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MULLHR, i«ontrrni: ( .\\.\I)[.\N SPF.CTA'roR COMPANY, (l.iNnnnj [8i«p«MiWHK^H>l^ ^s^ ■I 4 CANADA, Past, Present and Future. I — > I The early history of Canada is not, like that of many other countries, involved in the shadows of doubt cr illuminated by the illustrious light of fiction. In fact the national history of Canada, from beginning to end, will be about as interesting as that of the ordinary mortal, some what epitomised : — " he was born, he married, he died." It is said, " happy is the people which has no history," a truism, which, can be only applicable to the people without national existence, for any people which struggled for national existence, independence and happiness has a history. Admitting that the Canadian politicians make much ado about the volu- minous political histor}' of their country ; admitting their mountainous labors to bring forth an empire greater than ancient Rome ; admitting to each poli- tical party respectively, that the statesmen it produced are the greatest the world ever beheld ; admitting as good all their laudable promises and grand prophesies for the most brilliant future of the Dominion, eclipsing before long the United States ; in short, admitting to both political factions all they pretend and say — what has been actually accomplished during the present generation, and for all that during the last generation, for the national and social advancement, the prosperity and progress of the Canadian people, by each successive administration as furnished from each political party ? When the enormous vaporings of the great Canadian statesmen and orators tem- porary dissolve, does the net condensation of the whole evaporation amount to much more than : — " you are one," " you are another ? " For years and years, session after session, the houses of Parliament, both Dominion and Local, present but repetitions of the old spectacle, the wrestling arena of two parties, one holding on with the grasp for life to the luxurious and golden treasury benches ; the other, situated on the barren opposite, shivering and hungry, desperately intent to effect a displacement by all means, fair or foul. The two parties lay great stress on their distinc- tive appellations, respectively, " Conservatives and Liberals, alias Re- formers," yet the Canadian people never got much wiser of the difference in their actions, or of the pro bono publico from either. The tactics of both parties in power or opposition are exactly alike, consisting in an incessant uprooting of scandals of every shade of blackness, which true enough are constantly furnished by both parties in abundance. Nobody thinks of legislat- ing for an effective cure of the constantly occurring disgraceful public scandals by adequate punishment of public men, indeed that would be very impolitic as long as political scandal is the very essence of Canadian politics. What an idea in Canada, where to figure as head centre in a big political scandal counts for a trophy. Just as amongst Indian warriors he is considered the bravest of the brave, the greatest of the warriors, who can count up the greatest number of scalps, so the hero of the greatest number of political scandals is considered the greatest of politicians, is praised as the greatest statesman and held up for general admiration, and really the free and easy people do applaud the hero to the sky. Of scandals there is never less than six on one side and half a dozen on the other. Accusations of all sorts of private and public deceptions and plunders, of sharp and corrupt practices for the benefit of self, relatives and friends, to the detriment of the public chest and lands, are habitually met by the disingenuous retort that the accus ing party has even done worse when it was in its power. At times the House of Assembly appears to be converted to a public laundry for the washing of dirty linenfall round. The closing scenes of the session usually resemble those in the last act of Richard III., not in the least in the heroic and tragic, only in the intensity of passion, overleaping all parliamentary bounds in the roars of " Liar and Swindler." No doubt there are very estimable gentlemen on both sides, * but even they'll vote that five is even, if need be, for the glory of the party. No necessity for conscientious scruples or any other sensitive considerations * to stand in the way of any sacrifice for party, since the free and easy electors » look upon these little escapades as inalienable from public life. The most patient man is quickly impatient when listening to a preacher him- self conspicuous for the absence of the virtues on which he holds forth, conse- quently it will certainly appear inexplicable, that the parliamentary catechist, no matter how notoriously bad his personal catechism, is ever sure of a patient and attentive hearing, if but only commended by eloquence, but for the solution, that man is granted plenary indulgence for past and present sins as soon as he enters upon the political career with the crowning success of a seat m parliament. It is perfectly understood, it may be added by mutual agree ment, that a man enters upon political career the same as on any other busi- ness, to make money, at any rate a living, out of it ; that he will, if he can, not only feather his ovtrn nest, but of the whole o( his kin, as Goethe gives it in paradox : — " When he (The Flea) became a minister, *' And decorated with a grand star, " Then also all his brothers and sisters ^ " Became at court great lords and ladies, ' ' And the Queen and maids of honor •* Were much bitten and tormented." Indeed it is an open secret, that long contact with official life here will eventually spoil even a genuinely good man. The partisan is ever ready for party, to throw to the winds his fair promises to his constituents and the country at large ; reckless of his public or any other character, he is devoid of all patriotism ; his eyesight is confined to his party horizon ; for him the people is but a horse to ride upon into power and emolu- ment. Of this cloth, my good people, is made the toga fitting so well most of your Solons, from the greatest knight in the brilliant array of knights down to the humblest member who issued from the barndoor. You must know it from suffering for it. We all know that for Constitutional Government two political parties are as necessary as the two-winged lungs for life, in fact, that a spirituous patriotic and numerically strong opposition is the very life of a sound administration ; but partyism, when divested of the spirit of patriotism, when having by clever cunningness blinded the public censor completely in one eye and very nearly in the other, is a dangerous power in the state ; such partyism is nothing more or less than the perversion of Government into a public institution for the attainment of the personal ends of the partisans of the ruling party, and mak- ing an autocrat of its leader. It has come to that in Canada, it has come to more - partyism has reached to be mawmetry in all its mawkishness, its minions audaciously arrogating from a kind providence to be the dispensa- tors of the natural blessings of a bounteous harvest, attempting by all the powers of tongue and pen to force upon people belief in its false theurgy, trying through a venal and slavish party press, by most presumptuous effron- tory in absurdities of argument, to unreason reason for its selfish purposes of party, and grossly insulting any one who dare gainsay, no matter how pure and impartial his motives may be and exalted his position. Scarcely had died away the echo of the vivats from hundreds of thousands of voices welcoming the newly-arrived Governor-General, the Marquis of Lome, and his royal spouse, the Princess Louise, when, from a mob of Con- servative politicians, mark Conservative, arose the discordant cries " k bas le ^^»" ' I Marquis de Lome," for no more reason than that it was sumjised of the Marquis of Lome of having a taind of his own and a conscientious concep- tion of his duty, conclusive of unwillingness on his part to go it blind for party. Distinguished in this connection for rabid party-spite was the per- sonally malicious innuendo, several times repeated in the Montreal Gazette^ that all the cause of the Letellier turmoil originated from being saddled with a Governor-General so young and inexperienced ; the more disgustmg from the fact that the great Gazette writer is not fit to unlace the shoes of this personage in all that concems manly tact and solid learned experience of statesmanship. Everybody is aware that the Govemor-General, so young in Canadian official life, acquitted himself highly creditably on this occasion, infinitely more so than the Gazette's ideal of the greatest of statesmen and its adulated patron, of an experience so old as to be mossy from the great age of a quarter of a century at the helm of state. This Conservative mob even tumultuated against their most gracious Queen, who sent out the dearest pledges of her love, her children. " You " must take them back," they cried, " we won't have them here, if they dare to " obstruct us in having our way." O yes, you miserable political