IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 |_U_ 11.25 1^ at A u 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.4 11.6 <^ v: V /A Ls CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 1980 Technical Notes / Notes techniques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Physical features of this copy which may alter any of the images in the reproduction are checked below. D Coloured covers/ Couvertures de couieur L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible tie se procurer. Certains d^fauts susceptibles di* nuire d la quality de la reproduction sont not6s ci-dessous. 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The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —►(meaning CONTINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. The original copy was borrowed from, and filmed with, the kind consent of the following institution: National Library of Canada Maps or plates too large to be entirely included In one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper Iflft hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de I'exemplaire film*, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la der- nldre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grSce d la gdndrositd de I'dtablissement prdteur suivant : Bibliothdque nationale du Canada Les cartes ou les planches trop grandes pour dtre reproduites en un seul clich6 sont filmdes d partir de Tangle supdrieure gauche, de gauche d droite et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Le diagramme suivant illustre la mdthode : 1 2 3 4 5 6 FOR .^/^^ ^^ti>ifi /^j:^^/'^ /-L^ O' TRANSPORTATION THE PROBLEM. BY A GRAIN DEALER. 9 #^//^ /k ^/.^t^^-/^^l MON'TK'EAL. W. FOSTER BROWN 6- CO. I8i)3. / I z' /' .. / -'' y >L-''^ y ^ INTRODUCTORY The Ccr.sus of 189: tor ihc l),,inininii wf Canada shows llial out ot our five niillions of inhabitants, thciv aiv only six hundred and fifty thousand who aiv not of Cana.har, i.uth.' and two-lliirds of these be-n- in Ontario must rei).vscnl old ^cuk-rs, there being no particular difference between the relinns ,,f i88i and 1891 for' that Provmr.c, in that respect ; leaving only two hundred and fifty thou- sand, not native born, for all the rest of the Dominion. In f.ct, having (nitgrown our old Provincial limits, we have spread over half the Continent. Canadians may be .-ongratuiaied that, at the dawn of their national life, their country is owned by Canadians, and that even with the neighbouring Repubi:.' fuMore tliem they need n<.,t fear a (Miiij^arison, It seems as though the position whi( h we hold, the .Mcjiiaivhy on one hand and the Republic on the other, with free trade and pro- tection doctrines carried out m practi<-,e, allows us a more favour able opi.ortanity of judging of the merits of each than is usuallv offered to a nation starting into iife. .Situated between the two, we ;ii-c m a position to udopt whichever policy we choose, with no on.' l)ui ourselves to blame if we choose the wrong one. Inputting tiiese notes into print, be ic understood that, whii ■ entering a protest against Protection, 1 am not assuming anv posi- tion ol superior wisdom, but only giving expression to views whicii I trust will be fouiKl to establish my casein favour of the freedom of Canadian trade from the incubus with which it has been saddled. The general policy advocated is a very considerable reduction of the ta,nff m favour of English goods, («-+Wi*aa4^>f hhv -othtM" fTt^TTaue-prpopin, and a moderate reduction onlv in favour'of pro- tectionist countries, especially of the LMiited States, until such time as the independent scab,, trd tariffs approacli a basis common cMiough to warrant a free exchange along (,u.- land line. While Mr. Hincks (afterwards .Sir Franci.sj advo<:ate. '! he difference between the Canada of 1852 nnd tliat of 189? may he ilhistrated in the vahie of her exports, represented l)y $15,300,000 as against $1 14,000.000 to-day. At that time, and for nearly thirty years after, we re|)resented the wants of an U])pcr and I^)Wer Canada, as they were called ; now we must figure upon those of half a continent. Tliere is no retaliation pro])osed, but on the contrary every effort is advocated to secure a treaty with the L'nited States, favouring an exchange of the products of the f(jresi, the farm, the mine, the sea. and of any other article which they can admit freely, with due re- gard to their own interests, on the basis that the high contracting parties maintain the same liberty of control o\er ihcir own sea- tioard tariffs and internal revenue which tb.e\ hold at present. With ihe exception of the four jjidducis named, vuy little could Le done at first : but with an agent ;!l \\ ashinglcn, doubtless many articles ( tjuld in time be worked on to the free list between the two countries, and obviously trie greater tl'.e reductions made in the respective seaboard tarilTs ilie larger would become this free list along the land I'ne. Meantime we could redtice oiu" own taxes by favouring (Xih.- nge with the great tixe trade nation of Murope. The er.urir.oiis advantage of unlettered trade is the creed of a free trader, and it is not intended tliat aiy wcrils lelating to the mainte- nance of ilie indejiendenl i). silion { I Canada sl.ould be construed into an assertion of tl.e unce: irabilily oi (l(;s<.r tn.de relations wuh the United States. The impossibility of attaining this along the land line ujjon goods, either raw or manufactured, ui)on which we impose a lower seaboard tariff than do th.e l'nited States. :s ilie point main- tained. The next best thing to universal tree tr;!de is the freest exchange ])ossib!e with free trade nations. 'I'he base of my whole arginnent is. that no general reciprocity treaty can be negcjliated with any protectionist countr\ without carrying with il protection against any free trade country. It is not [)ossible to ride two horses at once. The problem of transportation, now looming up as one of the most imjiortant of the day, is inseparably bound up with the ques- tion of free trade and i)rotection. The development of Canada with its Pacific railroatl is stirring matters up along the whole line of the lOR CANADA. 5 Northern States tVom the Atlantic to the Pacitu:, and its intluonc.e is being retlected in Washington. I do not believe that I am mis- taken when 1 say. that it is' exceedingly fortnnate for Canad.i. aiifl in the long run for the United States, that tiiose who lor the past four years have held the reins of j^ower in that country have heea forced to yield them ui) at the bidding of the electoral. In old diys. Chicago and Milwaukee were the ports of sliip- nient for Minnesota wheat, the most northerly at that time procur- able ; now Lake Superior commands that trade, and with the (k'velo))- inent of tlie still more northerly wheat lands that iidand sea must be their point of shipment. The only question at issue is, to which seaport shall it go, — New York or Montreal ? There can be no (lues- tion as to its natural outlet. Canada has her eyes fixed on the inland transportation problem, but all shi[)i)ers of grain fnjm the interior know that the true difticully lies in tlie limited amount of >^{:cr.n tonnagi,; available in M(jnlre:d. The pressure to e\pf>rl via the St. Lawrence and the limited imports for C'anada place ocean tonnage outward l)Ound about one shilling a quarter, say, three cents a bushel higher than in the competing jiort of New York, (i) and to just this extent is the trade via Montreal al a discounl. Canada lays out millions of money in canals on the one hii.nd, and on the other checks free iin])orts at her only seaport capal)le of comi)eting with New York ; and, while -paying interest on the outlay, taxes herself on her ocean shipments iii addition, to say notliing of the indirect taxes, the result of the tariff. The volume of export trade of the port of Montreal has increased greatly of late years, but so has the production of grain, vastly ; a one horse estal)lishment may do an increasing business, but it is fjuite a different question, whether it is a satisf^ictory one, when another outfit has a steam engine in the same line. To allude once more to the Census, it reports 367.496 men, women, l>oys and girls (2) engaged in the '• industrial establishments " throughout the country. From these, wdien we deduct not only the number which are in no way benefited by the tariff, but those to whom it is a positive injury, the result left for this high-sounding (1) May freiglitH, this year, us this goe- to pro-^s,are more oven than usu;ii See Appen'lix. (2) The iiiei) are reported n« 270, TUl. I iniidis and ni.iny oilier nidustries not of a primary character), showing a gam of 154.719 hands in the four Pro\inces in twenty years. This i> triil\ magnificent, and should be remem- bered wlienexer any ])roteclioiiisi m.dves use of high->ounding |)hrase^ : one hundred and fifty-four tliousand sevci hundreland nineteen ad(htionaI hands in twenty years, two-ihirds of which ha\e been solidly protection. Canada i> so tiun!\' populated as yet. and the market so small, that it iloes not j)a\' to la.x 90 ]ier (•(.■nt.oi the people for the supjiort of the leinaining 10 percent. So far as their maintenance and wel- taie are conceiiied. it would jiay belter to pension them. As a matter ol" fact, the figures quoted re[)reseniing men, women and chil- dren, a glance .il the .Appendix will quickly reduce those absolutely dep 'ndjiit on ihe lariffto a number below 10 ]»er cent, of the whole popLilation. and for the r,i!p'iori of these in their particular lines of manufacture ewry one else is taxed. J :im conscious iliat in the trade and transportation arguments of tile loilowing pages, the rca-'er will find little if anything wiiicii is not as old as •' The wealth of nations ; " but in many journeys across tae c liilinent, the parallel in the ])Osition of the producer on the United .States Pacific coast, — cut off l)y a sea of arid wastes from the great centres of population. — with the producer in our own great West, beyond our wilderness, is to me so striking, that I feel that no ot'ier apology is necessary for callingattention. as clearly as 1 may, in " My Notes from a Car Window " and " Transportation the / Problem for Canada," to the "posiiion whit:h this (juestion c'f trans- ■ portation holds in the future success of our country. Jaml:s 1]. l^AMi'r.i'.LL. K01)LF:M Duriiij^' llie struL^gle, estates hnd been confiscated right and left ; a farm a short distance outside of what were then the hniits of the city of New York, anil bought by a gentleman of the name of Astor, is an example. After the i)eace. systematic persecutions pre- vailed, under which many returned to England, while an emigration unparalleled in numbers since the Huguenots, and known as that of United Mmpirc Loyalists, hieaded for Canada. Ontario, which ujj to that time had lain an unbroken wilderness, was opened up under the Avoodman's axe. and to those men, the Pilgrim I'alhers of Englisli Canada, must be allowed every sentiment, every tributeof respect with which it is usual to clothe the Pilgrims of the Atlantic Coast. In both ca.ses they lived up to their convictions, and sought in a freer atmosphere that liberty which had been denied them at home. It is not niy |)uri)osc to write a history of Canada, lor ihe steps by which these men obtained Constitutional government some Canadian history niusl be consulted ; but the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States in 1861 found Ontario and Queoec united under one government, crdled Canada, wiiile New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia were so many self-govern- ing colonics, independent of each oiiier and differing very little from the status of the old Thirteen Colonies. They all, including British Columbia, enjoyed the benefit of a common reciprocity treaty with the United Slates, and their trade, except during the Crimean War, was in the main with that country. The various questions which had arisen between England and the United States, during the Civil War, had caused a considerable amount of irritation in both countries ; sometimes wholly English or United States questions, sometimes the broils and friction brought about by designing men along our own frontier. But the outcome of the war, so far as Canada was concerned, was, that the United States, acting within their treaty rights, gave a twelve months' notice of the abrogation of this reciprocity treaty. Most of our people considered this action of theirs as a necessity consequent upon the rearrangement of their tariff. Since then, however, more light has been thrown on the subject, and we find Sir Charles Tupper (in his report to the Dominion Government) authority for the assertion that Mr. Blaine told him that the treaty had been abrogated in order to punish Canada for her sympathy with the South. KOR CANADA. At the (l;itc referred to, Charles Sumner was a leading politician in the Republican party; his sentiments are now very generally known ; anything wliich would help to drive the English ting from I'^is Continent fcnmd ftivor in his sight, (leneral Grant is authority K . the statement, that no settlement of the '• Alabama " case could be arrived at with Knglantl, until Mr. Sunnier had been removed from the chairmanship of the Committee on I'breign Relations. So that there was, doid)tless, a great deal of truth in Mr. JJlaine's assertion. However that may be, feeling ran high against Canada ; and what- ever may have been the sentiments of the United States Ijefore the war. or since then, there was in iha'; day very little love lost on any- thing British : Canada coming i' . her fiir share of the dislike. Fortunately, the idea (jf our e dencj upon their markets for our existence prevailed in that day as mucii as il does in this, and it was the opinion of the Re|)ul)li(;aii leaders that their taiiffwall would speedily bring us to wliatever terms tliey chose to dictate, and their i)olicy was t > allow time to work the inevitable solution. The loss of this reci|)rocity treaty made it simply impossible for these semi-independent colonies to maintain their Custom Hou-es against each other ; and as a matter of fact there was nothing left for them but Confeder;uion or Annexation. All this happened, too. at a time when a school of politicians had arisen in Kngland, who, in a state of disgust at the expenses and troubles brought upon them by their South .-Vfrican Colonies, de- clared all colonies to be a weakness instead of a strength to the kingdom, and advocated their being got rid of as soon as possible. Fortunately these ideas found little favor with the English people, and on statisticians proving that the Colonies, even on a protection and self-governing basis, took twice the amount of English goods, in proportion to their population, that Foreign nations did, the cioakers changed their tune betbre any harm had been done. ''"■he Republicans, in the meantime, occupied with the re-construc- tion of the Southern States, remained content with their tariff wall effectually shutting us out from tlieir markets ; and the pressure thus applied to the various divided communities north of their line was one of the leading causes which resulted in the creation of the present Dominion. We have a great deal to be grateful for ; to the whole section of lO THANSPOR'l'ATION THE PR(Mil,EM 4^ tile Re[)uljlicaii part}- wliich looked to Mr. Charles Sumner tor guidance do we owe our present united state. It is rejiorted, how good the authority 1 know nol. that someone over the border Ikis said or written, that the way lo get Canada is to divide it ; this is without douht true, and it i- rreat r(jnsolation to remember, that it w,ts those lireat and good men wJio freed and enfranchised their C(;lored brcjthers in the .South, at a time when w did e were all divided amongst (jurselves, who also did what was m tiieu- ])ower to assist loyal subjects like Sir John A. Macdoiiakl to create a united Stale upon their North. A parallel lo ir,i> m ly bv- fniail in the his'.ory of the Thirteen Colonies. The efforts whicli tlseir leading statesmen made to recon- c le their diffjreiicjs suggest the rpiestion ; What was there ill com- mon between the planter of Virginia and the rurilan of Massa chusetts other than a common danger? It was tlie mistaken p()lii:y of George III and of the i'aiglish })eo])le whit h bound them to- gether in the first instance : in a like manner, without some such hos- tile i)ressin-e, the i)rovinces comi)osing this Dominion. French and J^iglish, would not so readily have given up their indejK'ndence. As it is, Newfoundland, owing to her Island position, prefers to re- main outside of tiie Confederalion. xA. case in ])oint m.iy be seen in .