7, when the
tariff was again revised and arranged in three lists--general,
intermediate, and British preference. The intermediate tariff was
intended as a basis of negotiation whereby Canada might obtain
concessions from foreign countries. After the concession of the
British preference in 1897, Great Britain, at the request of Canada,
denounced her commercial treaties with several foreign countries, under
the terms of which concessions granted by the colonies to the mother
country would have had to be extended to the treaty countries. Germany
was one of these countries, and on the expiration of the treaty Germany
showed her resentment by applying her maximum tariff to Canada. Canada
retaliated by the imposition of a surtax on German goods, and a tariff
war ensued, which resulted in a much higher degree of {416} protection
for Canadian manufacturers whose products came into competition with
imports from Germany. The British preference was extended by Canada to
other British colonies, which in return granted advantages to Canada,
and in 1908, with the consent of Great Britain, Canada negotiated a
commercial treaty with France on the basis of the intermediate tariff,
though with numerous further concessions.
Railway building in Canada had begun as far back as 1836, when a short
length of line from La Prairie to St. John's, in the Province of
Quebec, was opened for traffic. The first link in what is now known as
the Grand Trunk Railway was constructed in 1845, when Montreal was
connected with the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway, now the Portland
(Maine) Division of the Grand Trunk System. In 1851 the Grand Trunk
Railway Company was incorporated, and took over about a hundred miles
of constructed line. Soon afterwards the Legislature of the United
Provinces of Quebec and Ontario passed the measure which is now known
as the Guarantee Act. Under this enactment Government aid was given to
railways of not less than seventy miles in length; and it was with this
aid that the great development of the Grand Trunk system began. In
1854 the Grand Trunk line from Toronto to Montreal was opened. By 1856
Toronto was connected, _viâ_ Sarnia, with the State of Michigan. In
1859 Toronto was brought into railway communication with Detroit; and
by 1869 the Grand Trunk had leased the International Bridge across the
Niagara River, and by this means {417} its system was connected with
the State of New York and the numerous centres of population in the
Eastern States, which are reached _viâ_ Buffalo.
Most of this development of the Grand Trunk system had preceded
Confederation; but at Confederation the greatest need of the Dominion
was easy means of communication between the provinces heretofore known
as Upper and Lower Canada. One of the first undertakings of the new
Dominion Government was the construction of the Intercolonial Railway,
the object of which was to connect the maritime provinces with each
other and with Quebec, and the building of which by the Government was
one of the conditions on which the maritime provinces had consented to
Confederation. It still remained to push out a railway to the far
west, and in 1881 work was begun on the Canadian Pacific Railway. In
four years this great highway across the continent was ready for use,
and in 1887 the Canadian Pacific Railway established a line of
steamships across the Pacific in connection with its Pacific terminals.
With the opening of the great North-west and the creation of the new
provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905,[1] the railway
communication was found to be insufficient, and a new line to the
Pacific was begun by the Grand Trunk Railway, which had been the
pioneer in railway work in Ontario, and which before the beginning of
the new line had already over 3,000 miles of road. {418} The Grand
Trunk Pacific Railway is divided into two sections. The eastern runs
from Moncton to Winnipeg, a distance of 1,875 miles, and is being built
by the Government. On its completion it is to be leased to the Grand
Trunk Railway Company for fifty years. The western section runs from
Winnipeg to Prince Rupert on the Pacific, a distance of 1,480 miles,
and is being constructed and equipped by the Company, the Government
granting a subsidy, and guaranteeing the Company's bonds up to 75 per
cent. of the cost of construction. The first stretch of the new line
to be completed was that from Winnipeg to Wainwright, a distance of 666
miles. It went into service in September, 1908, and was completed by
the end of 1915.