penny- catchers ! The leading fire-eaters of the Conservative demagogues threatened the direst calamities of rebellion if the requested decapitation of the Lieuten- ant-Governor of Quebec was not instantly granted and executed. However their special ambassadors to England returned shortly to them with the chopped- off head of their victim, carried hither in the bag of a prominent lawyer, and presented in Ottawa on a heavy silver tray. At the joyful sight of the bloody trophy, of course the awful storm in the Conservative wash tub sub- sided. Silence ! what of the perquisites and expenses of such an all-impor- tant embassy for the salvation of the whole people of the Province of Quebec, when, moreover, the first ambassador will be honoured by the people of the whole Dominion with a triumph for his sagacity and patriotism displayed in this mission? Nevertheless, some unsophisticated outsiders think that this weighty embassy — in truth solely equipped to gratify the revenge and thirst for office of partisans — might have stayed at home with the same result, since the Colonial Secretary appears to have looked on the whole affair as a party row amongst Government sailors, not within his province, and advised the Governor General to look at it in the same light, and not to concern himself further about it. But this much the Colonial Secretary, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, did say in his despatch to the Govemor- General, the Marquis of Lome, " that a Lieutenant-Govemor has an " unquestionable constitutional right to dismiss his Provincial Ministers, if " from any cause he feels it incumbent on him to do so." The constitutional right of dismissal is there, be the Ministry at dismissal supported by a more or less numerical majority in the House. All laws axe made for use and abuse. If the Lieutenant-Governor did make proper use of this his un- questionable constitutional right or abuse it improperly there ever remains immovable the autonomy, the Magna Charta of the Province of Quebec, securing to the people the sovereign mastership in all things of state within the Province. The people alone is competent to pronounce for or against the act of the Lieutenant-Governor at the proper place, the polls, and it alone can bring home to him the verdict of guilty or not guilty. The Lieutenant- Governor did not outrage the Magna Charta, but the usuq ^rs did, who sit in Ottawa, — the men of faction, of revenge, of mean greediness for office, are the conspirators against the liberties of the people of the Province of Quebec, in connivance with their poor irresponsible tools of the Legislative Council. History tells that over-grown partyism is by far of more danger to the liberties of the people than an incidental overstrain of power by proper con- stituted authority, as the sequel in the Letellier cause cilihre amply demon- strates. The overgrowth of partyism is the formation of an ambitici s and rapacious faction, which will not rest satisfied with anything but the full controlling power of Government, and the whole and exclusive ra > ,e of i(s patrrr,age in the broad realization : " To the victor belong the spoils." Tl.e Conserva- tive party presently dominant in Ottawa ir controlled by a rajacious and all- powerful fa c lion. The violent acts of vendetta lately perpetrated by this faction in the Province of Quebec may well open the eyes oi the people to what length these factionists are prepared to go in the pursuit of their selfish ends. The moment they laid their hands on the leins of power the Hon. Luc Letellier, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, was a doomed man, and the names of the ministers of his call were same time in- scribed on the list of proscription. The Rouge Lieutenant-Governor in the old Blue Satrapy was ever a thorn in their eyes, and the horrible deed of sending his Bleu ministers adrift demanded now instant decapitation. Natural enough, thirst for his office was as strong as thirst for revenge. Hon. Lu ^ Letellier was dragged forthwith before a tribunal composed of his bitterest enemies. That the Colonial Secretary and the Governor-General, both officially connected with the case without any partisan interest or pas- sion, pleaded against the dismissal of the Lieutenant Governor as unjust* carried of course no weight with such judges ; he was found guilty in every instance and sentenced to ignominious deposition, which was executed as unceremoniously as possible. This accomplished, the clique now sharp- ened its daggers for the next action — the ousting of the Joly administration. The old weak-kneed, useless Legislative Councillors, considered but on sufferance of charity, came in for good use to the political cabalists, by enticing them to deliver the mortal blow to the Joly administration in sus- pending the passage of the Supply Bill. Worthy of the vendetta, the final wwriwww ■m f triumph was achieved by resorting to the dirty trick of crimping, procuring by the meanest of intrigue five deserters. Exit the Hon. Mr. Joly, enter the Hon. Mr. Chapleau as Premier, making his bow to the public, and w!th a triumphant arch smile on his lips, saying : " Here I am, and no thanks to you ! I have taujjht you to know your " masters ; they are the Legislative Councillors by divine right, which is the most " unquestionable, and must not be questioned by unthinking people like you. " I command you now to give three enthusiastic cheers for His Serene Al- "titude, the Stadtholder of all the Canadas, Sir Herodes John." Ha ha ! this then is the little constitutional kernel of the awfully big con- stitutional muddle and puddle. The casus makes one laugh. Indeed the vendetta clique can afford to play nose-thumb at the people ; they played a very foxy game to get into the coveted nest in this stealthy way, for there is good reason to believe that, by asking first the people, they never might have got in, well-knowing, as most habitants do by this time,that the egg is not more safe in the hen. Although the Conservative partisans are never done deprecating and be- Mttling the minimum majority of one of the Joly administration, they know deeper, and that it was really a great deal for a Rouge Administration to obtain, from the long Conservative-ridden and politically-perfect lethar- gied electorate of the Province of Quebec ; and, under the additional prompt- ings of a bad conscience, they take it as an ominous sign full of serious ap- prehension, however much they may pretend in gasconade. There is a highly domesticated, very patient and apathistical quadruped, wrongfully accused of want of intellect, but, when over burdened and at last exasperated, it will kick ; in this instance the similarly abused biped did kick, following it up with several kicks, and, mind, it will continue to l;ick till it has kicked to the ^^ other side'' driver, cart, and the whole mongrel confederation, and has cut clear away from its thraldom. The following appears in the Argenteuil Advertiser from the pen of a well- known, sincerely devoted friend of the people of the Province of Quebec : " The Letellier controversy cannot cease ; it must crop up time and again, " until it receives its final solution in one or other definite form, the extinction " of provincial autonomy or the triumph of constitutional rulers. *' You have now at command all the materials to enable you to compre- " hend the principle at stake. You have the Colonial Secretary's despatch, ^* the curtly-worded dismissal of Mr. Letellier, on the score of his usefulness " having ceased, and Mr. Letellier's exposition of the entire controversy in " his clear and exhaustive reply to the Toronto Liberal address. " Reams of paper and gallons of ink have been consumed in angry parti- " san recriminations ; excited and enthusiastic meetings in each county of dl o| ir curing remier, is lips, wr your [le most ke you. ene Al- jig con- people ; stealthy >le, they ime,that and be- n, they istration t lethar- prompt- rious ap- a highly accused ;d, it will t up with d to the and has of a well- lebec : nd again, ixtinction ) compre- despatch, isefulness roversy in igry parti- county of " the Province have proved that the bulk of the electors are rapidly dlsv^owr- " ing the peril which menaces their privileges. But all your efforts to break " through the astutely-constructed meshes of the net, which yieldeil . s its " first capture the late Lieutenant-Governor, will fail to save you from the fate " prepared for you, unless you have the courage of your convictions — " unless you fearlessly and resolutely determine to retire from the Confeder- "ation. '• If you read beiuxen the lines of Sir Michael Hicks Bcacii's cautiously " worded despatch, you will see that, while disclaiming the right of the " Colonial Office to interfere in the political conflicts arising in the Dominion, " he makes manifest his repugnance to a strained interpretation of the British "North America Act of 1867. He was not sorry to wash his hands of a "troublesome question, and he found his justification in the advice of the " law officers of the Crown. But in plain words he showed the Governor " General's advisers that ' the power for removal should never be exercised " except for grave