-Vustralia to-day; with all the encouragement and assistance of haigland. but without pressuie of any kind, the statesmen of the Antipodes have found it impossible as yet to bring the peopu; together under one head. In their case there is neither a George II I nor a United States. Our Canada up to date has not succeeded in attracting the emi- gran . for whom she has been catering ; the last census, showing only 4,850,000 i)eopie, was a d sappointment. That the rate of in- (a-ease. too, had not been equal to that oi' the United States, was eagerly taken hold of by the press on the other side of the line and tae opponents of the governmenton this side, as proving that under existing conditions the Dominion is not able to hold her own in competition with the United Slates. Time alone will solve that ])roblem ; but it may be asserted here, that whatever may be said against our laws and institutions, it will be difficult to find a country in which there i rop lately abject poverty than there is in Canada. Poor people there are, and If FOR CANADA. II pieniy of them, hut everyone is making a living, and their general ai;pear.,n(e is that of being well clothed, well jioused and well Jed. 'ihv causes operating against as rapid an average increase as has takui place in the United States ni the same time are easilv staled : — Tiie United Stales, in the first place, have had the ear of the piihlic. and have been the greit absorbent of the emigrant masses 'Ji I'urope. wiiilc Canada, until the Canadian Pacific^ Railway be- came a fact, has been a vntual ferra inco,iinta. The differen<:e be- tween the territorial signifieaiion of Canada, before and after the creation of the Dcjminion. mu.t always be remembered. Contrast (or one nr.ment. the old Canada, going no further West than the State of Michigan, witii the i^resent Dominion stretching from the Atlantic t(; the i'acifu-. Of the great West we iiad no more control before Confederation than the United State, had. and until .piite recently the world in general did not consider it worth anything. Under these disadvantages, with the energetic United .states in the Jiossessioii .)f the emigrant market, it has not been possible lor Canada m the short time since the opening of the Canada Pacific Railway to turn th. tide. In the second place. Canada has been handicapped with tile reputation of her climate: the climatic dis- advant.iges ofiheoid Provinc.-s have been fre.iy applied to new Canada ; so that while Minnesota and the Dakota's have gained, and liave in part lived on the reputation of the United States, Manil(;ba and the far West have been correspondingly saddled with a reputa- tion which they do not deserve. ^ The tlow of emigration to the United States has now been <:hecked, and. as emigrants make a success of it in ourcountrv, the '■'Kid to increased population will be easier, every letter Uj the native village doing more real adveriising than a 'ton of printed circulars. ^ Theratioof increase, however, will never equal that of the United States ; their land extends over so manv degrees of latitude that It can offer a home to all manner of men. The Southern climate suits the negro and the Italian, as well as the political atmospnere of then- Northern cities does the natives of the Emerald Isle : and where these races find a congenial home they multiply like flies. 12 TRANSPORTATION THK PROHLF.M 4,. ll is hard in this line of business, however, to !)cat tlie French Canadian, l)iii iie lias only the original stock to maintain his increase with ; it must ncNertheless.be admiltrd tli;it he represents very well' Cn the other har.d. new settlers for Canada can only be drawn from those wlio. in betterinir their condition, leave the shores of Northern Europe or tho?e in whose veins Hows Xorlhern bhjod. At date, stitistics show that tiie emigrant to this Continent has been deteriorating in (piality, — in other words, the ])erccntage iias been increasing from Southern Europe, and in the milder climate f)f the Soutliern and Central States most of these fnid their homes. The old ICastern I'rovinces of the Dominion, like the old Eastern States of the Union, have in the last decade done little more than hold their own in ])opul;iiioM. The reason for this is the same in both cases. Immigration goes past them, and their own ])eo])le drift westward ; indeed, liad it not been for an emigration of French Canadians into the States of Maihc. New Hami)shirc, VeniKinl. and I'ven Massa- chusetts, these States would have made a very j)Oor showing in tlie last Census. Meantime, Canada is rapidly removing the ])rejudice caused by the lack of general information regarding the true nature of the country ; and as it becomes more evident that the best and most available arable land in the United States has b?en picked over, and ])assed into hrsl hands, it is to be expecteil that the tide will ere long turn in our direction, and being too f.ir North foi the less desirable class of emigrants, we shall succeed in building up our country on our own lines of thought and sentiment, and giving homes to a class of men free from the political and \icious taint with which tlie Ke])ul)l;c i=; unfortunately being glutted. c! KOK CANADA. 13 THK FEELING IX THE ['XiTEI) S'l'ATES Wiril Rr.(;.\RD 'I'U CANADA. While on the surface Jingoism is a irump card in the United States, especially where the Hag of England is concerned ; yet there is nothing surer than that Jingoism, jnire and simple, falls flat. The very latest example, that of Chili, (i) is a case in point ; the com- mon sense and self-respect of every American worthy of the name received a shock at the spectacle which his country afforded. Sixty- five millicns of jieople, versus two millions just emerged from civil war : let anyone look over the back numbers of. say, the C/i/aix'o Tribune for those few montiis, and say what he thinks (if a spirited foreign policy, so called. It does not seem, either, that the tail-twisting Ir;shm;.;i is as popu- lar as he was some years ago, but that is merely on account of his having made himself a nuisance. Unfortunatelx-, tiie flag of England still brings iIk' bull to the charge. We niiL^lit WxX that, after all. this hostility is but skin deep. and dismiss it witii i.l;e rest c.f the Jingoism, incidental to a slate of eternal politics, were- it not that our senses are simply stunned by productions such ai '• Twentv \'ears of Congress," by James C. jJlaine : and this stalcr-,inan was inlnisied with almost supreme power by the American iteopie. alter having |iroduced a work which is a disgrace to his name ami reputation as an American citizen. If he did n.oi know the people of the United Slates, then who does? That he was •• knifed" by his friends last year may only prove thai they were wrong ; and when he thought proper to rejuvenate the old exjjloded charges against England, he must either have believed in them or have been of the o])inioii thai the)- werj aeceidr.ble in that form to the American jteople. The chapters which he devotes to England .ire simply a travesty of history, half truths cleverly vamped u|) as hisloric al facts, and on reading them one is forced to the idnviction that so long as the Americans accept such histories of their own time as g(jod author. ( I) And now Hawaii. 14 TRANSPORTATION THK PROI'.LEM ' 1 lit)-, we (viniiot expect ihem to Iiave :iiiy iiarticuilarly i^ood neigh- bourly tcL'ling for those ">yho niaimain the flag of Kngland on this Continent. That tliere slioiild be a race of men ui)on their Northern frontier who not only prefer the Hbcrty as represented by tliis flag of England to that of the United States, but who fail to become enthusiastic over liieu- success or their institutions, to the length of ex])ressing any desire of joining them, surpasses their comprehension ; that this ;;noinalous slate ofaffairs is only of a temporary character ; that there can be no rjuestion of " the inevitable destiny,'' it being only " a quLStion of time." is their idea, existing since the founda- tion of the Repid)lic ; and it is not only the idea of the masses, but of their reading men : it crojts out everywhere — in tact, they <~annot see how Canada can get along without joining them. It is not \ ery long ago that the prevailing opinion was that Canada was in ^ome manner held in check, in bondage, and gov- erned by ['".ngland ; troops were quartered on us, we could not be free. 1 )id we not ( ontribule money to I'.ngland? did we not contribute men.'* Were we not forced to admit English goods free of duty ? Questions such as these were of frequent occurrence. In the ])ast lew years, however, a great change has taken place, and with the exce])tion of the ([uestion of taxing English goods, a tolerably correct idea of the status of Canada is general throughout the States. The ])eople of that country, one and all, declare thatimtil Canada comes of her own free will, they do not want her : as for conquest, they would never think of it. Of course, this is only in the days of peace. In the event of war witli England, they would hold the country, and try and arrange matters, so that when peace came they would not have to give it u[) ; but they assert that. l)arring interna- tional complications, conquest by force is simply out of the question, 'vow, this is all very well, but there are different kinds of force and different ways of ushig it. The wars of armed men may or may not be gradually becoming more discredited; but what may be called the commercial warfare of this century is a force which it is consi- dered perfectly consistent with friendly sentiments to use ; and this is what the United States ore doing to day. If by any possibility they could squeeze Canada through a tariff, there is — could the problem FOR CANADA. '.=; od neigh- (1 on this 11 frontier '" England insticover ssing any that tliis :ter ; that .'ing only foanda- L' masst.s. fact, they in. was that and gov- 3tbe free. lUte men.^ Questions ;w years, option of ea of the "I Jr. r- rend, .Sute l>c,,ati.fa,.t„nly .lis|,„scj ,„-l,:,r.!lva „„„ in ,1,. Nc„i,.,.„ Mates wl,o wouW ,,„, ,lo „. Tl,c manulkctua-,., i„ tl„. perlccon ol tl,e,r combi.uuiuns. „vK,ld have „„ ,„,,rke>s; t he ik.II: .c,a„s o, tljc hnstcn, and Nortlu-,-,, S,,,...,. „.„„M ,.,c.i.,.. .V.^s.-n o . cnanks ,n ,he pcr.o,,,, oCSaKUors .„d Kc,,r«c„u„iv., „„„, ho l«.rvo d no. conteutplate „-,th u.nnixed satisiact.on the .nerease of the' ™ i.ovver of the.r N-eu- England and North U'estern ,r,er,ds "s t 1..U-V. '-■ l:>-n.>c,-a.s opposed the ad.niss.on of .he |,ak,,a's. Mon'- .-..a Waslnng.on, Idaho and Wyoming in.o .he Uu„h, as S.a.es. and ei.d,Tu "'r:r '"" "Tr"r" "■"• "■ "'"-l--'- »ra l.alauci„g ugh. ,n Mexico, would a. leas, p.efer ,, Canada ,v,.h which thev would no. have to figure, to an unkn .„■„ ,p,a,ui,v of IVee and n' hghtened ..ates, carrying w,.h n an ..ninnired .ncrease of ^„ I Canada :onquest, -' days (if hold the .inic they interna- }uestion. 3rce and may not le called is consi- and this lity they |)roblem i6 rRANSPORTATIOX THE I'ROP.LKM k . THE KKKI.ING IX CANADA WITH RKGARD TO ii : , UNITED STATHS. While the struggle in llie Thirteen Colonies was creating Ameri- can sentiment, the then Canada was entirely French. Consequenily, i: is a lillle too much to expect that the descendants of those Nor- man seitK'rs in Quebec can have any sentiment in common with the descendants of those who under Washington made their coun- try,— more especially as the French are in the hands of a clever and aml)itious priesthood who teach them to look to Rome, and v.-ho educ-ate their children to that end. i'or this as well as for the sup- l^ort of the Church of Rome established in the land, the law made ;'iul maintained bv themselves gives »he cure right to collect taxjs on the land and tithes on the crops. That this is a law and a sen- timent entirely antagonistic to the institutions of the United States is obvious to the most superficial observer : that if they were joined to the United States the power of this Church would be broken is well known to their leaders, and. under these circumstances, until the Church in the United Slates ieels itself strong enough to carry Quebec into the Union as a solid Roman Catholic State with all its present rights, it is difficult to see how annexation can ever be per- mitted in Canada to come withm the range of practical politics. ()f the English-speaking element within the Dominion the bulk consists of the native-born descendants of those who in early days emigrated from the Independent States. It is hardly possible to conceive of a state of affairs which would bring these men forw.ardas annexation- ists now. '["iiey and the French element mainly constitute public opinion in the old provinces, and a nongst them a distinctly Cana- dian sentiment is springing u[) — a sentiment born of the Domin- ion ; and. should we make a success: of our new country, the day is far distant when they will voluntarily turn the power and ,,elf-govern- inent now in their own hands over to the control of a central body located in Washington. Another class of men represent the descendants of those whose fathers or grandfathers, on lea\ing their old homes, chose deliber- ately, with the Republic on one side and the Colonies on the other, FOR CANADA. 27 H.'; [vc of a wViion- h)ul)li(: iCana- |)()inip- day is )veni- 1)0 dy livhoso .■libcr- )Uiei-, to follow the fortunes of the old tlap, in -/reference to those of the new. With self-government and perfect freedom secured to the French, it will have to be a very dire and dismal state of affiiirs in Canada which will carry conviction to those men that we are a fail- ure, and bring with it an application for admission into the Ameri- can Union. There are some amongst us, too. who, having recently left their liomes in Europe or the United States, have not yet almndoned their fireside sentiments, and in their new Country are perhaps too outspoken regarding its future destiny. It is not to be expecttd that these raw recruits should bloom out enthusiastic Canadians all at once ; in time they will work roiuid, but, in the meantime, they must be treated in this country in exactly the same manner in which the corresponding article is handled in the United States. How many tinies on the Chicago lioard of Trade have I seen an obnox- ious Britisher stumped with, '• Well, if you don't like the country, what are you here for ? " When one goes to Rome, one must do as the Romans do ; and except for the fact that I was engaged in the Canadian and English trade, I doubt if there was an American on that board who would have gathered from any remark of mine that I was not an American citizen. The only occasion that I remember, on which I got it over the knuckles, was at a social gathering in that city. I had spent the previous winter in Europe, south of the Alps, and in allusion to a horrible winter storm riging at the particular moment, I remarked to a lady friend that in the formation of this country agreat mistake had been made in running the mountain ranges North and South instead of East and West. *' Well, but you must not run down the country you are making your living in," was the crushing and un_ expected rejoinder- Forever afterwards I dealt lightly with mountain ranges and everything else. We in Canada are now repeating the early history of .nat Repub- lic. The Americans of that day who were weak had no confidence in their future. A stiff-necked generation came to Canada, in pre- ference to moving elsewhere in that land and kissing the rod ; but in their country, the United States of to-day represent the survival of the fittest amongst them. So it is with us ; it depends upon Cana- '\l> i8 TRANSPOR'IATION THE PROBLEM -r* 'M I r it Hi dians whether our Dominion is to be a success or not. Against many of the advantages wliich v/o possess we have the disadvantage of standing face to face with an aggressive Rei)ublic of twelve times our population ; we liappen, too, to be in possession of somctliing which they want, — an outlet for their coming generation. 