At the same time, the Great Northern began to push out to the
North-west, for the sake of the immense trade in grain which the
opening up of the new provinces had created. A little later work was
also begun on the Hudson's Bay Railway, which was intended to connect
the more northern waters with Ontario and the Great Lakes. In 1908 the
Dominion had twenty-two thousand miles of railway completed, in
addition to the long stretches then under construction. In 1918 it was
38,879 miles.
Almost as important to Canada as her railways are her canals and her
waterways. In 1897, on the accession of the Liberal Government to
office, it was determined to deepen the St. Lawrence canals and enlarge
the locks sufficiently to allow the passage from the great lakes to the
sea of vessels {419} drawing not more than fourteen feet of water.
These canals afford a through water route, with a minimum depth of
fourteen feet, from Montreal to Port Arthur on Lake Superior, a
distance of 1,223 miles, 73 of which are by canal. The total
expenditure of the Dominion on canals up to 1919 amounted to over
$127,000,000.
Alongside the improvement in the means of communication--railways and
canals--has gone a considerable growth of Canadian manufacturing
industries. The iron and steel industry was scarcely in existence at
Confederation. The Marmora plant at Long Point, Ontario, and a smaller
plant at Three Rivers, Quebec, had been in existence since the forties;
but the iron and steel industry, as it exists to-day in Canada, is
largely the creation of the national policy of protective tariffs and
bounties. The bounty system was instituted in 1883, chiefly for the
benefit of a blast furnace of 100 tons capacity at Londonderry, Nova
Scotia, which was then in difficulties. Besides this furnace, only two
others--charcoal furnaces with an aggregate capacity of fifteen tons,
at Drummondsville, Quebec--came on the bounty list in 1884. In 1897,
when the Liberals came into office, furnaces had also been erected at
New Glasgow, Radnor, and Hamilton, and the aggregate daily capacity of
the furnaces of the Dominion was then 445 tons.
At the revision of the tariff in 1897 the bounty system was greatly
extended, and under its aegis two great modern iron and steel
plants--one at Sydney, N.S., and one at Sault Ste. Marie, O., came
{420} into existence. Modern furnaces have also been established at
North Sydney, Hamilton, Welland, Midland, and Port Arthur, and in 1908
the output of pig-iron from all these plants was a little over 600,000
tons. A large proportion of this pig-iron is converted at the Sault
Ste. Marie and the Sydney plants into steel rails, for which the
constant extension of the railways furnishes a steady market.
Next to iron and steel the most important manufacturing industries are
the textiles. Both woollens and cottons were manufactured in Canada in
small quantities before Confederation. A small woollen mill was
established at Coburg, Ontario, in 1846, and even earlier than this
there were woollen mills in Nova Scotia which had made the province
notable for their Halifax tweeds. In 1908, however, the woollen
industry generally was not in a flourishing condition. Of the 157
mills in existence when the census of 1901 was taken, 28 had
disappeared before 1908, and several of the 129 that remained were
closed either permanently or temporarily. The value of the woollen
goods produced in 1908 did not exceed seven million dollars.
The cotton industry, which is well organised and financially strong,
has its largest centres at Montreal and Valleyfield, Quebec. The
mills, of which there are about twenty-three, are large, modern, and
well-equipped, and the value of their output is more than double that
of the woollen mills of the Dominion.
The industry which ranks next in importance is probably the manufacture
of farm implements and {421} machinery, which is located at Brantford
and Hamilton. Hamilton is also the centre of the manufacture of
electrical equipment, stoves, wire, steel castings, hardware, and many
other products of metal. At Montreal are the Angus shops, which rank
with the finest on the North American Continent, at which locomotives
are built for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in 1908 the Grand Trunk
Railway established similar shops on a correspondingly modern scale for
locomotive building at Stratford, Ontario.