reasons.' *' The Colonial Secretary's despatch bears date of 3rd of July, yet so lightly " did the Ottawa Ministry respect that warning, that on the 25th July Mr. " Letellier was served with notice of dismissal because his usefulness as " Lieutenant-Governor had ceased ; and in support of that perilous allegation, " and in scorn of the Quebec Legislative Assembly declaring unabated con- '' fidence in the honor and intelligence of Mr. Letellier, a vote of the irre " sponsible Senate, a packed jury of Mr. Letellier's enemies, is paraded. " If the old spirit of patriotism lingers in Lower Canada — if the mass of the " electors still cherish their laws, their language and their institutions, they " will close their ranks, elect their leaders, fling down the gage of battle and " hoist the flag of Lower Canada— the old true flag that was an honor 10 the " people before Confederation, taxes and onerous debts were known. " Lower Canada was rich, prosperous, with full coffers, and no debt, before " the Union, her only grief was then a nominate Legislative Council. She has "now bitter experience that her nationality must perish, her autonomy vanish, " and impotence and atrophy her fate, unless she bursts the chain that links " her to Confederation. " Sidney Bellingham. " London, (Eng.), October 23rd, 1879." With the exception of the extreme Tory organs, the Conservative press in general joined with the Independent and Liberal papers in the chorus of con- demnation of the outrageous encioachments on the privileges of the Province of Quebec and means of malpractice employr ' by the dominant Tory faction in the Federal Parliament, in the gratification of revenge and rapacity. I will give a few characteristic citations. In the Montreal Daily IVitness I find the following clipping from the G\iQ\\}\\- Herald (Conservative) : ' imwuBji iNHSSi^ lO " When we come to look at the means by which Mr. Joly's defeat has " been accomplished, we confess that we feel anything but unmixed satisfac- " tion. We pretend to no liking for the Rouge leader, on the contrary, we " have not failed to condemn, in the most unmistakeable terms, the means " by which he attained to and retained power ; but it is impossible to avoid " the conclusion that, if he purchased support, his opponents have succeeded •' by the very same means. Politics in Quebec have been degraded to the " very lowest depths, and the Province is handed over to the rule of open " and unblushing corruption. We might wish for a general election in the " hope that the Legislature would be purged of the worst elements of an *' Assembly which, on both sides of the House, appears to be a putrid mass " of purchased and purchaseable charlatans, were it not that we have doubts " whether a new House would be an improvement. * Bad the crow, bad the " egg,' says an old Greek proverb, and we are inclined to think the converse " is also true, and bad the egg, bad the crow. We have, therefore, little hope " that the people are much better than their representatives. Partyism is " not without its uses in our representative system of Government, but every "day it is becoming more and more evident that the attempt to divide on the *' old party lines in the local legislatures, where it is impossible that issues *• worthy of great parties can arise, must result in failure. When men affect " to divide into parties, while they have no principles arising from broad and " honest differences of opinion, they degenerate into factions, and the absence " of distinctive party principles degrade these factions into mere cliques of ** place hunters. This is the low level to which Quebec politics has gravitated, " and it is little cause for wonder if members have no hesitation in changing " from one side to the other as self-interest dictates. It is a sickening sight "at any rate, and one which is not calculated to bring pleasure to any true " Canadian whatever be his politics." From the Montreal Daily Star (Independent), October 24th, 1879 : " The "(Montreal) Gazette appeals to the 'independent electors of the Pro- " vince ! ' This is about the coolest piece of journalism we have seen for " some time, ' independent electors of the Province ! ' What about the " sinecures ? * independent electors of the Province ! ' What about the " wasted funds of the people ? ' independent electors of the Province ! ' " What about the Legislative Council ? ' independent electors of the Pro- " vince ! ' What about the barouche of the few overriding the will of many ? " ' independent electors of the Province ' What about the state of almost " bankruptcy to which the Province has been reduced ? ' independent elec- " tors of the Province 1 ' And yet the Gazette, which did its share towards " perpetrating all these evils, appeals to the * independent electors of the " Province.' It is refreshingly cool but awfully out of place." From the Montreal Daily Star (October 30th) : •' Yesterday the <( II feat has satisfac- :rary, we e means to avoid Licceeded ed to the of open ion in the nts of an trid mass ve doubts ir, bad the ; converse little hope *artyism is but every ide on the that issues men affect broad and the absence e cliques of 5 gravitated, in changing cening sight to any true 879: "The of the Pro- Lve seen for ; about the It about the Province !' of the Pro- rill of many ? te of almost ►endent elec- hare towards ictors of the 'esterday the " (Montrea})^ Gaz^ie called Turcotte a traitor ; to-day the Gazette calls Flynn, " Chauveau. Fortin, Paquette and Racicot, * patriots ' and ' gentlemen ' A " * traitor ' is a harsh terra ; ' patriots ' and * gentlemen ' are inspirating and " suave. The man who was elected a Conservative and becomes a Reformer " is a traitor, but the men who were elected Reformers and became Con- I " servatives are ' patriots ' and * gentlemen ' who cast party to the winds and " place country above all. This may be politics, but it is not reason. The " principle affecting the one affects the other, and the term ' traitor ' might be " applicable to all." a . . :• .^ iJ^^i ., i.:;^ From La Minerve, rabid Conservative goddess, it is rather amusing to hear, in the exultation of joy on the first news of the successful ousting of the Joly Administration : " La patrie est sauve. Oui, oui, sauve pour La Minerve, comme de raison d'fetre. Ma ch^re Minerve, mes sinceres congra- tulations." Anybody has good right to feel happy when he sees a returning chance to make an honest penny, by a little swap of Government lands, an innocent formation of a railway ring, or any other ring, just as good luck will have it. But the Montreal Gazette, the Thomasso furioso of the Tory-Terribles, is deaf to all reason and every rule of fair play. •* All Genoa is balancing on his shoulders." Schiller's " Fiesco." What with Mackenzie — now plus Joly- Administration on the brain, orgillous with party success, and consequently superlative heightened self importance, conceitedness and presumptuousness, it is no wonder that the great Gazette man is almost crazed. Proof of an over-balanced mind is the unsound syllogism in the Gazette's political editorials, which daily nil its columns. Otherwise the great Gazette writer could not advance such ungodly political sophism, in its irrationalness so offensive to common sense, indeed amounting to an insult to the intellectual status of a whole people ; otherwise the Gazettes columns would not be wasted day after day with torturous efforts to prove that two blacks make one white ; otherwise the great Gazette writer would not make such unreasonable demands on reason, to believe, that what is most hateable meanness when done foron^^ party, becomes the most laudable patriotic virtuousness when done for another party. The Gazette says, " the '* very first act of Mr. Joly was an act of shameless corruption, the purchase " of a public man to betray his constituents ; " if so, pray, what was Mr. Chapleau's first act, the purchase of five public men to betray their constitu- ents ? Have we to seek in the wholesale feature of the transaction for the virtues which make Mr. Chapleau to a patriotic hero and the purchased and purchaseable five public men to so many patriots and gentlemen ? In its special editorial on Thanksgiving day the Gazette is so highly over-gushing with piousness, that it struck me at once as an extraordinary overflow. Against my better nature, it aroused my suspicions, that the political 12 Reinecke himself must be after a party share of Thanksgiving. I had no doubt it was, when I came to the point where the Gazette writer says : ** We in Canada are as yet in the first stage of nationhood. On the found- " ation which is now laid will depend our national worth and reputation, in " the ages to come." What glorious material for verdant nationhood to build up to a great national respect commanding people form the Gazettes novel casualistic contributions on public and political morals ! The new era of Conservative regime lately inaugurated in Quebec with so much eclat, relieving the people of gubernatorial care, is it laying the foundation on which depend our national worth and reputation in the ages to come ? A short step brings us to lick-spittleism — not often surpassed in official