1 believe that our great emigration will come from the States, and we must be prepared to assert ourselves as Canadians, and guard well our nationality within the Empire ; like the Pilgrims of Massachusetts, we must worship our own God in our own way, and make other peo- ple do the same. That the Americans do not like what they choose to call the development of un-A oerican institutions on their Northern border is easy to perceive ; but it is certainly to be regretted that they do not recognize the facts as they stand, and not as what they would wish them to be. The continual " inevitable destiny " cry is not only mis- leading, but causes some irritation on this side. It is manifest to us tliat annexation will only follow upon our failure to govern our- selves according to our own ideas (whatever our own ideas may be) or the bankruptcy of our country. To have this incessantly dinned into one's ears as the only result in the end is, to say the least of it, not the most agreeable tone for our candid and assertive friend to take, and must represent either total ignorance of the sentiment of Canadians, coupled with such exaggerated and egotistical ideas re- garding the perfection of his own institutions, and the greatness of his own country, as to completely blind him to any sentiment not identical with his own ; or the wish must be the father to the thought, and that we may not succeed u his hope. There are some Americans whose pleasure at the prospect, or supposed prospect, of our joining them may be frankly accepted as the highest compliment ; but where this only represents antipathy to P'.ngland, it is of course quite a different affair. With regard to such Americans we can only regret that they miss the point of Cana- dian sentiment. That we have aspirations of our own, and that these aspirations do not point to Washington, is the result as much of the action of the people of the United States as of anything else. For twenty-five years from the death of Louis XVI, England had been engaged in fighting 'n every quarter of the Globe, and her ]m I FOK CANADA. 19 Against ivantage Ive times )mothing I believe we must well our ichusetts , ither pco- D call the I border is ley do not 'ould wish : only mis- lanifest to )vern our- is may be) tly dinned least of it, friend to intiment of 1 ideas re- eatness of Itiment not e thought, jospect, or Iccepted as antipathy regard to litofCana- and that It as much [hing else. igland had and her i armies absorbed the surplus population. During these years the foundations of English Canada were laid by those United Empire Loyalists who had been driven out of the TTnited States, and by them alone, (i) History shows how the revolutionists lo.U the afft.'ctiop and sym- patliy of the French ; and now, coming down to our own day, wc find the descendants of those two classes falliny into the ])ossession of a country, the })ossil)ilities of whicii they arc only beginning to aj)[)reciate. To understand the change which has taken jjlace in the past few years, it would be well for Americans to remember, that inasmuch as no single Stale in tlieir own Union had any real control over the territories of the United States, in a far less degree had the people of old Canada any control over the vast territories which now com- prise the Dominion. Over these uninhabited lands the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company ruled, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and this charter had as much validity and force as those which created their original Thirteen Colonies. Besides, it existed before those men who had been driven out of the independent States had organized sufficiently to obtain Constitutional government. In fact, it antedated the Revolutionary War by exactly one hundred years. While it is true that in point of population Canada is at the moment out of the race, yet the resources of the Dominion are more nearly a match for those of the United States than any other possible on this Continent, and are a factor in its future development which they must acknowledge and count with. Meantime, we are fed daily with such information as this : " The Canadian annexation boom," and " annexation is desirable because it would open up a new market for the products of diis country." The Chicago Herald has late- ly permitted itself to drift into the usual line of American journalism regarding us. We are told by it that " The i)ortion of North America to which the most thrifty and enterprising of our own natural increase must in a few years look for new homes belongs to Canada. In the great North-Western provinces there is an em- pire of unsurpassed fertility, whose products are being brought (i) The only marked exception was as an emigration of Irish, the result of the trouble of '98, 30 TRANSrORTATlON THE PROliLEM .,i I |l l\\^ < every year luarcr lu the market by tlie trunk lines and l)ranchts — an empire wiiich must become in time the home of a thriving and prospennis peoijle." Just so ; and this empire is Canada. Open your eyes, Mr. Editor, and see wiiat is going on about you. Let us overiuiul, from a Canadian standpoint, this sickening annexation twaddle so common amongst Americans. We are always assure of the grandeur of the destiny before us, as part of the American Union : one government, one language, one grand Repub- lic, one flag to the North Pole, and one race, — the inevitable des- tiny. I'his would be all very well, were we not CANADIANS; but Americans should remember when addressing us, that, although we may not be as outspoken as they are, they are dealing with a set of men as proud of their own nationality as ever were the fatluTs of their Americ:an Republic; and that every sentiment which nerved them in that past day to create a State lives on their Nor- thern frontier to day with exactly the same life and being. We know as well us do the people of the American Union the destiny that is before us. We know that within our Empire is to be the home of a thrifty and prosperous people, and that they will repre- sent the most enterprising of those born upon this free Continent of America to-day. We know, too, that it rests with the people of the United States to declare, whether this people on their North shall be a friendly or a hostile nation. We would not repeat the history of the last century between the United States and the United Kingdom ; we would not create a sentiment in our children to- wards the United States such as the United States nurses towards that older State. But the sooner the people of the Republic under- stand that we have achieved our Continental independence of them in trade, sentiment and national aspirations, the better will it be for those who are destined to live side by side on this Continent of America. They may rest assured that there is amongst us some feeling of independence, but, except amongst a few hybrid Canadians, none for the obliteration of Canada from the face of the world. Could these same United States citizens feel the force of the remarks which they are never tired of cramming down our throats, they would at once see the absurdity of such sky-soaring as they indulge in at present. How would it sound for British statesmen and writers to FOR CANADA. 91 anchts — iving and I. Open 1. sickening irc always irt of the (I Kepub- tal)le des- JMANS; altliough ig with a were the icnl which heir Nor- ;ing. We ic destiny to be the vill repre- [Joniinent people of ir North lepeat the Ihe United Idren to- towards ic under- f them in it be for Itinent of us some nadians. Could ks which tvould at |ge in at Titers to offer them the marvellous advantages of a return to their allegiance : a Queen, an Aristocracy, one Flag, one Empire upon which tiie sun never sets ; and dominant over the rest, and above all — glory be unto those who preach anything like it — one race jjolitically bound togetiier under one constitution ! Yet it is just such stuff with which they dose us, in their desire to " oi)en up new markets for this coun. try." The true way to open up new markets is to recognize freedom of thought as well as freedom of trade, and to work away from the narrow ideas and prejudices, the result of the veritable Chinese wall with which they have encircled what they fell heir to. Much as we admire the United States and appreciate their suc- cess, we prefer to carve out a destiny of our own ; and the North- ern half of this Continent, preserved to us by the colonizing instinct inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race, gives us the desired opi)ortunity. If this be strange or perhaps a crime, then great is our fault ; but for any of our friends to the South to look upon our attempt to create a State as one of unfriendliness to them or their institutions is as great an error as for anyone on our side to shut his eyes to American sentiment, and call upon them to return to their alle- giance and throw in their lot with our Empire. We have on either hand great questions to solve. Senator Hoar, speaking of the South, on the floor of the Senate, said : — " The person hears the sound of my voice this moment who in his lifetime will see fifty millions of negroes dwelling in those States." The most serious problem for the people of the United States is the neL'ro nroblem. Statisticians declare that the blacks have doubled in population since the war, but they find comfort in the fact that the ratio of increase has not equalled that of the whites. A hundred years may be a very long time in the life of a man, but is a mere bagatelle in that of a nation. At the rate indi- cated, the wants of over seventy-five r^.illions of negroes, if the land will maintain them, will have to be consulted before A. D. 2000. The colored brother is not to be sneezed at. Why should we place ourselves within the sphere of such a question ? Canadians are of the opinion that they know a great deal better what they want than the negroes of Louisiana can tell them. is 23 TRANSl'OKTATION THt: PROBLEM I '' I i J .'• I \r m I m p- TIic election of Mr. Cleveland may or may not make any par- ticular differciu'.c to us so far as reciprocity is concerned ; there- fore, let us for a moment review the past two years of the now doomed McKinleyism. We have been told by the late Mr. lilaine that, so far as he could help it, he "would not permitthc Canadiai the sentimental satisfac- tion of waving the British Hag, paying liritish taxes and enjoying the cash rennineralion of American markets ; " nor, he is also reported to have said, diil he "mean that they should be Canadians and Americans at the same time." (i) However laudc.ble and pattiotic such sentiments may sound in American ears, their tendency is to create a feeling amongst us which cannoc be called one of uncjuali- fied satisfaction ; and the determination to maintain our own in spite of American hostility has only to be expressed to be under- stood. Of course, he knew ])erfectly well that our paying British taxes was all nonsense. His reciprocity card carried with it a great attraction for the American mind ; under it they were to open South American ports to United States produce and manufac- tures, and to shut them to the manufactures of all others, and to England in particular. Anxious as they were for reci[)rocity, however, the only offer which they would make Canada was one which it was utterly out of her power to accept. The demand, when stripped of verbiage, was, that we clear away the Custom Houses along the frontier, and maintain a seaboard tariff against the rest of the world, — in fact, free exchange in everything with the United States. This at first glance looks well, api irently it was a fair and equitable propositio i ; but it carried with it the transfer of our fiscal arrangements to Washington, out of our own control. Of course, our seaboard tariff would have to be assimilated to that of the United States, that country not proposing to allow us to import raw material or manufactures at a less duty than they themselves do, and then enter their markets with them. Any change in their own tariff, which the people of the United States demand, would be made at Washington for the benefit of the people of the United States, and, under the treaty, our people would have to conform to the new schedule, even were it a detriment to Canatla. It is (I) Speeches in August, l888. FOR CANADA. 23 uny par- id ; there- if tlic now i he could ril satisfac- joying the ) reported dians and 1 patiiotic; cncy is to )f unciuah- ur own in be luider- ng British with it a re to open manufac- •s, and to eciprocity, a was one nd, when m Houses \c rest of le United a fair and er of our trol. Of to that of to import lemselves e in their nd, would le United onform to la. It is universally conceded thai all tariff is ;i tax, and if this does not represent taxation without representation, what then does it repre- sent ? Have wc not read in history of a very vigourpus protest against the principle involved? Tlien, too, Canada has a debt. It is extremely unfortunnte, not to say iMipleasant, that this should be the case ; and if the Canadian :jaboard tariff and internal revenue (the internal revenue sche- Gules must also conform to those of the United States) failed in producing sufficient funds for the expenses of our government and the interest of our debt, where was the balance of cash to come from, except by direct taxation? Would th*. United States in framing their tariff care at all for the necessities of the Canadians indulging in the " luxury of waving the British flag." What it all amounts to is, that, if wc are to be independent of the United States, we must maintain the independence of our tariff, A ZoUverein may be dismissed as simply i..oonshinc. Under these circumstances, is Canada helpless? Were not Englisii markets open, she certainly would be; but as in the main she produces everything which the Northern States do, she has notliing to fear. The sudden imposition of the Mclvinley tariff, of course, upset established trade, but, like a stream ofwiiter suddcnlv l)locked, it found a new channel. Over two years have now elapsed since that celebrated law came into operation. It may be claimed that it was purely American legislation for American interests, and levelled against the world at large and no one in par- ticular ; but with Canada stretching along 3,00c miles of their bor- der, against whom were the agricultural clauses levelled, if not at Canada ? Except a few potatoes and other vegetables, who else ships one cent's worth of agricultural product into the United States? With all the talk of reciprocity on one hand, and the refusal to deal on any but bankruptcy terms with Canada on the other, the claim of the Republican party, that their legislation was simply for the benefit of their own farming industry, will not stand the test of this question. Had Canada knuckled down, and admitted the mainifac- tures of the United States free of duty, what was to become of the protection of this late pet of the Republican party, the United States farmer ? nw 24 TRANSPORTATION THE PROBLE.. ii' The McKinley tariff is now doomed. It is probable that its effect on us has not been as detrimental to our interests as has our own system of protection. Our financial institutions do not seem to have suffered in consequence of McKinleyism. Investment stocks compare favourably with New York stock quotations : Feb. I, 1889. Feb. 3, 18^3- Bank of Montreal ...225}^ 236^/^ Ontario Bank 126 119 Molsons Bank 157 174 Bank of Toronto 21 2 1^ 254 Merchants' Bank 137 , 167 Quebec Bank , 1:5 130 Banque Nationale 83 ■ 100 Eastern Township., Bank 125 140 Union Bank 93 102 Canadian Bank of Commerce 118 145 Hochelaga Bank , 90 128 Montreal Telegraph Co 88^ 153 Montreal Street Railway 189^ 184 Montreal City Gas ^9^}i '■'■34 Montreal Cotton Co 80 154 Merchants' Manfg. Co 65 160 Montreal Loan & Mortgage Co 112 . 132^ Bell Telephone Co 90 163 Canadian Pacific Railway 511^ 86^ New York Stock Quotations. Northern Pacific Railway, common. 25^.... 18^ Northern Pacific Railway, preferred. 60-;'^ 49^^ Chicago, B. & Quincy 109^ 102^ Delaware & Hudson ^37H ^35 Lake Shore 103^ 130 Pullman Car 197 197^ Rock Island 98^. Sy}^ St. Paul, common 65^ 81 St. Paul, preferred '^2^ 122^ Union Pacific 64^^ 41 i ii FOR CANADA. 