Shipbuilding was an important industry in the maritime provinces and
Quebec in the old days of wooden sailing ships; but with the incoming
of steamships of iron and steel the maritime provinces entirely lost
their old pre-eminence and world-wide reputation for shipbuilding. It
was July, 1908, before a steel ocean-going vessel was launched in the
maritime provinces. This was a three-masted schooner of 900 tons
burden, the _James William_, which was built in the Matheson Yard, at
New Glasgow, N.S. Steel vessels had, however, been built for lake
service at Toronto, Collingwood, and Bridgeburg from 1898 onward. At
Collingwood and Bridgeburg the largest and finest types of lake
freighters and passenger vessels are built. In 1908 a new steel
shipbuilding yard was installed at Welland, and plans were completed
for the establishment of a large yard at Dartmouth on Halifax Harbour.
Until the development of the prairie provinces, all manufacturing in
the Dominion was carried on {422} east of the great lakes. With the
opening out of the great wheat-growing regions of Manitoba, Alberta,
and Saskatchewan, however, Winnipeg is gradually becoming a great
manufacturing city, and many miscellaneous industries on a factory
scale have been established there. The most western iron
plant--puddling furnaces and a rolling mill--is situated on the
outskirts of the city.
According to the figures of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, as
given by Mr. E. J. Freysing, President of the Toronto Section, in July,
1908, there were in Canada at that time 2,465 firms which were either
members of the Association or were eligible for membership. These
firms employed either on salary or wages 392,330 men, women, and
children. This number includes 80,000 engaged in the lumbering
business--the largest number engaged in any one trade. Lumbering is
carried on in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick, and the annual value of the product is over one hundred
million dollars--a value only exceeded by the food products of the
Dominion.
More important than all other industries put together is farming. The
extent of this industry may be judged from the fact that each year from
1900 to 1908 from 20,000 to 40,000 homesteads were taken up. The usual
size of these homesteads is 160 acres, and the acreage thus newly under
cultivation varied during the eight years from one to twelve million
square miles a year. In 1907 alone the new farms represented an
immigration {423} of 105,420 persons. The total number of farms in the
Dominion in 1908 was estimated at 600,000, representing a population
directly dependent upon farming of over three millions. The principal
crops in the prairie provinces are oats, wheat, and barley. The total
crop of wheat in 1908 was about 130,000,000 bushels, of oats
270,000,000, and of barley 50,000,000.
In Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces, dairying,
fruit-growing, hog-raising--for bacon and ham--and mixed farming have
taken the place of grain crops. In 1908 Canada had gained a strong
position in the markets of Great Britain for cheese, butter, and canned
goods, a position which was largely due to the work of the Dominion
Agricultural Department in providing cold storage for farm products on
the railways and steamers, and also to the educational work which the
Department had been steadily pushing among the farmers.
The Dominion is rich in metals and minerals, and mining is an important
industry in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and British Columbia. The largest
coal-fields of Canada are in Cape Breton and in Pictou and Cumberland
Counties, Nova Scotia, from which over five million tons of coal are
mined each year. There are no coal measures between New Brunswick and
Manitoba, and the lignite beds of Manitoba yield a much less valuable
coal than that of Nova Scotia. The coal area of the Rocky Mountains,
though not so large as that of the maritime provinces, yields the best
coal so far found in the Dominion. The centre of this formation is at
the Crow's Nest Pass. {424} There is another coal area on the Pacific
Coast in the neighbourhood of Nanaimo and in Queen Charlotte's Island.
The total amount of coal mined in the Dominion in 1908 was 10,510,000.
Besides coal, there are in Canada rich deposits of iron ore, lead,
nickel, copper, silver, and gold, and the non-metallic minerals include
petroleum, asbestos, and corundum. Diamonds have been found in Quebec
in a formation not unlike the diamond fields of Kimberley. Gold is
found chiefly in the Klondike country and in British Columbia; but some
gold is also obtained from Nova Scotia, and a fair amount from Ontario
and Quebec.