life in the Dominion— of an autocrat. In reference to a banquet to the Hon. Mr. Langevin the Gazette speaks of it as being tendered " in recognition of the great and important service '* rendered by him to Constitutional Government by his recent mission to *' England, which Hon. Mr. langevin graciously deferred until the return of " Sir John A. In this connection it was again rumored that Hon. Mr. Lan- "gevin will, within a few days, receive the ribbon of St. Michael and St. Georgtf ** as a reward for his long and important public labors as a colonial statesman " and as one of the fathers of Confederation. The event will be hailed with " satisfactiovx not only here, but throughout the Dominion, as a recognition at " once of sterling worth and high statesmanship." Truth is stranger than fiction ! The former we find in the Montreal Herald; says this venerable paper : — " Mr. Langevin ought to have the bauble, for the Canadian chivalry will *' never be completed till it counts amongst its shields that of the man who ** took $32,000 to bribe the constituencies, and left them all as pure from " as bribery new-born babies." That facts are stubborn things is still further illustrated in the same paper under the heading, •* The West Hastings Local Election : " " The Hamilton Times, speaking of the evidence respecting the way in " which this election was carried for the Conservative candidate, says : — *' * John Wickett deposed to having been guilty of a very mean action : He " had received $4 to pay some men in his employ for loss of time in going to '' vote for Robertson, but, instead of doing so, kept it to recoup himself for "expenses incurred.' We are sorry that the Times should speak thus ** A mean action, quotha ! Why, the last prudent use of money in this way was " by an especially highly-placed and high-toned gentleman, since that event a " second time a Minister of the Crown. Besides that, he is soon to be a " K. M. G, It is true that his recoup was $32,000 instead of $4, and " perhaps the Times remembers the lines about many murders making a hero " and one a villain." i I giving. I riter says : the found* )utation. in to a great casualistic onservative ; the people 3ur national d in official zette speaks rtant service t mission to the return of an. Mr. Lan- \ idSt.Georg<5 ial statesman e hailed with recognition at treal Herald; n chivalry will the man who as pure from he same paper ing the way in iidate, says :— m action : He ime in going to 3up himself for uld speak thus in this way was nee that event a s soon to be a ead of $4, and s making a hero In any other civilized and Christian country the usefulness of the Gazettes hero would have been gone long ago, and he been consigned to political and social obscurity. The Gazettes slavish, mawkish flattery to this man carries with it the most cutting of mephistic irony on a good natured, easy going and easily duped people. It is an ominous sign of very sickly infantile nation* hood when such servile insinuative appeals to have men like Hon. Mr. Langevin ribboned and triumphed, are not indignantly frowned down, indeed if they continue at all to hold office. Does the great Gazette writer only purpose to make believe, or does he really believe himself, that public men of the stamp of his hero will ever be of any benefit to their country, any more than what is for their party and their ov/n personal benefit ? Does the great Gazette writer really believe himself that an over- indulgent people, and, as he himself says, yet in infantile nationhood, will, under the care of public men of the pattern of his hero, grow up and become big enough to walk independently by itself? If he believes so, then his ignorance of the early history of all nations is astonishing, and must eventually lead to the people's verdict that the political usefulness of the member for Cardwell was not of much public use, whatever it may have been for his party. Not to go very far, did the member and politician par excellence ever study of what calibre the men were who built up the great Republic of the United States, if they did in the slightest resemble the heroes of the Montreal Gazette ? Believe, or believe it not, it will yet come to pass that the people of Canada, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will have to seek the advice of Uncle Sam how this business is done. To furnish the political partisan parsley to all the dishes served on every gathering in Church, State and Commerce, is one thing, and to be the patriot, legislator and statesman, whose memory will be gratefully inscribed in the historical annals of his country,— that is quite another and altogether diflFerent thing. When the Hon. L. Letellier dismissed his Bleu Ministry, even admitting a good deal of cause, I was very vexed with him for this act, for more reasons than one. First, because his Bleu Ministers were just getting in the right sort of trim for governing, somewhat afteT- the Russian plan, being on the very eve of introducing an entirely novel measure here, and intending to give it a fair trial, well calculated to bring the refractory municipalities to terms, namely by taking them by the throat and choke the money out of them. Mr. Letellier's rash act spoiled this fun. Second, because it was politically unwise, as, by allowing them rope enough, he would, if he wanted that, have served hi- party far better and same time the country at large ; for, if they had been left to die by their own hands, surely they might not have 'I J I -J !, I (hi 14 come back, at any rate neither so quick nor so handy ; whereas by Mr Letellier's injudicious turning them out, he is gone and they are back. Third, the main cause of my anger with him on account of this dismissal was for hav- ing been so rudely interrupted in my philosophical contemplations, how far the patience of a patient people may be stretched. However the opportunity is again given me to continue my study in this direction. Further, if the people of the Province of Quebec, from political enervation and apathy, permit the machinery of Government to be run by automatic puppets, played by political charlatans, and all that it implies of being nolens volens saddled again with the old regime and the return of profligate politicians and railway rings, the Provincials will have their just deserts if they have to come down handsomely for the luxury ; when, on the other hand, by a little energetic demonstration of their political presence, they might have punished the poachers on their dearly-bought privileges as free men. The people who has not enough force of character and appreciation to guard its freedom is not worthy to keep it and to have it. Perhaps a little more of the scourge will do the people good and bring it to its proper senses, so that, when the political wheel will turn up again the Hon. Mr. Joly, they may know the better to appreciate, when they have a gentleman who, for honesty of purpose and purity of motives, has perhaps not his equal in the Dom .lion. However there is a man in Ottawa who can do all the governing that is required for the whole Dominion, — this man is, as everybody knows, the great Boss, Sir John A. Macdonald, Premier of the Dominion Government, more than that, its whole life and soul, for most of his colleagues are but mediocrity. He is, no doubt, the most prominent, crafty and shrewd of all the politicians in the Dominion. His oratory is not distinguished by high-spirited sympathetic fluency, but excellent in pointedness of purpose ; his towering intellectual power is enhanced by nature's peculiar gift of fascination, as if it did weave in a magic circle persons coming in the whirl of his acquaintance. Of natural command, an interesting intelligent head, a fine stature, an attractive tout ensemble of personalty places the man of distinction before you. Com- manding personalty and charming suavity, combined with qualities of genius, may be deceptive, and this is the case with Sir John, who is a master in deception. His apparent genial disposition is but masking an unscrupu- lous, unfeeling and ambitious soul. Boundless ambition for power is his lead- ing passion, to which he subordinates all men and all things, truth, probity and all the moral adornments of public character. His glib tongue secretes his slippery and treacherous machinations. Constantly adulated by hungry r« S2 tc ot \\ St wsmmmmmmm IS by Mr :k. Third, as for hav- js, how far opportunity enervation r automatic :s of being )f profligate ist deserts if ; other hand, r might have ; men. The to guard its ittle more of )er senses, so 3ly, they may 0, for honesty he Don- .