25 49>^ 102/2 130 ■197^ 81 41 One or two attempts have been made to negotiate reciprocity treaties with the States,— our Ministers have been charged with be- ing the real obstructionists ; but Mr. J. W. Foster, upon whose shoulders had fellen the mantle of Mr. Blaine, has told tiie whole story at the annual dinner of the New York Board of Trade. He is reported to have said : " But it may be said, if this be true, why not extend it to our Canadian neighbours on the North ? The first answer is that witii our tropical neighbours whose products are so dissimilar to ours, reciprocity is a simi)le matter; but when we come to deal with a country having thousands of miles of contermin- ous territory, and with like products and industry, the question becomes more complex. But this -s not llie insujjerable difficulty. The fact that Canada does not possess the right of negotiating her own treaties, but must have them negotiated by a distant power which is controlled by economic principles entirely different from those of liie United States and Canada, constitutes the chief barrier to any arrangement, so long as other interests than those of Canada are to control the negotiations for commercial relations. With such neighbours as recognize American (in its broadest sense) as para- mount to European influence in this hemisphere, to all such coun- tries we should open the doors of trade as v ide and as freely as the interests of our own established industries would permit. Beyond that, the spirit of genuine Americanism does not require or permit us to go. This " insuperable difficulty " had not prevented these very men negotiating a treaty with Jamaica and the British West India Islands, and also with Cuba and Spain. Our Ministers must be excused if they failed to transact business, when they had to deal with a man capable of uttering such unmitigated nonsense before men well known for their shreuuness and business ability. If it were an at- tempt to say nothing, it was about the most clumsy effort on record. However, we have a new set of men to deal with in the United States, and they may refuse to negotiate reciprocity treaties with anyone, on the broad ground that such treaties can only mean more or less protection. Far better for Canada would it be to reduce her own tariff all round, independent of everyone, than to bind herself in a general treaty with any country maintaining a lariff for protection. M T I 26 TKANSPUiiTATION THE PROP.LEM WOULD CANADA HAVK BEEN BETTER OFF TO-DAY HAD SHE JOINED THE THIRTEEN COLONIES IN 1774? Here again we must draw a line between the old and the new Canat'a : the new Canada, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is all in the future. With ihe past, however, Canada is the ol^ Canada, including New Brunswick and Xova Scotia. Is it so very certain that tiie part of ilie Continent now under co-,isideration would have done any better as part of the American L^nion ? Lci us look for a moment at the Slate of Maine, lying on one exlromc of our Country. There is a Stale with all the climatic disadvantages with which old Canada has had to struggle ; and in its favor, it has not only had the advantage of an (:i)en sea-board, but of the free American market — the market of sixiy-five millions of people which we sometimes hear about. Its sea-coast draws tourists from all parts of .America ; but, with that excepiion, does anyone ever go to Maine ? How much ahead of Canada is the State of Maine ? This State, it is true, has pr(jduced the Hon. James G. Blaine, and with that it must remain content : nature in all |)robability owed some counterpoise. Everything which nuy be said of Maine may be said of the States of Vermont and New Hampshire. State reports give us lists of farms abandoned or imsaleable; and yet, had Canada joined the States one hundred and twenty years ago, of what would she have been possessed which these Slates have not been in possession of ever since ? To the extreme west o{ old Canada stands the Slate of Michigan, another State in |)ossession of that free market of sixly-five millions of [jeople. (i) The most southerly part of it has benefited by the emigrant wave settling and passing westward ; but northward it is yet the wilderness of the lumberman, and backwoods to all intents and purposes. In view of the fact that until about twenty-five years back, the whole drift of emigration had been to the West and West Central States, it (I) The Census of iTq") yives Michigan 2,093,889. The Canadian Census of 1891 gives Ontario 2,114,321. FOR CANADA. 27 is not too much to assert tliat had the country known as Canada been only the far North-East of the United States, it would not have attained its present standard of development. To say nothing of the railroads-, the incentive to open up the Country with canals would certainly have been less ; the energies and the attention of the people would have been diverted into other channels, and, with the exception of that strip between Buffolo and Detroit, it would have remained equal in value to the lumber regions of Michigan and Maine. Certainly, Toronto is fiir ahead of any city on the American shore of Lake Ontario. It is worthy of note that the Americans have not yet cut a canal connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario. Why has an enterprising nation omitted doing this ? Will anyone believe that the asserted military consideration has been the reason for the long delay ? The sentiment of New YorkState is to throw everything possible into the Erie Canal at Bufflilo, ihtnce to New York City. The position which this large State has held in the American Union must be noticed. New Yorkers are very fond of remarking that " what :;ew York wants she gets." A glance at the map will show ti at so long as this State wished to block the outlet into Lake Ontario from her side, she could do it by refusing to cut a canal round the Niagara Falls. Everyone knows that this State, with its 26 to 36 votes for President in the Electoral College, has represented an interest in the American Union which it has not been safe for either party to trifle with ; and New York interests are, of course, wl.at is best for New York State. With Canada a Maine, and certain up to a very late date to have consisted in a great measure of territories, would the present canal and railway systems have existed, in view of the deference which politicians were bound to pay to New York interests, especially when it was to be only at the expense of backwoods-men and Frenchmen bound to the Church of Rome ? (i) (I) Edward D. North, in the Forum, May, 1892, says, among other reasons, that the canal was cut to Erie because the Ontario route " presented cheaper transpor- tation to the sea via the St. Lawrence than by any other existinj^ route." With Oswego the port of transhipment, grain would more readily drift to the sea by tlie cheapest outlet. *' 28 TRANSPORTATION THE PROBLEM I3efore the war, politics would have been different ; the South would not only have been well pleased to jjurchase the vote of the State of New York, by sealing up the Northern route, but would have been happy in the consciousness that they were blocking the formation of other Yankee States, (i) The West and Northwest were in possession of the Indians ; the trend of politics would have been so different, that one can easily imagine the South long remaining, masters of the situation. As it is, New York State has succeeded in cutting off the whole north country, including Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, by the line Albany to Jiuffalo, and would have blocked Canada still more had it been American territory. But the reign of New York State on old lines is very nearly over. " Westward the course of Empire takes its way," and Presidential candidates are very rapidly becoming less dependent on that State. Senator Davis has lately drawn attention to the necessity of a ship canal around the Falls. It is true he advocates another, Oswego to the Hudson ; but with a race of grain producers in these North- western prairies on either side of the boundary line, it is not probable that any artificial barriers will long be permitted to check the flow of grain on its cheapest route to the sea ; and be it either nature or laws, whether it be New York State or the manufactures of Ontario and Quebec, they will in a few years be forced to bend at the demand of the \Ve«t. Is it not plaik that all this Northern Country, until tiie Northern Country west of us was peopled, would have remained the abode of Frenchmen and backwoodsmen had the Thirteen Colonies obtained possession of it in 1774? With no one in the Northwest to push it, who would have been interested in the opening of it up, in opposition to the wishes and interests of the great Eastern State ? Without the start given it by the Colonial (i) The Chicago 7)77>««?, the leading paper of the West, remarks editorially : " The Slave-holding South which ruled then at Washington was equally anxious to give the Canadians, while remaining English subjects, all the commercial bene- fits which would have followed annexation. The Southern leaders did not want the latter to happen, because it would have added four or five free States to the Union." January 27th, 1893. FOR CANADA. 29 emigrants, and the flow of English capital into th.. country since then, the native French would have been left in the peaceful possession of the St. Lawrence. The general progress made in seventy years, in the older Provinces and States, subject to the same climatic: conditions, is well illustruied by the average yearly increase in population. We find that ii Quebec has gained per year ,5,735 for 66 years. ^^^'^'"^ 5,182 Nova Scotia ^^^^^ New Brunswick ^687 New Hampshire * jl'^g^^ ^'^•""«"' 1,380 70 73 67 70 70 The reports of the different census give :— Quebec (Lower Canada) in 1825-450,000 In 1891-1,488,535 '^^^'"^ rS2o 298.335 NovaScotia jSiS— 82^053 New Brunswick 1824— 74,176 New Hampshire 1820—244,161 V^-""o»t 1820—235,764 [890 — 1891 — 1891 — 1890 — 1890 — 661,086 450,39*^ 321,263 376,530 332,432 All that this question of progress and vaunted superiority of institutions amounts to is, that the United States have had just one hundred years start of us in the possession of a great West The development of Canadian railroads has been of considerable assistance to Maine. The value of its statistics depends somewhat on whether its census was taken in the tourist months or not; but the progress of New Hampshire and Vermont, depending more upon the United States markets, has not been anything very parti- cular to boast about. ^^y pani In the ten years between 1880 and 1890 the population of the State of Vermont has increased by one hundred and thirty-six souls. It IS somewhat difficult to argue out a benefit to us in join- ing our fortunes with that commonwealth at any rate. Are we absolutely certain in this Lower Province that it would do more for us than enlarge the boundaries of Vermont Park? We are to be congratulated that we did not get in, in 1775. 30 TRANSPORTATION THE PROI'.LRM w Why should our iirogress in tlie past 70 years have been greater than that of iliese neighbouring States, had the French joined in the American Revolution ? The size of ()utbec has little to do with the calculation ; for away north of the St. Lawrence, the land, owing to climatic conditions, is beyond the sphere of colonization. While our National Policy has had a great deal to answer for, the protection policy of the United States has had as much on their side, So far as these North Eastern States are concerned. A record of their exodus would sliow that their native born have been replaced with the French Canadians representing the exodus from Quebec. So long as these display the characteristics of their ancestors, work as hard as and live clieaper than other people, and yet remain in touch with each other and their Church, they can in slow but steady waves drive everything before them in the labour line. The manufactures of the New England States are principally benefited by the change. When living in the States one cannot help being struck with the general consensus of opinion that Canadians are slow. This is not very flattering ; but we may allow a little for the natural sentiment of their people. If we were up to the times, we ••■ ould join them, instead of poking along and sticking to England. Well, our friends may rest assured that while we fully appreciate their wonderful progress, yet, to whatever end Canadian sentiment may point, that end is not to Washington. And in their own country can they show any better record after all? Our climate and our wilderness were factors in the case over which we had no control ; the fair comparison for the old days is Maine and Michigan, it is well to remember, too, that the rough edge had been taken off their wilderness by two hundred years of occupation before the axe was heard in the woods of English Canada. Since the creation of the new Canada, it seems as though the wand of the magician had passed over the country on their North. It is just twenty-five years since limited Statehood gave place to Dominion. In 1870 Manitoba was organized, and half the Conti- nent, which up to that time had been held by the Hudson's Bay Company, passed into the present Dominion. British Columbia and lOR CANADA. 31 Vancouver Island followed in 1S71, and Prince Edward Island in 1873. We then did exactly as the United States have done over and over again : when in want of money we entered the general money market of the world with our security in our iiands ; and now, af.er twenty-five years of possession, we cliallenge a comparison. Let any sceptic travel over the Dominion from Winnipeg to Vancouver, and carry in his mind that, far away North of liis comfortable car, the settler is seeking out the best agricultural land, farm by farm, where only fifteen years ago his scalp would have been unsafe ; onward to the town of Vancouver, primeval forest in 1886. Such a forest, too, as only those who have been on the Pacific Coast know anything about. If he cannot, in any corresponding portion of his own country south of the line, produce anything to surpass it for ten years work, (i) then for ever let him hold his peace regarding the slowness of Canadians. The trouble with Canadians is, that they are a great deal too modest. The assertion that England built our Pacific road for us for military purposes is so ridiculous, that an apology is necessary for taking time to refute it. Nevertheless, as it is constantly asserted by such authorities as Senator Cullum, we cannot be surprised at some of the people south of us believing it. The class of men who look upon us as slow old pokes are the class who believe in the military road. It is evident that someone has accomplished some- thing, which, on this Continent at any rate, has been considered as the prerogative of go-ahead Americans. It could not have been the "fringe to the States," and accordingly it must have been England. That the Canadian Pacific Railroad, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was built on Canadian credit alone, is well known to all who have taken the trouble of informing themselves. That in the early days of our Federation the Government of the United Kingdom did guarantee the bonds of a road connecting the Pro- vinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with the city of Quebec is a fact, but this road is no part of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (I) The Canada Pacific Railroad was completed in 1885, ■. , f 32 TRANSPORTATION THE PROItLEM system. That guarantee was given to enable us to borrow the money in London at a cheaper rate than we could have obtained at iliat time. I'lngland on her part may have had some idea of the mihtary advantages of such a road ; but the concession was granted in consideration of the fact that Canada had been at great expense during the American Civil War in maintain mg her neutrality, and at danger and expense afterwards, from the raids of armed bands of citizens, so called, whom United States law seemed utterly powerless to reach. These losses were brought upon us for no other reason than because we chose to fly the Hag of I'.ngland ; and this guarantee was the last which Canada either asked or received from the JJritish nation. 'I he discussion anent " Canada's Government road" was all calculated to lead up to President Harrison's message to Congress. It their assertion be true, that they are having cheap transjjorta- tion at our expense, tin ir jicople must have somethin^.^ to thank us for, to say the very least. The Treasury report that the debt of the United States increased by three millions during the past month v)f January. Two millions in cash had to be paid out to meet the " semi-annual interest on the Union Pacific Railroad bonds." Whether Canada made a good or bad bargain with er Pacific Railway Company is a question for Canadians to decide, and affects them only. T |U, FOR CANADA. 