Part 9 (2/2)

Canada would have acquiesced without murmur if satisfied that her clairounds But of this essential {216} point she was not satisfied, and the feeling ran that once more Canadian interests had been sacrificed on the altar of A anti-American prejudice now ran counter to pro-British sentiment, rather than, as usual, in the saiven a lead, a formidable movement for separation from Great Britain would undoubtedly have resulted But while repeating strongly, in a speech before the Toronto Canadian Club, his criticis it clear that the trouble lay in Lord Alverstone's idea that somehoas intended to act as umpire between Canada and the United States, Mr Aylesworth concluded by urging the value to Canada of British connection; and the sober second thought of the country echoed his eloquent exhortation While Canada had shown unmistakably at the Colonial Conference that the Cha and rising tide of national feeling, she showed now that, strong as was this tide, it was destined to find scope and outlet within the bounds of the Eht be upperreat mass of Canadians held to an idea that embraced and reconciled both, the conception of the Eue of equal nation-states

When the terms of the treaty were first announced Mr Borden declared that it should have been made subject to ratification by the Canadian parliament After the award Sir Wilfrid Laurier went further, contending that the lesson was that Canada should have independent treaty- power 'It is important,' he said, 'that we should ask the British parliament for more extensive powers, so that if ever we have to deal with ain, we shall deal with the to the best light we have' The dee desired, at least in respect to the United States, did coh, as usual in British countries, much of the old forland Mr Laurier had been ht Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Though on personal grounds sincerely reluctant to accept such honours, he had bowed to circumstance and the wishes of his friends

[2] The reason for the Government's action was clearly stated by Mr David Mills, s that presented themselves to the ether and obtain its sanction for a proposition to send troops to South Africa The other was to await such a develop to send the contingentthe general sanction of the political sovereignty of this country from which parliament derives its existence Now there was such an expression of opinion in this country as to justify the government in the course which they took'--Senate Debate, February 6, 1900

[3] The Australian representatives afterwardsthe consent of the Coement A majority of the members who took part in the debate expressed the opinion that an Australian navy must sooner or later take the place of direct contributions

{218}

CHAPTER XI

THE COMING OF PROSPERITY

The opening of the west--Railway expansion--State aids to production--New provinces and old cries--Party fortunes

We have seen that in the early years of the Laurier regime Canada attained a new international status and came to play no small part in the affairs of the E years was the remarkable industrial expansion at hoht of depression This expansion touched every corner of the far-flung Dominion, and was based on the exploitation of resources and possibilities of the most varied kind

Yet the central fact, the development which caused and conditioned all the rest, was the settlereat western plains

For years 'Canada's unequalled western heritage' had given iven very fe settlers a living The Conservative Governreat task of constructive patriotis of a railway across the vast wilderness to the Pacific Over thirty iven to this and other railways to encourage settlement A liberal homestead policy had been adopted And still the settlers came not, or if they came they did not stay Barely three thousand homestead entries a year were made in the early nineties By 1896 the nuhteen hundred Canadians themselves seemed to have lost faith in the West, for in this year the applicants for homesteads included only five hundred and seventy settlers from the older Canada The stock of the railhich had been built with such national effort had fallen to fifty West of Lake Superior, after thirty years of Confederation, there were little more than three hundred thousand people, of whom nearly one-third were Indians And, in the phrase of a western Conservative newspaper, 'the trails froon wheels of departing settlers'

In the rean, and which profoundly changed the whole outlook and teeneral factors {220} hich states to do The prices of faran to rise the world over, due in part to the swing of population in every land fro supplies of new gold The lessening of the supply of fertile free lands in the United States gave new value to Canada's untouched acres Yet these factors alone would not have wrought the transformation In the past, when Canada's West called in vain, low prices had not preventedto the farrated to the Republic, half, contrary to the general ione on the land Nor was Canada now the only country which had vacant spaces to fill Australia and the Argentine and the limitless plains of Siberia could absorb millions of settlers In the United States itself the 'Great A redeemed, while American railways still had oods, indeed, but they needed to be advertised

The new ministers at Ottawa rose to the occasion They were not content to be 'ht's unlucky phrase of 1876 They adopted a vigorous and many-sided policy for the development of the West and of all Canada

The preferential tariff and the prime minister's European tour adarded Canada with lively interest, and for the first tian to realize the potentialities of this new northern land The general impression thus created was followed up byin men and capital, to extend and cheapen transportation, and to facilitate production

The call for settlers cah, and successful a carants as that which was launched and directed by the minister of the Interior, Mr, now Sir Clifford, Sifton He knew the needs and the possibilities of the West at first hand He brought to his office a businesslike efficiency and a constructive ih Continental Europe, through the United States, through the United Kingdom, with an enthusiasm unparalleled and an insistence which would not be denied, he sent forth the summons for reat plains of the Canadian West