>ion. erning that is ows, the great life and soul, 10 doubt, the the Dominion, thetic fluency, ;llectual power it did weave luaintance. Of •e, an attractive )re you. Com- ith qualities of who is a master ig an unscrupu- ower is his lead- Ts, truth, probity ) tongue secretes lated by hungry X I «5 office-seekers flattered to a demi-god by rapacious partisans, adored and banqueted by designing politicians, cheered by the thoughtless mass — things always in the wake of men in the highest of favor commanding position : all this, of course, but foremost his late, though ill-deserved, great triumph in grasping again the reins of power, increased Sir John's self exultation out of all proportion to his real merits, and his braggadocio has become bordering on blasphemy. He is a high graduate in anthropology, as evidenced by his correct handling of the different races, and is a keen and deep reader of men. Well he knows, this great party-leader, his forte, and the singleness of thought of his partisans and followers that, as long as he has gold to give, fat offices to distribute, and large and playful contracts to tender for, he may sit secure on high Olympus, and unconcernedly look down on the popular and unpopular fuss below him. Two things tell the secret of Sir John's magic power to hold the reins of power so long : flrst, that all his schemes, large and small, are calculated fore- most to be popular at the time, to furnish him the wherewith to reward, to re- plenish for having to give, and to open new fields and provinces for his Prae- torian guard ; and, second, his genial trace of loftiness, that he himself does not touch the filthy lucre for personal enrichment. Of course it must be added, that in party leadership and as tactician and disciplinarian he has not his equal in Canada. But his talents are all wasted in this direction, and it is why the country gets so little or no benefit from them. In character so much after the Talleyrand school, I think Sir John would have been more successful and brilliant as diplomat than as statesman. Sir John's head is an inexhaus- tibly rich fountain of expedients, so much so that it makes him reckless ; his reliance on it is faith with him, but it has injured him otherwise. For the same reason Sir John is not creative, wherefore with his new lease, you see but the return of his old tricks and schemes. I contend against the world that Sir John does not merit the adjective " great " as statesman. A great statesman must have done something great, at least of lasting benefit, for his country by the laborious exertions of his patriotic genius. Sir John has done nothing of the kind, because in all his acts no spark of patriotism is visible, without which no statesman and no country can attain to greatness, and never did. Where is the indent of a lasting beneficial mark of his footprints on the passing times ? Let us look impartially on what Sir John has done for the Canadian people in his long term of office of a quarter of a century in the highest position of state. Is Canada's commerce any more extended, more prosperous, more wealthy to-da}', than twenty-five years ago ? No. ' • ■-' ^. What is the progress of manufacture during this long term ? i6 Certainly nothing to boast of, when Canada's own children were forced all this time to leave their homes by hundreds of thousands for the United States, to make home and living there, which, in industrial pursuits and mechanical arts, could not be gained here ; and for this still existing reason leave by thousands still. Is the increase of the area of wild into cultivated land perceptible in adequate degree, meaning in the older Canadian Provinces ? Far from it ; even where the land is traversed by railways the rare sight of new broken fields, new farm houses, new villages, thrusts itself on the beholder's sad contemplation in comparison with the United States, where those pleasant sights are met frequently and everywhere. Have the agricultural resources and productions expectative augmented ? Certainly not, and it cannot be expected as long as the farmers* sons don't find their country attractive enough to remain in it, and so many of them wander away. No person who is in the habit of travelling through the same counties over the same places for years, can help being struck with the mono- tony of the farm habitations and sameness of environs ; the same old houses and bams, the same fields, limited by the same fences, scarcely, ever an additional new house and barn, — everything indicative of the slow progress of farming in particular and of the country in general. Far too great a proportion of farms is mortgaged. Why is Canada not a land for immigration ? From want of employnn.ent for immigrants. Immigrants of any calling in quest of work should certainly not be specially invited to Canada. In regard to immigrants Canadians ought to be as fastidious as the Parisians, who want only visitors with capital. There is no name for the folly of spending capital to bring here immigrants without capital. Strange that such a great statesman as Sir John is praised up to be did not better the aspects for immigration in general in a reign of twenty-five years. Why does this great statesman, in the same degree as minor lights have done, commit the enormities, political and inhuman, to waste millions on millions to bring out immigrants here, which are not wanted, except, maybe, to favor transit freight to the United States ? Let this be answered by the Montreal Gazette, Sir John's un tired panegy- rist. Where is the great financial success under Sir John's leadership ? Is it in borrowing on borrowing ? Is it in the hypothecating of the whole illimitable wilderness ? Again let answer Sir John's panegyrist. Now for a few sundry acts of the great statesman. What impolitic, costly blunder is Sir John's covenant with Columbia for entering Confederation ? ... ... 17 re forced te United suits and ng reason eptible in ire sight of beholder's 36 pleasant ugmented? ' sons don't ,ny of them rh the same 1 the mono- d houses and n additional )f farming in )n of farms is any calling a. In regard .ns, who want ling capital to ;at statesman emigration in or lights have te millions on ixcept, maybe, mtired panegy- rship? Is it in irhole illimitable ,th Columbia for What is his attempted sale of the Pacific Railway charter? Looking at it only in one light, is it not proof of unfathomed political recklessness, which in one puff will puff away a whole country, and for all that sun, moon and stars, simply to be and to remain le grand Monarque ! Nevertheless I con- fess that I consider it Sir John's only real stroke of genius, — success might have been success but it was anything but patriotic. What is the so-called National Policy? An expedient forced on Sir John to regain the throne, which requires the other expedient to create a permanent embassy in the expensive new titulary of Resident Minister in England, simply to bamboozle John Bull to lend the money for his pet scheme, considered necessary by him to retain power. Why does Sir John, instead of piling and piling on debts, not try his hand in the highest art of statesmanship, to build up the nation by wise economy and management of the not inconsiderable resources of the Dominion ? Cause — that is not in his line. But, after all, what is this Confederation called Dominion ? A colored bauble, tied to a very thin thread, and dangled in the air for a little sentimental patriotic amusement of the Provincials, for which political show men pass round the hat for ribbons and honors. What a record of Sir John's cowardly and treacherous duplicity furnish the pour-parlers passed between the Governor-General and the Premier in the \jt\.f^\tx cause cHebre, r « v^ •> ■ -• ' ti ;, We better attend after this Sir John's Banquet. ' i At the Banquet given Sir John lately in Quebec by his adorers, Sir John commenced his speech by praising himself up to the very skies, into the sphere of the gods till, gloriously seated side by side with God Bacchus, continuing he assured his enraptured hearers, how, with the electric fluid from his brains and the thunder of his voice, he did and could strike down his enemies into utter annihilation, well known being their enemies as much as his. Terrible to their common enemies, he was to his friends as the benign rays from the victorious Sun of Canada ; how he did ever shine his most benevolent, his most bounteous graces on his beloved people of the Province of Quebec, — evidence, the present high enjoyment of prosperity and freedom, and the grand future before them would delight them in their dreams. " Dearly beloved friends," he said, " repose in joyful peace to the end of your days, for, with the •• last rise of my sun the millenium has actually commenced," and he wound up with the great maxim of divine right : " L'^tat, c'est notre parti, notre parti c'est moi, et moi je suis le soleil du Canada." Of course, as it could not be expected otherwise from such a grand gathering of the elite, the wealth, the intelligence and power of the Dominion, the banquet was the most brilliant success ever heard of, but for one thing : There ought to have waited on Sir John next morning after the banquet II i i^ two powerful delegations, one from the five hundred destitute families in Quebec, praying for assistance to enable them to settle on free grant Govern- ment lands, the other from the Alarmingly increasing proletariat in Quebec, as is the case in all the other larger cities in Canada, and after explaining to him that they were to-day as wretchedly poor, and their prospects for the future as gloomy, if not more so, as twenty-five years ago, they ought to have taken out Sir John with many of his suit and adorers, not leaving behind Mr. Thomas White of Montreal, on foot if it was a pleasant