33 THF CHURCH OF ROME. People who so glibly talk of Canada joining the States fail to realize the position whirh the Church of Rome holds on the Comment. lliat this Church will do anything which will jeopardize its position in Canada is not to be expected. Within this Dominion the Irovinctof Quebec is completely under its thumb ; the Census gave us population as 1,196.346 French and 292,189 Fnglish speaking. If this Church meets the wants of such an overwhelming majority of the people, it is not for the English minority, demanding the freedom of their own opinions, to say : '« Thou shalt not have it." All that we can demand is that it will mind its ovvn business. Its definition, however, of what its own business is differs some- what from our English Canadian definition. Apparently the idea of their priesthood is, that they should spread their language and their institutions over the rest of this Dominion ; ours IS that the decision must be left to the local legislatures as representing the will of the people subject to the constitution. hot some inscrutable reason, the French Canadian has proved to be the most prolific race on this Continent. With only 100,000 to start with in 1762, they now amount to 1,415,000 in Canada, and I believe it is estimated that there are 500,000 of them in the United States. His natural instinct is lo close up about his Church, but Manitoba must be admitted to have attracted her share of their peo- ple lately. These men are a distinct race, and as yet have not assimilated to the other people of this Continent. They, too, have their aspirations. If their ambition be to Romanize the Maritime Provinces and the New England States, using Quebec as a base of operations, their prolific production will permit of their accomplish- ing it, and presenting the twenty-first century with a very interest- ing problem. The French Canadian is a good settler, in every sense of the word ; he is bound to overflow somewhere, and it will be in the direction in which there is the least resistance to his Church. Exactly parallel to our ideas of to-day were the ideas of the two sections of tlie United States with regard to slavery up to i86r. 3 34 TRANSPORTATION THE PROBLEM i ''•lud' :1„ It is exported, however, that we shall be able to settle this question amongst ourselves, without apjieaHng tu the force to whieli the United States were driven in that year. Our pol.tical machinery being the more perfect will carry us through all such ([uestions as may arise. At any rate, the Church of Rome stands a fact, and its workers are guided by a set of men educated to politics and dealing with the various phases of the Church throughout (>hristend(;m. As a com- pact body of politicians they are as clever as in the world exist. Had their leaders in Rome been of the opinion that annexation would have been conducive to their benefit, and have contributed to the power of their Church, the'formation of this Dominion, de|)ending upon il'.e vote of the people, would never iiave been permitted. As it was, through opening u\) a new country in which, backed by their solid province of Quebc( , they were sure of having a heavy vote, pre- sented a condition of affairs eminently calculated for their expan- sion. It is a great deal easier for them to make their power felt, and extend their sway in the present Dominion than as a State of tin; American Union. With tliis power in their hands, what inducement is there for them to give it up ? In the present temper of the United States, could a vote be passed through Congress admitting a solid Roman Catholic State, with its church establishment, language and treaty rights, to equal rights in the American Union ? The New York limes of February 3rd says : — " The proposition to admit as a State of the Union a population of 17th Century French Canadians, about as large as the population of Wisconsin, is one that should make thoughtful Americans paur.e." It is clear that, to join the States, they would either have to give up their traditions, or consent to be ruled as a territory. The Church of Rome has a far better game to play than that. This Church, both in Canada and in the United States, is guided by the same men over the sea ; and their great object is power. They believe that with power they can lead men in the true path ; therefore, what they do, they do, because they believe that it contri- butes to the power of their Church ; and what they refrain from doing is because they do not think that it will help the ends which they have in view. Iff FOR CANADA. 5 question whicli the I carry us Ls workers igwith tlie As a com- '"!#■ 44 TRANSPORTATION TlIK PROIiKKM rate of 14 miles ;iii hour; and while the United States farmer has held his own fairly well against the semi-civilized wheat growers of India, I go not see liuw he can hope to win in comi)etiiioii with men of the same race, men just as iiilelligeiit, with a climate no more rigourous, with a soil at least as fertile, and with iransjKjrtation facilities immeasurably superior. The great plains of the Canadian Northwest are unsettled now, but when once the conditions of soil and climate which there exist are supplemented by facilities for tranvporlation not surpassed, if equalle 1, by those of any other region, I believe the Canadian Northwest will settle up with a raceofhardy» intelligent and prosperinis people, and will become the granary of the v.'orld. " /A' who can most cheaply reach the markets of the xvorld can control the markets of the world."' If Canadians do not apj^reciate the country to which in fact, as well as in theory, they have fallen heir under the Imperial Hag, Americans do. Wake up, ye of little faith in the destiny of Canada, and see yourselves as others see you ! Our country can seize a position upon the ('ontinent which " wad frae monie a blunder free us, an' foolish notion." Our Northern position saves us from many of the evils of which our neighbours to the South complain, while the depression in the moimtain ranges makes all the differ.;nce between an agricultural land and a desert. If we can by any means lay down the necessaries of life in these plains, and carry the i)ro- ducts of these jilains to their destination, more cheaply than the Americans, to which land will the farmer turn when ouce lie under- stands the conditions existing? Of the Pacific Coast. The practical settlement of California com- menced with the discovery of gold in 1848. Surprise has fref[uently been expressed thac a country with the natural advantages of this State should not have secured more of the emigrant wave with which the United States has been favom-ed. Mr. II. II. JJancroft, while hopeful for the futifte, admits that California, the finest State in the Union, has not kept pace with her sister rivals in the East. Amongst causes assigned is lack of trade, and want of a proper market. There is no part of this Continent of America to surpass the Pacific Coast. An enthusiastic citizen has described California as the I III i I I OR CANADA. 45 Italy, Oregon as the l-'rancc, ;iiul Washington Stale and IJrilish Coltniihia as the I'aighind of this Continent. 'I'his description ;ii)i)Hes, however, only to the strip of country West of the Sierra Nevada, and along the ccjast Northward towards Alaska. Leaving all sentiment or prejudice of one kind or another out of the (|uesti(jn, there is some cause for what stands an established fact to-day ; that little hit of an Island of Britain, lying upon the Western shore of lOurope, has become the seat of a great l'Jii|)ire, It is either their climate, their country, iheir laws, or all three c.ombinefl, which is responsible for tliis creation. Althoug'n Komc held l''ngland for five hundred years, the modern !''aiglishnian is not only tiie out- growth or the result of Roman civili/.alion ; that was all wiped out by the jilundering i'i(.ts, Scots, Northmen, Saxons and Danes. The bona Jidc Englishman was born at Senlac Hill, andwhaA he has done he has done himself, a.nd borrows naught from abroad. All the conditions of greatness, except their Island security, which are to be found in that country, are lying undeveloped to-da.y between some point in Washington Slate and a point in IJrilish Coliunbia, taking in, say, one hundred to twrj hundred a.nd fifty miles inland, exclusive of the Island of Vancouver. They have fish (ami .\laska sea has valuable '' banks," exi;lusiveof the seal business), timber, coal and iron on the coast ; in the Mountains of I5riiisli Columbia lie .silver, coi)per in enormous {[uantities, and lead, to sa,y nothing of Other minerals, while its climate is tempered by the japan curreiit, in exactly the sain,' m inner that ihe Gulf Stream tempers i'lngland, .Vs a,n illustration ofihe climate, market gardens can be shown from which fresh vegetables are taken daily, for twelve months m ihe year. For the soil, the vegetation s|)Laks for itself, and taking iiuo considera.lioi\ its minera.1 resources, it is not too much to say that, when one-tenth of the cajjital and energy which have been spent on the Atlantic Coast shall lia.ve been put in on the Tacihc, it will be found that one acre of that land will support more men than the like quantity in any other part of the New World. The country is only now opening u]), and except in the Coast towns, and in older California, the life is all that can be expressed in that of a jjioneer. But the development of this Coast, e:;pecially of California, is "I 46 IRANSI'ORTATION TIIK PROliLKM !jH, ,! ,1 slower ih:in the faiiiiess of tlie country would sccni to warrant. Not many citizens of the United States will he ready to admit that their laws restrict the growth of that part of their country ; hut a case may he staled to this effect. The wheat (jf California, Orei^on and Washington Slate differs entirely from that of the'lJentral. Eastern and Northern ; it is a heaiitiful article, douhlless, hut so long as Minnesota, Dakota, Manitoha .uul the N'orthwest [)roduce sufficient spring wheat, and the Central anil Southern States supply enough of iall wheat for home consumption, not one hushel of Coast wheat will he sold for consumption east of the Rocky Mountains. The Northern Pacific Railroad has found that out. Two years ago they offered Palouse wheat in every market from St. Paul to New York, without sales of anything more than samples. It would suit them well to get a load hack from the West Coast ; hut the fact is, that, while their wheat is good, it will not make a llour strong enough to compete with the strong haker's llour, the jjroduct of the si)ring wheat of the North, nor will it jrind white enough to compete with the fall wheals of, say, (.)hio. Being a i)lumi), heavy and soft herry, the millers found that it was not suilahle for mixing in their Northern mills, and in every case it lowered the colour in the winter wheat mills. The wheat of the I'acific Coast, so flir as the Eastern Stales are concerned, is out in the cold. Their only outside market is Europe — iMigland and France in particular. One cargo of it would fill up the Scotch market for a year — the Highlander wishes something strong for his money — hut with England and France it is different ; they must in them meet the com- petition of all the world. It follows that while forced to sell in Europe, and no other i)lace. unless China opens up, they are at the same time prohihited hy the tariff of the Uniied States from buying in the same market. The reciprocity arguments, so jjopular at present, might come into play here. Every article of necessity they are compelled to buy in the protected Eastern markets, and pay protection prices, with the long haul over therai'oids into the bargain. It certainly appears that the laws of the United States, to the extent to which they are restrictive, deprive the farmer of the Pacific Coast of the benefit of exchange with his customers in Europe. FOR CANADA. 47 ifit he asked, why do not lliey start factories of their own ? well, the distances are great between iioints of local consumption, local rail freights are high, and the loral market at any one point (except perhaps at San Francisco and L'ortland) is not huge enough to sustain a factory of any magnitude, turnin;^ out but one line of goods; and, above all, fuel is dear. l'acu»ries go slow, is the nsual answer to the encpiiry ; but from my limited [joint of view, the real reason for the stagnation on the I'acific Coast is the stagnation of foreign trade. Between the Railroad monopolies on one hand and the protected Eastern manufacturers on the other, tlie wheat producer, having no choice where his purchases shall be m ide or his produce sold, h is a hard time of it ; that i)e makes a living at all says a great deal tor the country. The case is not complete even yet ; the farmer being forced to buy in the Eastern markets is not in a position to make favourable freight contracts with the Ocean carrier; the ship will not go to .San Fran- cisco unless it will pay. A vessel may load at Liverpool for China, and on arriving there, if a cargo is procurable to Frisco, and this freight and the Frisco freight to Liverpool pay better than a return trip straight to F^ngland, to Frisco then she will go, but not other- wise. It is futile to argue that this China trade will carry the Pacific Coast wheat, — protection restricts that also ; and in these days of Ocean cables there is not the same chance of a vessel going to a port to which it will not pay for the outward cargo thence. Ships will rt'iihout doubt sometimes be caught in the Pacific, and a glut in this port or that take place ; without a steady trade, however, consi- derable fluctuations may be expected, resulting in irregular prices for grain. So far as Ocean carriage is concerned, if i)eoi)le make laws which restrict their own purchasing power in the only market in which they can sell their product, they must be prepared to give away more of the result of their labour, in the shape of higher rates of freight, than would otherwise be necessary. With competition in Liverpool and Havre, and ships there getting full cargoes for Frisco, Portland, Tacoma and Seattle, more vessels would be on the route, a steady trade maintained, and outward freights from these latter ports relieved from some share of their TT "-^'^' 48 TRANSPORTATION THE PROIiLEM i\mi burden, thereby gaining a coTcsiJonding advantage for the grain. In early days, wheat sold for fifty cents a bushel in Chicago, when foreign markets were much higher than they are to-day. the cost of transportation absorbing the differei\c.e ; but will anyone argue that the Ncjrthwestern Stales would have been as prosperous (even allow- ing everything for |)rotection whicii is demantled) iiad the same heavy ciiarges been maintained going East, and the people been obliged to buy their clothes and hardware in California ? In the winter of 1S90-1891 there was great complaint ihroughoui Washington State about the blockade of wheat ; no cars, grain was bagged and piled like cordwood ai every way station; no cars, l)ut the run to Taconia or Seavtle was short, the enterprise of these citizens had built elevators, docks, etc. Pugct Sound offered all the fixcilities for a slii|)ping trade ; the farmers were in want of money, and anxious to sell ; a market kiy open for them in England, with men ready to pay cash for their wheat put on board ships in the Sound. The only links wanting to complete this chain were the trade and the ships at the right ])laces ; of cars there were plenty, and owned by the Northern Pacific too, but they were not in the right placj either, because there was not the trade. With the wheat cro() of Washington State harvested and ready for market, the si)eclacle was afforded of one ship loading at Seattle, h is peihaps necessary to remember that this is the Nineteenth Century. A hurried trip over the ground last summer showed affairs to be in the same unsatisfactory state ; the larger the factory the slower it seemed to " go ; "' the elevator at Seattle was in the hands of a receiver, and generally there were flat times over the whole coast. It really seems as ihougli other interests than those of the inhabitants dominate in that part of the country ; but an average of twenty- three bushels of wheat to the acre carries it, in spite of monopolistic legislation. Reciprocity has been before people, and if the sum total of legislation be the creation of markets for manufactures, the peojile of the Pacific Coast are to be congratulated on the possession of a happy and accommodating disposition ; but as the East respect- fully refuse to eat their wheat, if the grower of sugar be entitled to a bounty, then to a much greater extent is the farmer of California, Oregon and Washington State. KOK CANADA, 49 TRANSPORTATION THi: PRQliLKM FOR CANADA. It IS impossible to consider the transportation problem without at the same tune opening up the question of free trade .nd protec tion. I he one is indi-:solul)ly bound up with the other. Tliis in Its turn carries with it an attack, not only upon the present National lolicy of Canada, but also on Recii)rocitv with any protectionist country, and especially with the Cniled Stales, so lon.^ as that country mamtams a higher seaboard tariff than one which we consider suitable to the particular wants of our own Northern coun- try. A very large and deep (luestion is this, truly ; and one which IS only taken up here because of its effect on the transportation problem. So long as the Northwestern States and the Hudson's Jjav Com- pany lands were in the possession of the Indians, the questions involving the Canada of the St. Lawrence were of local interest only , but Continental transportation is now a live issue, and lar-et and more far-reaching problems are before the people holdmg the outlet for that immense country tributary to the Northe:n Lakes. Freedom of trade being, as a matter of fact, the transportation problem, is my apology for entering into the well-worn and thread- bare tarilf discussion of the day. Tiiere must surely be some ex]>lanation tor the fact, that, under free trade, England has advanced by leaps and bounds in every- thing winch makes a nation great; while under protection, the United States have developed their resources at a rate bevond ar.y thing ot which the r.