Ever since the settlement of the maritime provinces fishing has been an
important industry on their shores, and many of the disputes with the
United States have arisen out of the privileges granted to United
States fishermen in the treaty of 1818. These disputes have, however,
concerned Newfoundland more closely than the Dominion, and the final
settlement of all questions between the sister colony and the great
republic is hardly yet in sight. A _modus vivendi_ pending settlement
was again signed in August, 1908. The fishing industry is not confined
to the maritime provinces. River and lake fishing are carried on in
Ontario, Manitoba, and the new provinces; and British Columbia has
fisheries and canneries of great importance on her coast and rivers.
The total value of the yield of the fisheries for 1908 was about
twenty-five million dollars.
The population of the Dominion in 1908 was {425} estimated to be about
six and a half millions, with a yearly immigration of between 150,000
and 200,000. The French Canadians numbered about 1,500,000, and of the
rest the majority were English, Scotch, and Irish. The new immigration
is introducing each year a large number of non-English-speaking people,
and also some very desirable settlers in the American farmers from the
Western States. Among the more important foreign settlements are those
of the Doukhobors, who were received in Canada as refugees from
persecution in Russia, and who have repeatedly given trouble to the
authorities on account of their fanatical resistance to orderly
government.
The revenue of Canada for 1907-8 was $96,054,505, and the expenditure
was $76,641,451, leaving a surplus of nearly twenty million dollars.
At the close of the fiscal year the debt of Canada amounted to
$277,960,259. Canals, lighthouses, railways, Government buildings, and
other public works are the assets which Canada has to set against this
debt, which represents the expenditure necessary for the development of
a new and widely extended country.
In education the Dominion ranks almost equal to the Northern States of
America. Every province has a public school system, and the primary
and grammar schools, especially of Ontario, are a pride and a credit to
the people of the province. In 1908 there were seventeen universities
in the Dominion. Among them may be mentioned McGill in Montreal, Laval
in Quebec, Queen's in Kingston, Dalhousie {426} in Halifax, University
of Toronto in Toronto, and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. The
University of Alberta was founded in 1906, that of Saskatchewan in
1907, and British Columbia in 1908.
Every city in Canada and every town of any size has its newspaper or
newspapers--daily, bi-weekly, or weekly. Canadian journalism has a
character quite of its own, leaning more to American ideals than to
those of England. A great change in this respect has come over the
Canadian Press since about 1885, up to which time the more important
daily newspapers in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, and St. John had been
on the English rather than the American model.
[Illustration: Old Parliament Building at Ottawa.]
Self-government exists in the full sense of the term. At the base of
the political structure lie those municipal institutions which, for
completeness, are not excelled in any other country. It is in the
enterprising province of Ontario that the system has attained its
greatest development. The machinery of these municipalities is used in
Ontario to raise the taxes necessary for the support of public schools,
Free libraries can be provided in every municipality whenever the
majority of the taxpayers choose. Then we go up higher to the
provincial organisations governed by a lieutenant-governor, nominated
and removable by the government of the Dominion, and advised by a
council responsible to the people's representatives, with a legislature
composed, in only two of the provinces, of two houses--a council
appointed by the Crown, and an elective assembly; in all the other
provinces, there is simply an assembly {428} chosen by the people on a
very liberal franchise, manhood suffrage in the majority of cases. The
fundamental law, or the British North America Act of 1867, gives
jurisdiction to the provincial governments over administration of
justice (except in criminal matters), municipal, and all purely local
affairs. The North-West Territories are under the Department of the
Interior. Yukon Territory is governed by a Gold Commissioner,
appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and a Council of three
members elected by the people, The central or general government of
the Dominion is administered by a governor-general, with the assistance
of a ministry responsible to a Parliament, composed of a Senate
appointed by the Crown, and a House of Commons elected under an
electoral franchise, practically on the very threshold of universal
suffrage. This government has jurisdiction over trade and commerce,
post-office, militia and defence, navigation and shipping, fisheries,
railways and public works of a Dominion character, and all other
matters of a general or national import. Education is under the
control of the provincial governments, but the rights and privileges of
a religious minority with respect to separate or denominational schools
are protected by the constitution. The common law of England prevails
in all the provinces except in French Canada, where the civil law still
exists. The criminal law of England obtains throughout the Dominion.