day — walking is good for headache — and guided them all down to a nice sandy beach on the river, just in time for the incoming tide. Arrived near the water they ought to have placed Sir John in an elaborate chair of throne, after the example left by Canute the Great, King of Denmark, and by powerful persuasion they ought to have kept Sir John seated on the chair till the water did rise up on him and envelop him pretty well, so as to give him same time the full benefit of its cooling virtues ; then before it was any danger, they ought to have said unto Sir John : " Man, if thou art God, command the waters to " subside instantly and to flow back from where they came." If the waters would not have taken heed of his commands, then they ought to have taken him quietly out of the chair and told him : " Now, go home, Sir Braggadocio, " and let us hear no more of your ungodly nonsense." Those words, and the fine bracing air in those localities, might have greatly contributed to bring him and his adorers to their sober senses. Then, if after that Sir John would have got home again, and next time open his office window to look after the lumber piles at the Chaudiere, he might have seriously reflected if he was the cause of one single load having moved off from there, of one single bushel corn, one single bushel potatoes more in the barns of the farmers ; grave doubtsmight have come over his mind, if it was really he who could make the grass grow and the wheat. According to history no statesman attained to greatness, no statesman immortalized his name as a national benefactor, without possessing the innate motive power of patriotism in a high degree, and by the standard of those infallible records, I am not much of a prophet when I say that Sir John A. Macdonald, the brilliant statesman, sumamed by his admirers the great and magnificent statesman, with his present grand pronunciamento of gorgeous policy, will prove a total failure in point of national worth. Emboldened by long uninterrupted reign under its crafty leader, the Tory party was one time, about seven years past, near coming to foimd itself into a sort of Canadian dynasty by the famous coup d'etat, called the Pacific scandal, which, being'abortive, it broke down from sheer overweight of its accumulated iniquities. In consequence the people became desirous of a change, and this catastrophe delivered the reins of power into the hands of the Reformers under the leadership of Hon. A. Mackenzie, Premier, as pro- I families in nt Govem- Quebec, as plaining to ;cts for the !y ought to not leaving asant day — nice sandy ed near the throne, after by powerful till the water m same time ;r, they ought the waters to If the waters have taken ^ Braggadocio, I kords, and the d to bring him ir John would look after the d if he was the ; single bushel irmers; grave ;ould make the , no statesman jsing the innate andard of those hat Sir John A. rs the great and nto of gorgeous leader, the Tory found itself into Llled the Pacific overweight of its le desirous of a into the hands of Premier, as pro- "9 mising a gentleman as the new political auspices were hopeful at the outset. An overwhelming majority in the House, and the people well disposed to give the new Administration a fair trial. The Hon. A. Mackenzie is a gentle- man of great intellectual and oratorical powers, a famous debator^ long con- sidered the greatest tribune on the floor of the House, and highly esteemed for the firmness and probity of his character. Hon. A. Mackenzie came on the helm of state in the most critical times of extraordinary difficulties for navigating the Government ship. His pre- decessors had left things in a bad state for him, and according to political, indeed historical, usage, he was saddled with the whole heavy calendar of their long running sins. It was certainly an :mfortunate coincidence that his rule commenced just about the commencement of the long term of meagre years, deep depression of trade at home, grca*. scarcity of work, shrinkage of all kind of valuables, by the worst of hard times all over the world. All this is very true, but it is not the less true that the Reformers did prove themselves in no way up to the emergency ; having been hungering so long for the emoluments of office, and now rushing on with titles of reward, they adopted the device, " To the victor belong the spoils," with a vengeance, and the Reformers subjected patronage to as hard usage as ever it did get. In the unqualified distribution of the lots to the promiscuous crowd, even the sacred precincts of justitia were not respected, and with Reform they never did begin, for then they would have to commence with themselves. I believe the Hon. A. Mackenzie did brave against it to his best, but the current of the muddy stream was even too strong for him. The kaleidoscopic rapidity of changes in his cabinet also militated against him. Moreover, the very beau-ideal of the Liberals exhibited too much of the changeable humors of a grande belle, was every now and then out of sorts, hard to please, fatigued, other callings had pressing claims and so forth, altogether somewhat deviating from the characteristics of the great patriot. The Reformers were as good as the Conservatives in establishing that there may be nothing in a name. The whole mechanism of state is corro- diated, the eradication is not within either of the two parties as presently ex- isting, for whatever there is in nominal difference in the corruption of the bulk of each following, there is no choice. The destiny of Canada will find its natural solution in the natural laws of gravitation. As may be expected in the exceptionally hard times, the people were naturally looking to the Government for some possible amelioration. No person with proper senses could blame the Government for an adversity which extended over the whole civilized world, nor would suppose that what- ever help the Government could give might be of much effect, and the people were indeed very sensible moderate ; but even the little good that might result from the readjustment of the tariff to a more protective one, all the I!!il f \l I J M people asked for was not granted, not in a fraction. If the Liberal Govern- ment thought the good resulting from protective legislation might be but imaginary, entire inaction in making the least concession, in the extreme circumstances, was certainly a very unwise course. The presumed theoretical knowledge of the Liberals to the contrary is certainly as much of theoretical imagination, for practical knowledge from experience they have none ; but one thing is certain, that the practical experiments with protection of all other nations read practically against them. Unbending stiffness of a plank in the political platform of a party is seldom politic, particularly not in a colony, and in the case in question it amounted to imbecility. Even an autocrat cannot afTord to be heedless of popular demands in times of great adversity. No other result could be expected, but that the Conservative party, who eagerly took up the popular cry, would return to power, as they did with a crushing majority. The Grits in the Federal Parliament will find that they left on the people an impression of disappointment not easily to be effaced. After the Conservatives have another turn of one, perhaps two terms of office, the people is to experience a further disappointment sure, and then the Canadians will commence to grow impatient in earnest for an entire change of programme, and a new heading with great letters. What a talk ! when, having re-appeared again, the victorious sun of Can- ada, who, with its rays of magic power, blooms forth in one day the whole illimitable wilderness into wavy wheat fields and over night peoples it with millions of happy folks rushing in from over the line. What foolish, unsober spread of eagleism, when re-appeared again the greatest of the Premiers, since he belittled the great Premier of England, and he did belittle, too, the late Canadian Premier, when, on bowing him politely out of office, it was with the don-mot on parting : — "Grey, my dear Friend, is all theory, " Green only is life's golden tree." from Goethe's *' Faust": Scene, Mephistopheles giving advice to student. Yet I am under the impression that, in an intellectual duel, pure and simple, between Hon. A. Mackenzie and Sir John, the latter might come out second- best. However I want to have my saying now on the new tariff of the so-called National Policy. In a former pamphlet of mine on mismanagement of Immigration, which appeared six years ago, I advocated protective doctrines, and predicted that the Canadians would, before long, clamor for a protective fiskers. I believe of theory what it has demonstrated in facts ; I believe in the historical pieceients of ages ; I believe in the precedent of great England, who, by wise and patriotic legislation, was locked gradually through protec- I ftt al Govcm- ght be but le extreme theoretical ■ theoretical none ; but iction of all 5 of a plank rly not in a Even an nies of great Conservative ower, as they nent will find easily to be perhaps two ;nt sure, and for an entire IS sun of Can- day the whole peoples it with )olish, unsober