-t sanguine could have dreamed. Hovv comes this apparent anomaly.? In England no one questions the free trade doctrine, although some do question its advisability in the face of the bounty and protectionist systems carried to such extreme lengths in other countries. In the United States, had pro- tection been such a millstone as its opponents make out, that country could not have stood where she does to-day. Freetrader as I am, and believing it to be the only sound basis on which to work, I am at the same time forced to admit that the r 5° TRANSPORTATION' THi: I'KOHLEM ^ i' i ..'I Ill l)rotcctionit is perfcclly justified in pointing to Iiis country with trium])li, and dc Handing, tinder free tradj could we have done any better? I am not sure tliat niy opinion will be accepted regarding the state of affairs in the I'nited Slates, but ii is the only argument upon which I can admit of protection beipg a benefit, and it is based on free liind. The United States stood with an er.ormous amount of arable land, unoccupied and uncultivated, and. in effect, said to the would-be emigrant ; — " 'I'o buy 160 acres of hnul in I'airope is entirely beyond your means. Come to this country, we will give you 160 acres for nothing, or at least for no cash payment down, but you must consent to give jircferencc to the goods manufactured in this country over those of foreign countries. We will admit that you will have to pay a little more for them, but you are getting a clear title to something which you cannot get in Europe. It is our policy to open up our mines and build railroads, and we can only do this by offering induccinents to men leaving their homes to come here, because of t.ne greater inducements which we o'^ljr over those of other coun- tries. While not saying anything about the home market thus created for your produce, you must remember that every man who lands on this shore cannot become a farmer, and, while a mechanic work- ing for his daily wage, at the end of his life has only what he may. have saved oiit of his daily earnings, you, on the other hand, while working for your daily wage, have at the end of your life a ••^perty, the title to which you received gratis from the nation, and ich has now a market value. As between you and the mechanic, at the end of your days, you are a capitalist, a landei proi)rietor." This argument would hold good so long as there was any free land, or for one generation only, but, like a |)ateni, ii must have its limit. The farmer is quite justified in answeri.ig to-d ly : — '• Granted : and I agreed to support your industries because they were infant indus- tries, but when are 'hey to cease being infants ? Will they never stand alone? There is no free land to be had now, farms must be paid for, and so far as 1 am concerned, for this farm which was given me I feel that I have paid its value. The argument about the working man is all right, but it has either proved such a success, or the principle has been carried to such an extreme, that it is doing FOR CANADA. SI with c any jding imcnt based arable )Vikl-be jcyond ;rcs for ;onsent rv over J to pay nothing u\) our offering :ausc of or coun- created 10 lands lie work- he may. ;r hand, iiir life a lion, and echanic, )netor. [•ee land, its limit, d ; and I Int indus- ey never must be hich was nt about Li success, It is doing more than provide for the workingnian. Men with millions are multiplyiug; at a rapid rate, and these millions are out of our I'ockets, for we farmers are the great consumers of home manufac- tures." Unless protection can be justified on this line of -xrgument, T fail in seeing any justification for it. Why one .;et oi men should work harder, so that another set may gain a living out of their toil, is an anomaly difficult to understand in a free country. 'I'lie evolution of this word " tariff" is of some interest. Origin- ating in the dark ages with those pirate robbers of the Moorish tou'ii Tarifa, who, to the teiror of all legitimate traders, by virtue of their power concentrated at a given point, collected tribute upon all vessels passing in and out of the Mediterranean, it has come round in this enlightened age of ours, to ref^resent loyalty and the most intense and vehement patriotism. So little am I satisfied with the whole protection argument that L have no faith in its application to Canada ; I feel that giving the cultivators of the soil the jjrivilege of buying their wares in the cheapest market, wherever that may be, is lor our Northern country the sounder policy. That tremendous stretch of country lying l)etween Winnipeg and the Rockies is nothing if it is not agricul- tural ; and to succeed, agriculturists must be allowed the opijor. tunity of making their money go as far as possible. Of all the Canadians who have made permanent homes in the United States, Mr. Wi.nan has probably taken more interest in Can- adian-AmericL,n affciirs than any other of those whose fortune or necessity has drawn them over tl e border. On the trade (piestion, he insists that giving the United States differential treatment against the world is the better policy for Canada, and that it is the only basis upon which the United States will open their markets to us. He says : " While it will be most desirable on the part of the United States to admit freely raw materials and food products, it will be equally desiral)le to open up new markets in exchange for those — not new markets for natural products, but markets for manufactures into which these natural products find their way. Certainly it will not fulfill the idea of the Democrats of Freedom of Trade if the freedom is on one side only. Unless goods or merchandise are w ?,il 52 TRANSPORTATION THE PROBLEM It' exchanged for wlial Canada has to sell, there can be no freedom of trade with Canada. If money alone is to be the medium of exchange, then there is little prosj^cct of an inccased trade between the two countries as the outcome of the new V'olicy, hereafter and for a long time to prevail in the United States ' This is nothing more nor less than our old friend in a new form : the price of free trade with the States is the acceptance of the Amer- ican tariff. And it is desirable that in exchange for our " raw ma- terial and food products " we should accej)! of their " manufiictures " under a Continental protection agreement : iii other words, our farmers are to give yet a little more of the result of their labour, in ex. ciiange for the manufactures of the United States and Canada. But this is only for the amount of " raw material and food products" which th y may re([uire, how about the enormous quantity which they do not want? At which port is it to find its way to the sea? 'J'he larger and the greater the variety of market, the larger an(' cheaper the trade. New York is already in possession of the great lines of trade, and if we place more obstructions to imports at our own port of entry, through unrestricted reciprocity with the United Stales, the larger freight market is to have the advantage over the smaller. The full significance of a large ocean freight market versus a small, one can only be realized by those in the grain trade. I\Ir. Wiman's argument would be i)erfect were it based upon uni- versal free trade ; the cheapest would then get the business, and no favour asked ; but as it stands, choking off our port only means l)lacing the whole West tributary to New York. " Meantime, Canada is a market for the manufactures of the United States " at ijrotection prices, and our import trade is burst. Mr. Wiman's assertion cuts both ways : " If money alone is to be the medium of exchange, then there is little prospect of an increased trade between the two Countries," applies as much to England as it does to the United States. We stand ready to trade with either or b'- :h ,; but if we must choose, then let it be the one that will give us uie greatest amount of goods in exchange for our ])roduct. We can do a great deal better business exchanging freely with the workshop of the world, for the reason that this workshop turns out , 'ii'M ! ': I FOR CANADA. 53 its goods on a supply and demand basis alone. Would any of us in private life go into business or join a firm which proposed to give more of its own labour for a less amount of the labour of other jK'ople ? Yet that is jjrccisely what we do as a nation when we i)ro- pose to fxchange with a protectionist country instead of a free trade one. 'J'he same argument applies to a tariff of protection against our- selves ; we are menihers of a firm, and some of the p'lrtncrs receive a bonus wliicli llie other partners contribute. After fourteen years of such i)olicy, we have succeeded in reaching a i)oint of national prosperity, which permits of our maintaining a certain proportion of 154,000 men, women, boys and girls ( 1 ) in employment at our own expense ; we Iku'c liad to work hard to do this ; we have had to close up a farm or two, in tlic form of selling out at a reduced i)rice, or ihiHugh the simplilication of the usual mortgage, because the part- ners working those farms could not continue the contribution to the other partners in the National business ; and not having a markc^ for more manufactured goods, we have not l)uilt more manufactories, but have sent the extra hands out of the country to provide for them- selves. Such is the sum total of our fourteen years' business. A point of considerable importance in respect to Reciprocity with the United States is that their prices are establi^' J by a tariff law. It has always been a Democratic campaign argument that the manufacturers had two sets of i)rices, — one to their own citizens, as liigh as their tariff law would ])ermit, and one to foreigners, based on cost. Lists of these trade prices have frecpiently been published in American papers at election times, the object of the manufacturers being to keep an outlet for their over-production and make their profit out of their own citizens. Once tlaeir surplus was sold in a foreign market, their own duty prevented it coming back again, in C'- .npetition with their later work. An illustration of this may be seen in the Shepard Hardware Company, of Buffalo, N.V.— an establishment of which the buildings cover acres of ground, and, as it happens, conveniently situated for Canadian trade. As an example, take an article such as an ice-cream freezer. (2) No. 4 at regular trade retails for $5.00 in the States, (1) Incliulingthe ratio of increase amongst the 12,000 blacksmiths. (2) These freezers beiuy; numbered according to sizes,and listed, no mistake cm be made in the figures. r I'ilBMII 54 TRANSPORTATION THE PRORLEM 4 i ) ^ I i I :!r ^1' il «f'""' depending somewhat on the profit wliich the retailer thinks he can make (the h'sted price is $5.50 to Americans, subject to the trade discounts), yet, Messrs. Henry Morgan (.\: Co., ol Montreal, can afford to sell this very article, after paying freight and a Canadian duty of 25 per cent., at a regular price of $3.15, and at their annual cheap sale for .$2.40 cash. The same result would come about from the dis- posal of a bankrupt stock. The Steinway piano can be bought hcr^i at tlie same price that it is sold for in the States. Who pays the duty? Into whose pocket would it go under reciprocity? Many other articles might be named. I regiel, however, to say, the rule does not appear to hold good with regard to ladies' boots and shoes, American make, .vhich are dearer hemhan in the States. Partisan ship may assert that these published lists referred to are only Democratic Campaign thunder : but from a business stand-point in a country suffering from over-production, it would seem that a few safety valves in the shape of greater discounts to foreign trarocily. each having their owi; tariff. The proof seems easy. Theie is not lo-day a civilized nation that has not a treaty r,f commerce with some other nation. After tree tr.ide was adopu-d in England, it wa-; expected that all other nations would follow : it was expected that h'l.ince would follow above all others, but FijiKe did not. The l!riii>ii (iovcrnment, therefore, in 18605 sent Mr. ("oi dvu to negotiate a treaty with Trance ; and the sub- stance ( fihis Treaty was, tiiat a number of manufactured articles of British goi ds were allowed lo be brought into France at a siK-cial tariff denied all other nations, while in return French wines were allowed into Englai.d at a favoured tariff." It is 10 b.e ho])ul that Mr. Laurier does not base all his state- ments on t'oundations as unsound as this. Of this very treaty, that veteran frc: trader, the Right Hon. F^arl Cirey, writes; "They (the free traders) have been taunted, not unjustly, with the failure of Mr. Cobden's prediction, that the free admission of corn for (ton- sumption into this country, and the abolition here of other restric- tion^ to li." liberty of commerce, would speedily tend to the general adoption ( ['the policy of free trade by civilizetl nations. The real reason wli\' it did not lead, though more slowly than could be ex- pected, to the result he had on goo I grounds confidently anticipated was, that this country did not remain true to the principles of the policy it professed to have adopted. I refer to the conclusion of the commercial treaty with France, which involved a departure from one of the main ])rinciples of the free trade policy adopted by tiiis country. For nearly thirty years at'ter the peace of 1815, the gov- i FOR c:anapa. 57 ernment was engaged in laborious negotiations with other nations. upon the principle of what it called 'reciprocity,' that is to say. it was to open its ports more freely only lo goods of those nations which would in return give greater faeililies for the importation of British produce into their territories. These negotiations, like the similar negotiations of other nations with each other, signally failed. In 1S43 ;"i'l 1^44 ^'^c late Mr. J. L. Ricardo called the attention of the House of Commons to this result, and proposed that, as we liad f.iiled in i;oming to salislaclory arraiigemc *■> with the most important nations for giving i';realer freedom to ((imnicrce on the princijile of ' recii)rocity,' we shoukl take a different course, and proceed at once to reduce our ov,ii duties on imports as much as the state of our revenue wouUl iiernnt. Mr. Ricardo and his supporters held tliat the real advantage a nation derives from com- merce consists in the larger and cheaper supply it obtains thereby of the various arlic;les consumed by the poi)ulati(Ui. or. in other words, in the greater command thus given to the members of the community of the necessaries and comforts of life. They believe that ilis])lainly the imports a nation receives which confer u])on it this advantage, and that exporting the produce of its own industry is only useful in affording the means of paying directly or indi- rectly for the imports it reipiires. This mode of acting with regard to our commercial relations with other countries was adhered to by the various admiiiistrations to which power was entrusted up to the year i860; this will show very clearlv how widely this policy was departed from by concluding with France the Commercial Treaty of i860. The government of that day bound the country by this treaty to reduce the duties charged upon certain articles largely produced in France, it being stipulated in return for these conces- sions that France should diminish the high duties it levied on some descriptions of l-'nglish goods. The treaty of \%(^o diJ not li^'O so far in alhiiidouiiii^ the policy of free trade aent government trust that Canada, in common with the rest of the lMni)ire, will be given differ, ential treatment by England, especially as against the Tnitod States. This would be very fine ; the idea maintained being that tlu' whole Empire would be benefited diereby. Emigrants would flock to the country where they were, as a matter of fact, to get a bonus on ail wheal which they might raise; the Empire would develop, and everything be lovely — in fact, as nearly as modern conditions will permit, the old exploded Grcnvillian idea of a century and a quarter back vam[)edui) as a strictly tresh discovery. Incidentally, our Conservatives would be able to keep up their protection to native industry. 'I'hat the manufacturers would in return open wide their gates to English goods is a little too much to believe. This twopenny view is opposed to the condition which exists. Territorially, England is somewhat smaller than Virginia, somewhat larger than New York, but in it live, move and have their being, thirly-two millions of, without exception, the freest people on earth. Their little hit of half an Island, however, will not support thom alone, and to live they must trade with the outside world. Accord- ingly, their publ'c opinion tolerates their pushing th'eir fiag into every quarter of the globe, and maintaining it there with all the risks of war and complication ; for them there is no escape, they must trade or starve. Consequently, if one set of men whom they place in power do not make satisfactory arrangements, another set will ; they \l lUR CANADA. Or must stand free to do tlie best busine.