It was from Continental Europe that the first notable accessions came

Western Europe, which in earlier decades had sent its swar birth-rates, industrial developovernht be, had slackened the outward flow But the east held uncounted ed forth Froer to escape from the military service their Quakerlike creed forbade, turned to Canada, and by 1899 over seven thousand of these people were settled in the West Austrian Poland sent forth each year some four to six thousand Ruthenians, ht their probleht also notable contributions to the westernsocial ideals, the influence of religious leaders who sought to keep them a people apart, created political and educational difficulties of undoubted seriousness But they turned to far real {223} estate, and in a few years ood or for ill And if Doukhobor coious frenzy had their drawbacks, they served to balance the unrestrained individualism and the materialism of other sections of the community, and to add vast potentialities of idealisnificant, however, was the influx of Aht soon afterwards Mr Sifton knew that no settlers could be had anywhere with more enterprise, capital, and practical experience of western needs than the farmers of the western and mid-western states As these states becaer scope for their energy or far sons were in thethese Alad tidings of the Canadian plains Agents were appointed for each likely state, with sub-agents ere paid a commission for every settler who ca booklets, and in advertiseht thousand farm and weekly papers All inquiries were {224} systematically followed up In co-operation with the railways, free trips were arranged for parties of farive the personal touch needed to vitalize the can State and county fairs were utilized to keep Canada to the fore Every assistance was given to make it easy for the settler to transport his effects and to select his new horessive efforts, the ranks of incoible in the earlier years, rose to astounding proportions--from seven hundred in 1897 to fifteen thousand in 1900 and one hundred thousand in 1911 This influx had a decisive effect on the West It was not only what these well-to-do, progressive settlers achieved themselves that counted, but the effect of their example upon others Every Alish to the north

Backed by this convincing argudom For many years his predecessors had directed their chief efforts to this field Early in the eighties a large influx of British and Irish irants had come, but most of them had quickly passed to the United States In the {225} nineties scarcely ten thousand a year crossed from the crowded British Isles to Canada, while the United States secured thirty or forty thousand Now conditions were soon reversed The in was lifted out of the routine and dry rot into which it had fallen Advertisements of a kind new to British readers were inserted in the press, the schools were filled with attractive literature, and patriotic and philanthropic agencies were brought into service Typical of this activity was the erection of a great arch of wheat in the Strand, London, during the Coronation ceremonies of 1902 Its visible ranary of the Empire' and 'Canada offers 160 acres free to every e to millions Froration into Canada rose to fifty thousand in 1904 and over a hundred and twenty thousand in 1911

Australia soon followed Canada's example, with the result that whereas in 1900 only one of every three e, a dozen years later the proportions had grown to four out of every five This was e of the lish-speaking peoples also brought its probleely to the rise of the 'subdivision expert,' though in this matter of land speculation the native sons soon bettered their instructors The British irants at first included too many who had been assisted by charitable societies, and always they flocked rants were in thethe fifteen years of Liberal adration to Canada exceeded two ht per cent came from the British Isles, twenty-six from Continental Europe, and thirty-four from the United States This increase was not all net There was a constant ebb as well as flow,to their native land, whether to enjoy the fortune they had gained or to laolden pavements they had heard of were nowhere to be seen The exodus of native-born to the United States did not wholly cease, though it fell off notably and was far more than offset by the northward flow After all deductions, the population of Canada during this period grew from barely over five to seven {227} and a quartera rate of increase for the last decade (1901-11) unequalled elsewhere in the world

Closely connected with the in was the Govern free homesteads to all comers was continued, but with a sies to the settler No rants, and in 1908 the odd sections, previously reserved for railway grants and sales, were opened to houlations were revised for the semi-arid districts where a hundred and sixty acres was too small a unit Sales of farm lands to colonization companies and of tiains to speculators, which the Opposition vigorously denounced Yet the ho of the West The entries, as we have seen, were eighteen hundred in 1896 They were forty-four thousand in 1911 Areas of land princely in their vastness were thus given away Each year the Do in area and in richness coveted territories for whose possession European nations stood ready to set the world at war In 1908, for {228} exaiven away; in 1909, five Prince Edward Islands; while in 1910 and 1911, ith hoiuro passed from the state to the settler[1]

After and with the settler came the capitalist The vast expansion of these years wason a scale which neither credit nor ambition had ever before made possible Especially from Britain the iven evidence of the land's lis froovernments and by the railways, rose to a hundred and fifty millions