Premiers, since le, too, the late , it was with the vice to student, pure and simple, come out second- iff of the so-called | nismanagement of otective doctrines, | or for a protective I ; I believe in the of great England, ly through protec I I tive sluices, till it was proudly floating on the open waters of Free Trade. I am confident that the identical same procedure will bring out the United States on the open waters of Free Trade, England's great rival in every port. I always look on matters and things as they are and not as they might be. I look on Canada as on what it really is, a colony under the protection of England ; and I consider those relations still very necessary to Canada, in the most friendly terms on every point, particularly financially for both state and commerce. To the very liberal English credit is to be thanked the proud sight of a goodly number of the many fine and palatial buildings, private and commercial, about Montreal and other large cities in Canada. With this view of the case and the very needful from abroad before my eye, I would never have gone further in the length of Protection than 25. percent, as a maximum, very and very reluctantly to 27 J^ per cent, wit A discrimination. I look upon the fiscal instrument of the National Policy as it entered in operation as on a composition of accidental shape ; so it happened to become in the hands of politicians, who wish above all, at all events for the time being, to please for office sake, and therefore are ready to carry water to every mill. It is an instrument visibly the creation of please-all politicians, who never studied the bearings of the new fiscal policy in the best interests of the people, although the most important administrative branch in a colony, any more than what it might bear in their favor to obtain and retain office. If the tariff of the National Policy means the first step towards nationhood, as the Montreal Gazette is pleased to call it, then I predict that all the protection which the new tariff gives will not be found sufficient to protect the Confederation from falling to pieces before it arrives at independent national manhood. The effrontery in assertion of the Tory-Ministers beats all Yankee pedlardom ; but on the new tariff they could not come it so readily with John Bull, he is not yet persuaded that it was not a particularly unfilial action towards him, and this actually it is. Sir John, of course, expected this personage would make a sour face and do a great deal of grumbling before going to the chest to lend him money ; but Sir John^ ever trusting to expedients, did trust from the beginning to the expedient of sending Sir A. T. Gait as Resident Minister to England to smooth matters over, and make things agreeable one way or the other ; for the money must be got. The Nor' West is, of course, worked up to immensity as the great bait in his aid. It is amusing to hear such heroic phrases,/. '* ' ep in nation- liink it means he apron, and ing yet. The to pay twenty s before its in- tn customs this s not achieved, al Gazette jubi- uctive of a con- gelations of the^ ;ctive " happy." icial joy of the I the long run in as in the United i other adequate ig still to give the that I am so far ice in Canada. I Dmmerce ; if it is^ anufacturers, and hands, also, fully erwise ; it has not e extent, it is hard 5, new articles and 23 thereby opened new workshops for more and new hands ; it has so far not increased the wages of hands. Speaking of what is perceivable, all what is of clear perception, that is the blessing of a bounteous harvest here and in the United States, by great demand for all sorts of agricultural productions for the European markets at very good prices, where, on the contrary, harvest was more or less of a failure as a general thing. Really the influence from the great revival and impulse of trade in the United States on the business here is far more beneficial and remarkable than anything that is of the tariff of the National Policy, and not to be compared with. It is certainly very protective, and, if it is not more successful than it has been so far, there is no room to boast of Canadian enterprise. Concerning Sir Leonard Tilley's visits to the factories of the land, laud- able as they may be, I look upon in the same light as on the Empress Euge- nie's visits to the Cholera Hospitals in Paris ; if it did not do any good to the patients, it was certainly very good and grand for political effect ; otherwise, in reports and bearings on the real state of affairs, I don't place more value on these visits than on the exchange of the compliments of the season. And I very safo; if they do not create a powerful clientelle for the Ministry, whose [influence may become dangerously expensive to the people, for in Canada [every thing means party, and the interests of party precede the interests of the people. Why, in the United States, where out-and-out Protection flourish- |CS for years and years, it could not protect against the visit of the hard times ilt every where, nor could it banish them before providential expiration, and /hen a bounteous harvest brings a golden shower from less-favored regions, thanks are given to Him who gave the plenty^ by statesmen as well as people* Why does the Canadian Minister of Finance run round by every workshop and collect thanks, which, if there are any, are not due to him ? Why, to appropriate merits for the want of real merits within the Government. It's a puerile play on a puerile political people, and it is nowhere done with juch fussy show. ^i^; ■%. : i. -. , > As to the merit of being the original donors of the protective tariff, and the benefits in its wake, the title, too, of the present Ministers is false, it is of the birth of the times. What claim they have holds only good for having made the best use of the popular notion for political stratagem. No more welcome Cry, so directly opponent to the platform of their political opponents, but as iager they would have taken up with the cry of Free Tradf , pure and simple, Ir any thing else, with sight of leadmg them to power, if the deluge would lave followed after. One merit I only concede to them, that they did not low themselves ungrateful, but at once gave the fill of a protective tariff. \ Abstractedly of a limited market within the borders, of the proverbial dull- i|bss of Canadian spirit of enterprise, of the absence of great accumulated #ealth, of both, the scarcity of great capitalists, and of instilled reluctancy to 24 iilii I M. ( i 11 , i| i ■ i i i i I w I : 'i invest in manufacture, there is another heavy incubus on the efficacious oper- ation of the protective fiscal measure, that is, the long credit system fastened on the Canadian wholesale business : I mean the term of six months, so deeply wormed in the commerce as an established use, and difficult to eradi cate, foremost in the dry goods trade, the financial motive power of the spin- dles. So firmly rooted is this ruinously long term, that it is not considered bad if, at the expiration of the six months, renewance is only demanded for half the amount, and on billheads is generally printed the stipulated rate of interest charged on overdue accounts, like ordinary conditions of sale. It is an additional bad practice to date notes after purchase conformable to season, increasing terms to 7, 8, 9, 10 months. Equally pernicious, and per- haps worse, is the admission in wholesale books of large open accounts to the extent of several thousand dollars. No problem of higher importance for solution can come before the Dominion Board of Trade than the difficult task of introducing for general acceptance and exaction shorter terms, say limited to a maximum of four months, similar to all other commercial centres of the world. Moreover, one of the causes of the late disastrous commercial depression* and not altogether passed over yet, is by no means removed ; that of living above income. One of Montreal's most esteemed, longest established and successful mer- chants, since gone to his eternal rest, remarked one day to me : — " We are on the eve of another crisis." " Why do you think so ? " I asked, and he re- turned : " In my long years of experience in business, I have observed that " every five, at the farthest seven years, many of the traders in Canada have " eaten themselves up, and they must lighten for a new start." At the next periodical crisis, it may be, perhaps, that the foreign merchants suffer less than the Canadian manufacturers, who cannot afford it so well. I ascribe to the pernicious long-credit system, that hardly more than one or two large grocery houses can live any length of time ; that we have not one of very great prominence, with branches established in different parts of the tropical zone, conducive to the desirable exchange of productions, not one of colonial importance. There is the example of the merchants of Great Britain, France, Spain and the United States, but it is a rule as old as the Phoenicians that foreign commerce cannot be cultivated otherwise ; than mer- chants desi'-ous of commercial colonial intercourse must possess the spirit of enterprise to venture the establishment of a post or branch house in the land