-is they can with anyone and everybody. It is in vain to ask tlieni to discriminate against Russia, France, tlie United Slates, South America or anyone else, in order that we and some other portions of the Empire may maintain a protection tariff, and that is all whieh the Coaservutive proposition amounts to. That these men ovlt there will fight liard for iheir trade is a fore- gone conclusion. 'I'h^'ir policy being to kerp the seas open, they push their trade into all cpiarters of the world. If one people will not exchange with them, another will; and, although the sudden anil constantly changing tariffs of some protectionist countries tend to throw their business into temporary confusion, in the m;iin they maintain thenisehes. ^Vhile recogni/.ing the right of nations to make what laws they deem best for their cjwn interests, and of those "'civili/ed nations " wedded to i)rotection to agree to lower llieir respective tariffs in each other's favour, it is not probable that in the present temper of the English workingman they would tolerate any interference in any quarter in which they had a right, and a summons for •'■ hands off"' would be supported by a united ])eoi)le. To fdl up our agricultural West, let us down tlu- bars on English goods, as far as our fiscal arrangements will permit, relying on the increased imports at the lower duty to maintain the revenue. Free exchange being no robbery, with ships getting full inward cargoes, no bolsters to protection would be needed to encourage grain to come to Montreal. Full freight both ways would make lower freights all around, and being in possession of the' cheaper route for this dead weight of grain, with free canals, would be differential trade quite sufficient to :';:ve us the a!i\'i.nta.':e over the restrictive United' i.tes. and more thin !) ilance a^iy differential duty which England, w... at hartlship to h-TSjlf, c;3ald ever put upon her food supply. With no iron th;U we know of, and coal only in limited areas, it will be a long time before our plains will support a manufacturing population. 'I'iie plains are agricultural, and, in general terms, the buyers of the necessaries of life in this West of ours being the sellers of the necessaries of English life, would create a trade, the volume of which would only be limited by the ([uestion of supply and demand. f 63 TRANSPORTATION THK PROHLKM ■4' The spring wheat belt is moving northward with a rapidity which tlircatcus to overtake poUticians ; and witli the peojjle west of Lake Superior, on eitlier side of tiie line, the cpiestion of the best route to market is chiiming more attention. This brings I'-astern Canada^ conlrolHng the St. Lawrence river, prominently into view, and the j)rogress made of late in Lake navigation adds materially to the importance of the natural outlet to the sea, 'I'he '• \\'halel)ack " is a vessel apparently very suitable for the Lakes, carrying an immense cargo with perfect safety, and at a mininuun cost; she seems about to revolutionize the carrying trade of the West. The " Charles W. Whetmore " was not the first '• Whaleback." but she was the first and only onv, 1 believe, which has crossed the Atlantic. On her trial trip, she carried 87,000 bushels of wheat from Duluth to Liverpool via the St. Lawrence, returned to this side, crossed the lM[ualor, i)asscd through the Straits of AL^gellan. and is now upon the Pacific Coast. Whatever be her fate, her record l)roves what such a vessel can do. Built of steel, 265 feet long, 38 l)road, drawing 17 feet of v/ater when loaded with 100,000 bushels of wheat, the advantages claimed for her are, her low cost of c(jnstruction, her elongated elli[)tical form, offering less resistance to wind and waves, and thereby gaining for her tile small consimii)tion of 10 to 13 tons of coal per day. Some trouble seems to hav-e been experienced in Chicago, during the excessive heat of summer, by the trimmers being imable to remain below ; but this seems to have been the only objection. Although this class of vessel has hardly passed the experimental stage, there are already twenty-eight of them afioat on the upper lakes, and I believe the company have eight on the stocks at the present moment. On the '• Whetmore's " trip, she had to lighter at the Welland ; but with that exception, bulk was not broken between. Duluth and Liverpool. With a 15 fool channel throughout the whole Canadian system, and this channel as free/Vv/// fo//s and as open as the river itself, steam vessels of all kinds would come to Montreal with giain unbroken in bulk. This " \\ haleback " carries her own motive power. For the transfer if I'OR CANADA. 63 of grain from her hold to tlic hold of a steamship, is there any good reason why she cannot have a light steel elevator beam and spout (Iho model of which may ho soon in any Chicago elevator) set in a steel frame elbow at her own hatchway and with the same power which drives her through the water, do her own elevating into the steamship in our luirhour here? The case is different from the lake l)roi.eller ; as between the pr()i>eller and whaleback, the latter is a barge ,. then this shafi could lie on deck while she traveled through the water. Towage of floating elevators and elevating charges in our harbour would then go to the credit of the whaleback, and in- directly, through the cheapening of freight, into the pockets of the producers in our West and the Western Slates. The reason, I take it, why such an arrangeuieni has not been added to her outfit is that there has not been the trade lo call for it. The *' Whaleback " receives lier grain from the land elevator owning its own spout at, say, Duluth, and speeds on to Buffalo to another land ele- vator on the same basis into which, the grain must pass, and from thence into little 8, 000 bushel canal boats, or rail cars on to New York. Again the process of elevating and handling must be gone through with before the much taxed bushel finally bids adieu to its American home. No man can run his business on the lines of twenty-five years back, and live in the competition of to-day. The Canada of the l)resent differs from even that of fifteen years ago to such an extent, that old rules and i)recedents in trade are only so much ancient his tory. The more the country northv.-est of us devcloi)s, the more do the conditions under which we have struggled widi New York for trade change in our favour ; in fact, the situation is reversed. Here- tofore it has been a question of the dead weight of grain drifting northward instead of in a straight line to tlie more central and larger New York market ; now it is a ([uestion of the more northerly grain drifting southward, instead of travelling along its more direct route, via our river. When we depended upon southerly grain exclusively, the fact of Montreal being only a summer port was a heavy i)ull against her, and, just at the advent of Duluth as a shii»ping point;, our Nationa 64 TKANSrORTAllDN THE I'KOIJI.F.M r ■*" jioHcy st(.'])|)L'(l in. and ix'strictcd importations hero. \\'illi the dcvcl- opnicni of lliL' great Norlliwost, and freer trade witii l''.nL,'land, the climatic objection l)ecomes one ot" far less degree. The Sauit Sle. Marie and the Straits of Mackin.nv are. as a usual thing, not open .in)- earlier than is the St. I.awrem'.e. The whole traffic of the St. Lawrence and the wlnile tralfic of I.;ike Superior may be jiul on a common b; sis and under aconunon rule. (ii\ri) tlic volume of trade to luirry it. the wheat cargo issuing from Lake Superior with the opening of navigatitjn there, will meet the oce.m carrier in the harbour of Montreal, wiili the result that it may be landed in Javer[)Ool, not only cheaper but nuick'jr than \ia New York. r'rom Kingston to Montreal is but rjo nailes, and the Americans cannot make a water route to opial it. \Ve ])ossess the only route which, as a matter of business, can carry large lines of grain through from the West to J'Airoiie, and also preserve the identity of the cargo in general trade ; the loss in mixing, consecpient on the breaking-up of a roimd k)t, say, of lo.ooo qrs. (So, coo bushels) into 8,000 bushel boat loads on the h'rie Canal is known only to shi[)pers. The quality of this Northern hard wheat is deservedly appreciated across the water, :\nd with a choice of routes at equal rates of freight, the Duluth and Port Arthur dealers would soon discover that '• No. I Hard " shi])ped via the St. Lawrence, commanded a jDremium in the Eiiglish mai.iet. when it was once established that identity of cargo was preservetl dov,-n to the ocean carrier in Mon- treal harbour : elevators on land and lighters in the canals would be a more or less obstruction io business. Give us the requisite depth of water, and the " Whaleback " can meet the demand of th.e trade. Turning grain into her at the Lake Su- perior Port, and afterwards iiito the sea-going vessel in the harbour of Montreal, would be all that was necessary for insuring its good condition ; and as " those who can reach the markets of the world cheapest can control the marke^.s of the world, " so would the world, the moment confidence was established, look to the St. Lawrence for its " straight " wheat. Regarding this St. Lawrence route, I submitted a draft of my argument to a member of a leading firm on the Chicago Board of For (■AX.\r)A. 65 Trade, and am in rec:ci[)t of tlie folluwini; answer which 1 am per- mit led to use : — " I read over your Draft {-.irefully last evening, and certainly, from a Canadian standpoint, you are workini; in a good cause. It is evident nou are not booming New \'ork as an ocean port of shipment, or the l"'rie Canal as a. means of iidand transportation for grain, particularly wheat. So far as the handling of cargoes of wheat for export from any point o'lhe Tpper Lakes, — say Michi- gan and Su))erior, — I consider the .St. Lawrence route preferable to that through or al any Atlantic port; the main reason for such preference is the preserving oi le iilenlity of grain shipped from Western points, whichi is most important. An exporter, having in nearly all cases to guarantee quality, there is, as you know, no trouble in watching (if necessary) or protecting identity via Kingston and Montreal, whereas via iJuffalo it is generally passed througii an elevator into small canal boats, and on arrival ; t New Yt)rk, if ocean vessel not on hand to receive it, is put into store and often mixed with a similar grade, so called; it is very easy in this way to lose the identity. W special bins are arranged for, severe loss of weight often occins. Altogether, my exjjerieiice shipi)ing via New York has been very unsatisfactory, whereas l)y Montreal we iiave never had trouble from mixing or loss of weight. I may say right here all the wheat shijjped by my firm last year was via the St. Lawrence. " As regards ' Contract ' grades of No. 2 Chicago a.sd New York, I would hardly like to say what the difference in value is ; '^it it is a fact that any so-called No. 2 regular New York wiieat would only be No. 3 in Chicago. Nearly all the wheat we shipped last year was for millers in Great Britain, and, with the exception of two lots, was bought in Duluth and shipped via Montreal. The other two lots were ' special bin ' here, consisting entirely of ' Hard Northern,' for wdiich we paid good premium over ordinary No. 2 Chicago; these lots also went via Montreal. It does seem, to me that the natural water outlet for this hard variety of wheat is via the * St. Lawrence,' and I should think that Canada would give great attention to this trade, giving it encouragenient by keeping down charges, such as canal tolls, etc. Competition is very keen ' 66 TRANSPORTATION THE PROBLEM ■^'' nowadays, and every dollur counts on a cargo. I think I have covered about all the ground you desire, and, may be, have vviitten too much." Another Chicago firm write their representatives as follows: — " Please hand them (sundry documents) to the bank that holds the inland Bill of Lading, and see that the inspection certificate is endorsed on the back, showing that the identity of this grain has been [)reserved until delivered on l)oard said ocean steamer." Other things then being equal, Montreal would make a very respectable bid for the carrying trade of the West — in fact, its position would be commanding ; with a clear course, the advan- tage of a carrier being irdependent of elevators or transfer barges must be apparent lo anyone. Some .irgue that this through trade would be of no advantage to us, thp.t the West would be the only gainers thereby, that the only way of securing a part of the booty is the maintaining of stop-over checks of more or less magnitude. Suppose this for one moment to be true, Kingston and Montreal would be the only two ports adversely affected ; but, so far from its being true, the very reverse is the case. Compare Montreal with New York ; what is it that has held New York, both City and State, prominent in America for so long a period of time? Other Cities and States have great manufacturing industries and fine land, but they cannot rival New York. What they have not been able to grasp is the importing, distributing and exporting business for half a continent. ^Vith such extremes of protection as the United States have been labouring under. New York, being the centre of a gicat trade and a great population, has develoi)ed a manufacturing industry of its own, but it was its exporting and importing business which first gave and has since maintained its i)re-emineiu;e. Tlie next great development was Chicago, and again tlic first great start, when people began to drift westward, was its importing, distributing and exporting business. These are parallel cases, and prove that with the Northwest opening up to us, Montreal, the most northerly port, need not fear the ^Vest being the only gainers by a through trade. By far the greatest gainer would be Montreal ; and when we allow trade to seek other channels, we are allowing our rivals to i-3 FOR CANADA. g- establish themselves in a position from wliich it will take years to oust them. From the day of the opening of the Straits of Macki- naw to the closing of the season at Montreal, om-s will be both the quickest and cheapest route. In the main, now that the xNorth- west country is opening up, the onlv rival to New York must be Montreal. The dead weight of grain raised in the central States may easily travel in a straight line east to the seaboard • buL wheat raised m the Northwest will not drift Southeast on its journey to Northern Europe, unless forced into that eccentric line through the insanity of the people possessing the more direct and the cheaper route. The ocean carrier loading at lake ports is probably a myth. Did she carry passengers, they would leave her at the first port of eniry, and the capital invested in this ocean vessel could not stand the delay of canal locks both ways, in ^competition with the cheaper lake tonnage, especially of the " Whaleback " ; and of this latter vessel, a quick trip between interior points would pay better than one over the ocean in competilion with 8,000 ton sh.ips. Our present National policy is framed to the end of protecting native industry, namely, the cutting off of imports and replacing them with our own manufactures. The object of opening u], t!-,is Northwest is to get men to go there and farm ; if it is to be a suc- cess at all, is it not true that one hundred millions of grain are to be there ready for export within a very icw years ? If we are to restrict imports, how is this surplus to be exported ? If ships cannot get in- ward cargoes, they will not come these thousand miles inland for outward cargoes alone ; these outward freights cannot go up to a point which will pay them to come here in ballast ; there is no chancj as on the Pacific Coast, for bleeding the farmer when there is a pres' sure to export. Without free inward cargoes, freights outward from Montreal will go just high enough to send ourgrain along the longer route to New York and Boston, and that is the extra charge wliFch must come out of the pocket ol the Manitoba farmer. Freights, year in and year out, average higher with us than they do in New York, and to just that extent are we ulaying the game for the Americans ''r) (1) See Appendix. 68 TRANSPORTATION THE PR0I5LEM Although the lake carrier of the i)resent day will not make a success of it as an ocean carrier too, these whalebacks can cross the At- lantic. 