The central government appoints all the judges, who are irremovable
except for cause. Although the constitution places in the central
government the {429} residue of all powers, not expressly given to the
provincial authorities, conflicts of jurisdiction are constantly
arising between the general and local governments. Such questions,
however, are being gradually settled by the decisions of the
courts--the chief security of a written constitution--although at times
the rivalry of parties and the antagonisms of distinct nationalities
and creeds tend to give special importance to certain educational and
other matters which arise in the operation of the constitution. All
these are perils inseparable from a federal constitution governing two
distinct races.
The relations of Canada with the United States have been increasingly
close and cordial as years have gone on. Many old standing causes of
friction have been removed; and in other cases, such as the fisheries
dispute, and the extremely high duties levied on Canadian goods in the
Dingley Tariff, there has been no recent aggravation of the irritation.
In 1894 an end was made to the dispute over the right of America to
exclude other nations from taking the seals of the Aleutian Islands
outside the three-mile limit. Canadian vessels had been seized and
confiscated by America, and a state of high tension existed, which was
relieved by a reference of the dispute to arbitration. This time the
award was in favour of Canada. The exclusive right of pelagic sealing
was denied to the United States, and damages amounting to $464,000 were
awarded to the Canadian fishermen.
The year 1896 is memorable, not only for the general election which
brought Sir Wilfrid Laurier {430} into power, and for the beginning of
an uplift in trade which lasted until October, 1907, but also for the
discovery of gold in the Yukon and in Alaska. The great rush of
adventurers induced by these discoveries continued for the next two
years, and Dawson city grew up with mushroom haste as the metropolis of
this Arctic region. Gold discoveries in both Canadian and American
territory brought to a crisis the long-pending dispute over the
international boundary in the far North-west. In 1898 a joint High
Commission was created, whose duties were to settle a number of
questions which had long caused friction between Canada and the United
States. The sessions of this Commission extended over eight months
without accomplishing anything. No formal ending was made to the work
of the Commission, but it never re-assembled after its adjournment in
February, 1899.
It was not until 1903 that an agreement was reached between Great
Britain and the United States concerning the Alaskan boundary line. In
that year a treaty was concluded by which this long-disputed question
was relegated to a Commission of six jurists, three British and three
American, who by a majority vote were empowered to determine the
boundary line. The British members of the Commission were Lord
Alverstone, Chief Justice of England, who was made president, with a
casting vote in case of a tie, and two Canadians, Sir Louis Jette and
Mr. A. B. Aylesworth, both eminent jurists. The American members were
Mr. Henry C. Lodge, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. George Turner. The {431}
report of the Commission, which was transmitted to the Governments of
the United States and Great Britain in October, 1903, was somewhat
disappointing to Canadians, as, on the whole, the Americans gained
their contentions. Canada was shut out from water communication with
the Yukon as far south as Portland Channel. The treaty in which this
report was incorporated, and which was finally ratified in 1905, was,
however, beneficial in removing a long-standing cause of irritation
between the two nations, and Canada's need for a port was met in some
degree by bonding concessions at the American ports on the Alaskan
coast. An International Commission to mark out the boundary line was
at work in Alaska in the summer of 1908.
Serious disturbance to a number of Canadian interests, especially those
of the lumbermen, was caused by the passing of the Dingley Act, with
its high duties on all Canadian exports except some raw materials. To
the attack on Canadian lumber Ontario replied by prohibiting the export
of saw logs cut on Crown timber limits, a step which led to the
transfer of a considerable number of saw mills to the Canadian side of
the border line. Another cause of complaint against the United States
has been the strict and harsh enforcement of the contract labour laws
on the American side of the boundary line.