1 hey are built exclusively of iron and steel ; let the.ii be built in free trade England, let them come up through our canals, and, as a carrier of grain, what chance would a protection built vessel have on the Lakes? They could make a living where a higher priced ves- sel would starve, and the cheaper the freight both ways, the greater the benefit to both producers and consumers. Knglish and Canadian capital could quickly lead that trade as they do that of the ocean ; but there is very little use in making preparations in the shape of either deepening the canals or lengthening their basins, if the necessary link is r.ot to be permitted to be in its place in the harbour of Mon- treal, (i) The success of the United States under jirotection is not a case in point. That country opened up under quite different conditions; there were millions of people in it before a railroad whistle was heard ; and, under a tariff for revenue, ships entered every seaport from Maine southward, carrying goods for distribution to the adjacent country, and loading with the product of that country in return. In those days roads were rough and few, and in 1824 protection was advocated even by farmers, because they had neither a home nor a foreign market, if they were a certain distance from the coast. With the advent of the railroad, and the impetus since, and the lesult of the war, the Western country has opened up at an unprece- dented rate. The war, the millions upon millions of greenbacks, which eventually represented standard gold, the spreading of rail- roads, the emigration, all these acted as so much stimulant when free land was the backbone of the country and made protection a success ; but in all this there is no parallel for Canada ; free land and protection will not do it alone. The parallel does come in, when we reach the Pacific Coast ; free land was there, and, favoured by a fine country, handicapped industry is making a i)ersevering attempt to maintain itself ; but the Coast is not only backward but ; I (I) Canada's imports remain stationary. Tliey were for 1873, $128,011,281; or 1874,1128,213,582; for 1892, $127,406,068. FOR c:ANADA. 69 I flat : with 90 per cent, of not only what a man wears, but what he uses, paying its tril)ute to protection and raihvays, no other explan- ation is necessary. So is it with our Northwest ; a long freightage westward is bad enough, but to cap it with protection taxes into the bargain seems a curious way of starling a new country, where farm- ing [and mining must be the main sources of gaining a living.. Placing all the necessaries of life at a fictitious price in the first instance looks like making it up-hill work at the very hardest time, — the first start in a new country. In the future, we may see a race of men in our central plains bene- fited by the freest exchange possible with the consumers of the Old Wor'd, and farther on in the mountains beyond, those whose natural instincts carried them into the pine-clad ranges and wooded valleys of the Rockies. There, as time went on, they would develop a life of their own, with the vast granary at their feet, equidistant be- tween Europe and Asia ; the water power, the boundless supply of timber and d»uM«» mineral wealth would generate a trade, the natural n^sult of agricultural development, while the protection afforded to their native industries would be the natural protection afforded by their position, in tlie heart of a Continent beyond the reach of their European competitors, where freight counted as an item in the cost. A nation might then swiftly arise on a natural and sure foundation, neither forced nor checked by unnatural laws. In travelling over the different trans-continental lines, it is this growth of timber throughout our whole mountain region which calls for more particular remark. Southward even where the Northern Pacific Railroad traverses Washington State, the mountains enclos- ing a valley as fertile at the Yakami rise abruptly in great brown, bald, treeless wastes from their very base. The depression in the Rocky Mountain-range farther North, allowing the moisture of the coast to travel Eastward, changes the whole face of nature, and is marked on the present line of the railroad by these tree-clad moun- tains, in place of sage bush and brown earth. The effect produced on the mind is, that, while in one no one will ever care to live, in the other, people will, just as they do in Switzerland to-day ; but so long as the settler can obtain land through which he may drive a plough immediately, no one need expect him to undertake a 70 TRANSPORTATION THE PROl'.I.EM clearing in preference. Until ive fill our plains with workers, our mouniain valleys must be held in reserve. The {juestion may be asked : Suppose there had been no inter- national line in the first instance, would not this transportation question have solved itself ? It would, entirely in favour of New York. Canadians of Ontario and Quebec need not fear a policy cal- culated to carry them towards a position of disputing with New York State for the business of a Continent. FreiglUs last summer from New York to ports in tiie United Kingdom ruled between 8d. and 2s. 8d. per quarter, against is. 6d. to 3s. 3d. from Montreal; (x) neither .was the past year any excep- tion to the general rule, while the distance from port to port is, if anything, in our favour. Tliat a considerable amount of grain did come to Montreal from Chicago, on through shipment to Liver- pool, proves that our route has some advantage over New York, even when handicapped with higher ocean freights. If ocean tonnage could be placed in our harbour on the same basis as in the New York market, a very interesting problem, indeed, would be offered to that City and State. There is just one way of accomplishing this : Encourage imports. Imports may be increased by making our country the cheaper country to live in. I wish to sound a note of warning : dissatis- faction exists in our great West. They feel out there that they are being exploited for the benefit of the East ; they are not of the class of men who have spread over the Western -tales; they use our own tongue, they are our own people ; and so long as protection is the acknowledged policy of our country, no amount of argument will induce them to believe that they cannot purchase from abroad cheaper than they can at home. There is, within the bounds of common assertion, no limit for our imports, once it is understood that the necessaries of life are to be had in what, without the slightest exaggeration, may be called our agricultural Empire, at a price which would repiesent (1) Appendix tables. FOR CANADA. 7' the nearest approacli possible to cost and freiglit. Men would have courage where now they feel a wciglit ; the imagination may be all nonsense, but it takes pluck to go out into these plains and start a farm, when every second man will tell you that everything costs so much that there is nothing in it, and that you are only working for the manufacturers down East. Reverse this policy : let the man stand conscious of his freedom, and a class of men will go into farming who will once more make farming popular. What is true ot our West is also true of our East. Is there a single merchant in a business centre who does not know that business is best when the farmers buy? And yet a policy is maintained which restricts their purchases and discourages farming. A nation's imports proclaim its buying powers, its wealth ; exactly as in private life our domestic purchases proclaim our prosperity; the more we have, the more we buy and import. Free trade has not beaten the farmer in free trade in England ; but steam and electricity have brought the high priced and high rented farms there down nearer to a business level with the cheap lands of America, both North and South, and of Australia. How could high rents and high piices maintain there, when continually decreasing freight charges brought the product of continually in- creasing areas on to their market in competition v.ith their home products, and were the men in that land to continue to pay higher prices for their bread than the world would charge them for it, merely that landlords and farmers might make a better living thereby ? If this be true with regard to them, what arguments can be produced supporting an analogous state of affairs with regard to manufacturers here ? Why should 90 per cent, of our people pay more for a given article than the world would charge them for it ? Neither would we be only wheat producers for England ; we are like a new firm starting in business. If we do not woik up the lines first, which will pay best, it is probable that we shall fail. With a hundred millions of acres of fine land lying vacant, and 154,000 additional workers under a National Policy, which interest is the most valuable for us to push as a nation for all that it is worth ? Given a great agricultural development, native industries will not only maintain themselves, but multiply. Our new firm will have 72 TRANSPORTATION THE I'ROHLEM t capital — the profit of its business made in these agricultural resources — and stand ready to extend its lines as the market demands. What line of imports would we have at the Port of ^lontreal if we had three millions of men in our West instead of three hundred thousand ? Is there any line of business which would develop more rapidly into national wealth than the trade represented by a popu- lation so situated ? In the first years of the Civil War, American Generals, when in a quandary, were always asking themselves, what, under the circum- stances, would Napoleon do? Grant was the first man who said, " 1 don't care a rap what he would have done." Do not let us fix our eyes too closely on the success of the States ; with power driftin.g Westward, the West is already repudiating a ])olicy the result of necessity and of prejudices created by a war. Where was our war? Protection taxes are of no benefit to our West, and when we check their development by legislation, we expect, from a national standpoint, that the cart will draw the horse. These greatly increased exports for which we are arranging can only be possible with greatly increased imports ; and had this been the policy in the past, it would in fourteen or twenty years have done much more than jirovide labour for 154,719 additional adults and children. It is an exploded idea, that of selling for gold alone; the transpor- tation ]jroblem enters at once into one of the success of our Country ; it is a question of our existence. We stand with millions of acres of arable land in our far West, but divided from the sea by hundreds of miles of imi)enetral)le forests and barren and uninhabitable lands. A glance ac the map will show immediately, tliat for us there is no Indiana, Ilhnois or Wisconsin to form stepping stones between our East and our West ; but, on the other hand, we are in possession of the shortest cind cheapest route to the sea, and our salvation depends upon our making the most of it. I cannot close this chapter without reiterating at the risk of some little repetition, that Reciprocity with the States — except in natural products — means double taxation for Canadians. Do we reduce our tariff in their favour say 50 per cent., our taxation represents our l-'OR CANADA. 73 I receipts from tariff, and the taxation represented by their protection too; besides, favored by differential treatment, they will drive English goods out of our market, and the full taxes charged on the cheaper goods will be lost to our Federal treasury, without relieving us from the evils of protection : the deficit will then have to be made up in some other manner, and time will have to be given, as Mr. Edgar argues. I believe that there are very many States in the American Union to-day that would be better off wiih free trade with the world instead of free trade with their sister States; but, in their case, they have no choice, they must accept the position as it stands. So long as a people have surplus i)ro' 7 % IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 10 I.I !i.25 2.0 £ Itt 1.8 1.4 III 1.6 v\ I li m INDUSTRIES OF ALL CANADA COMPILED FROM CENSUS BULLETIN No. 8. Employees 1S91 Saw Mills ^2,os8 Fish Curing and Canning 29,039 Tailoring and Clothing 23,241 Boot and Shoe Factories 18,105 Foundries and Machine Shops 12,614 Blg,cksmithing 12,053 Carpenters and Joiners 9^36 Carriage-makers , f,|o4o Woolen Mills and Cloth 8,415 Cotton Mills 80,, rrmtmg and Publishing 7,640 Cabinet and Furniture 7 ie2 Brick and Tile Works 6718 Flour and Grist Mills 5^296 Sash, Door and Blind Factories 5,720 Tin and Sheet Iron Works.. 4*939 Rolling Stock ^'900 Agricultural Implements 4,887 ^^'^^^ries 4^'6^2 Tanneries ^^262 Marble and Stone Cutting 3,747 Cigar Factories ^ jyg Cooperages ^'^^^^ Ship Building ^^^^^ Shirt and Collar and Tie Manufacturers .... 3,057 Harness and Saddlery ^^q.c Cheese Factories 3007 I \4j- i i 94 APPENDIX. Planing Mills 2,657 Lime Kilns 2,567 Hatters and Furriers < 2,517 Musical Instruments 2,199 Fruit and Vegetable Canning 2,196 Tobacco Works 2,105 Paper Mills 2,104 Sugar Refinery i>927 Smithing Works i;90i Breweries 1)865 Meat Curing i>^87 Watchmaking and Jewellery i>663 Bookbinding 1,320 Engine Building i>256 Gas Works i>i64 Chemical Establishments 906 Press Stamp Die Works 127 V/ood Turning 784 Cement Mills 243 Mattress-making iSo Picture-frame Making 367 Safe and Vault Works. 180 Dyeing and Scouring Works 281 Paint and Varnish Works 536 Salt Works 246 Baking Powder and Flavouring 214 Hosiery 672 Rope and Twine 764 Sail-making X30 Starch and Blue Works 238 Packing Cases 323 Electric Lights 504 Oil Ps.efiners 347 Paving Materials ,. ^'222 Terra Cotta Works 130 Potteries 527 Glass Works 933 wama^ff !?!^!??5H5H'PP' APPENDIX, 95 Electro Plating Wire Works Cartridge-making Paper Collar Factories Belting and Hose Tents and Awnings Creameries Dried Fruits and Veg tables Vinegar Works Aerated Works . . Distillers Coffee and Spice Brush and Broom Factories Trunk and Valises Soap and Candles Paper-box Making Engraving and Lithography , Gunpowder Mills , Boiler Works Furnaces, Stove and Heaters , Edge Tools , Iron and Brass Fittings Brass Foundries Tinsmithing , Type Foundries Washing Machines and Wringers. Nail and Lock Factories , Boat Building Baby and Invalid Carriages Lamps and Chandeliers Gold and Silver Smiths Block-making Masts and Spars Carving and Gilding Springbed Making Superphosphate Works Pickle-making 239 861 271 127 184 425 350 30G 654 4M 162 771 8to 517 964 746 302 445 497 873 781 586 215 102 131 869 824 139 78 42 75 45 89 78 98 83 14.1: 96 APPENDIX. Maltsters 43 Cork Cutting 65 Stationery ; 90 Gun Smiths 68 Piano Action 34 Cutlery , 81 Glue Factories 53 Belting and Hose i6 Whip Factories 44 Basket-making 47 Maccaroni and Vermicelli 20 Asbestos and Pipe Covering 14 Saw and File Cutting 9 Tallow Refiners ., 7 Mathematical Instruments 7 Pattern and Moulding , 6 All other industries 52,739 367,496 hands. No information given on " all other indu?tries." i i "iii«.'j^|.lij»iuifj^»;p( '^'^■^^ V^'^^ OCEAN FREIGHTS OUTWARDS. Freights Outward from Montreal, 1892. Actual charters. Per 480 II)s. May— s. d. 3rd. Glasgow 2 6 5th. London 2 6 7 th. Glasgow 3 3 nth. Liverpool ... 2 ;> " London 2 3 '*' Avonmonth .. 3 i6th. Uverpool 2 6 iSth. Liverj^Gol 2 3 " London 2 6 June— 2nd. Liverpool .... 2 4th. Liverpool i g " A von mouth... 2 6 i5lh. Glasgow 2 4 ^ 23rd. London 2 9 " Liverpool .... 2 July- Sth. London 2 i2lh. Avonmouth... 1 7 14 15th. London 2 26th. London 2 3 29th. Liverpool i 10 )4 August — 5th. Liverpool i 10 }4 13th. London 2 3 19th. Avonmouth... 2 3 22nd. London 2 3 23rd. Liverpool .... i 6 Sejjt — 2nd. Avonmouth... 1 9 7th. Liverpool i 6 Sth. Glasgow I 6 91I1. London 2 n Freights Outward from New York, 1892. Actual charters reported, 480 lbs. May — s^ d. 2 1 St. Liverpool i 6 " Glasgow 2 I '' London 2 23id. Liverpool 1 London . Glasgow. 2Gth. London . '' Glasgow . June— 2nd. Liverpool 4th. London , '' Glasgow I nth. l^iverpool i 15th. London i 2Sth. Liverpool 1 " London o " Glasgow I July- ist. London o •' Glasgow o Sth. Liverpool 1 6th. Glasgow. " Liverpool " London . 26th. London . Glasgow. August — I St. London. . (ilasgow. Liverpool ?ih. London. . 4 8 10 4 10 S 6 4 4 8 4 8 23rd. Liverpool " JiOndon o 10 4 8 8 9 10 \i 98 '■-■*t / APPENDIX. Si'pt — 1 51I1. Glasgow I () 24tli. Glasgow i 6 sSth. London 2 3 Oclohcr — 4th. (ilasgow 2 3 " Avonmouth... 2 9 i2t]i. (ilasgow 2 9 15th, Glasgow 3 2211(1. lavcrpool 3 3 25th. Javcrpool 3 3 Nov.— 5lh. Live;"i)Ool 3 3 lOth. javerpool 3 nth. London 3 30th. Glasgow 2 3 August — 23rd. (llasgow T Sc'pl. — Sill. Livci'ijool [ 131I1. Livorpdol I 4 2[st. Gla.sgow I 8 " Livcipool I 4 •' London o 10 3otIi. Liverpool i S del.— 8th. Liverpool i 10 I4lh. London i 4 " Liverpool 2 29th. Liverpool 2 2 Nov.— I St. London 2 8 " Glasgow 2 2 " Liveri)Ool 2 2 London i 6 Glasgow I 8 Liverpool i 6 Liverpool i 4 26tli. London 2 " Liverpool i G " Cilasgow I 4 New York freights are subject to 5 per cent, primage, equal to about one penny a (piarter extra. nth. rSth. w. so y \