coveted for trade. The adventurous trader must make the first advancing steps into the country he wants to deal with, and when this meets with suc- cess, and the business grows and extends, the natural consequence is the en- tering into negotiations for mutual benefits, but before trade is established in this way, the parading of high-sounding resident ministers on foreign courts, 25 1 i icious oper- em fastened months, so cult to eradi • of the spin- isidered bad demanded le stipulated itionsofsale. )nfonnable to ious, and per- xounts to the nportance for 1 the difficult •ter terms, say nercial centres ial depression, that of living successful mer- me:— "Weare ked, and he re- e observed that in Canada have t." At the next ;s suffer less than y more than one hat we have not different parts of productions, not merchants of Great rule as old as the erwise ; than mer- )ssess the spirit of house in the land he first advancing lis meets with suc- sequence is the en- ie is established in 5 on foreign courts, as of France and Spain, is but a piece of gold -laced nepotism, in keeping with the official charlatanry of the highest official of the land, by pulling out a letter from Japan at a banquet of his in Ottawa and announcing its contents being of the greatest importance for trade between Japan and Columbia : Three cheers and a tiger. It is in this planner that Canada's great business, past, present and coming, has been, is, and will be done, that is, with the effects of humbug. Now, taking a sober, business-like view of this flourish, what more is there of it than a cork and an empty bottle. I have no hesitation to pronounce as criminal humbug the whole Canadian system of J ' > j,r(y, . • ;', Emigration and Immigration. :K'>'y,' A Y'H- '•'■-^tp- In 1870, I acted as assistant in the Provincial Immigration Office in Mont- leal, and in 1872, as manager of the Immigrants Home in the same city ; and in my connection with immigration in Canada, I have become deeply impressed that the bringing out here of immigrants at the cost of millions of dollars is an idiotic waste of money, and an enormity on humanity. In these positions I have daily witnessed the sad spectacle of beholding cars and cars filled with the children of the soil, in the very act of bidding bitter farewell to " Home, Sweet Home " just at the momentous point in life of emigration, and that to the United States. Studiously I kept away from them, any of my new arrivals, to save me from the most perplexing questions. The causes for the Canadian exodus may be shortly summed up. It is the absence of abundance of work ; it is the scarcity of remunerative work ; it is in a degree the actual want of constant employment for all the hands. It is the China-like standstill in the backwoods countries, where they offer still but from $2.00 to $4.00 for an able female farm servant, for an able male farm hand from $8.00 to $10.00, in winter often only bare board, or at the utmost from $4.00 to $5.00 j in winter hard to find work at all. Poor persons must make up their minds in gaining bare life's existence with slaving labor ; if they won't, emigrate they must to the United States. And still harder and nearer causes operate in the cities in the same direction. Strange, Canada is rather of the mediaeval type than youthful in its fea- tures, and yet it is inhabited by races blessed with the word that said : " And ** you, be ye fruitful, and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, and ** multiply therein." And moreover with such great elbow-room of a vastness of acres for every individual, it appears certainly very strange that the land cannot keep the children it brings forth. I feel very much interested how this would be explained by the great statesman, for twenty-five years at the helm of State, and who is at present carried in triumph from banquet to ban- quet, by his partisans, for the great and wonderful things he has done for Can- 26 h, i : i ! i : i j 1 ; ! 1 1 1 1 i ! 1 . ■ ' ada. There is the undeniable fact that Canada furnishes as great a quota for emigration to the United States as any country in the old world. From a scant population of four millions, dispersed over an immense vast territory, over a million of the native-bom have wandered away to the United States and settled there for good. The land which offers not enough of the home comforts to its native citizens can of course offer still less comfort to the stranger. It was my desperate task to find places for the immigrants, and in truth I am bound to declare that there is not the remotest encouragement for the strangers in quest of employment. There is no real want whatsoever of domestic servants of any kind, of laborers of any work, of mechanics of any calling, of sewing hands and of factory hands of any sort, and I go further in maintain- ing, that it is perfectly wrong to give a particular invitation to farm laborers, with assisted passage money. I contend that it is an egregious error on the part of the press, when it falls in with the cry for farm hands with unthinking acceptance, that there is open room here for placing any number of them. Nothing of the kind is borne out by the actual state of affairs in the country. In the most practical manner possible, that is, by being literally bound to find places for immigrant farm hands, I have convinced myself that it is anything but easy to hire out a farm laborer per annum. To place him at all, it is conditional that he is of strong constitution of body, able in every point, and moderate in his demands ; but it is one in fifty cases that will last out the term of engagement. If he succeeds in making his home on the Canadian farm, which is only possible by a very well to-do farmer, believe me, the man is of the oak built material, and a very good worker. Certes, I know very well that in spring and summer, about certain field and harvest seasons, there is occasionally at the immigration office a brisk demand for immigrant farm hands, principally with the object, as I know very well too, to procure cheap farm help just for the busy time, and have as few as possible of the native helpers, who hold out for much higher prices to make the hay during the short sunshine. What I found the hard nut in this prac- tice is, that farmers are very forward at these seasons to make engagements with the immigrants at wages for the year round, perhaps fair enough per annum, but very disappointing when found as meant from the first only for a month or two. Generally as soon as the leaves begin to wither, some pre- text is easily found for breaking the agreement, or for any possible continu- ance much , smaller wages, a few dollars per month, are offered, for which a really good man will not work, and who now. with the little money earned, speeds double quick to the United States. But too many cases of this des- cription can be cited. It is incontestable that the number of farmers throughout the Dominion who can afford to keep and pay an able farm-man the whole year round is 27 very limited, and necessarily offers but a precarious chance to a limited num- ber of foreign farm laborers. In fact what is really wanted is more than amply supplied by natives and contingent comers. Every honest and impar- tial farmer in the land will bear me out in those assertions. A forced increase |of foreign farm laborers will but force wages down, and force in proportion f the home supply of farm laborers so many more away to foreign parts, of hich one with his thorough knowledge of the farming practices here is ore worth than a baker's dozen of the new arrivals with most absurd ideas lanted in their heads by false emigration apostles. If it were not for the |bolish mania amongst Canadian farmers' sons to crowd into cities in search f the softer callings of shopmen and of clerkships, the superabundance ould be even more glaring. Mr. Joseph Arch and Mr. Peter O'Leary, respectively delegates of Eng- ish and Irish farm laborers, travelled extensively over the Dominion, to- 'Ascertain the prospects of this class of emigrants. Mr. Arch was not blinded- i^ the grand ambassador-like reception with which he was honored, includ- ig dinner with the Governor General, that for the class he represented, and continue here as such, Canada offered no inducements, a conclusion at ich I arrive from his subsequent maction. Whatever may be in Mr. 'Leary's pleasant ways and pleasing sayings, certain is his wisdom, as far I know that he never led farm laborers en masse into the country. It uld have been but pitiful deception unless enabled by means to settle at ce on land. To Mr. Joseph Arch I will suggest a plan which I have seen worked wth great success, in case he should still entertain the high aspiration to become the Moses of his oppressed and suffering class. > I will tell him what I have seen of bush settlement in block, I may say at 0^ time within my daily sight, from the first stroke of the axe in the hands of nSUn when he knocked over his first giant of the forest, up to the time ler prices to make «d|ien I could repose comfortably in the new hostelry of the brand new i nut in this prac- ^age. I will relate of my acquaintance with bush life, good and bad, and nake engagements >f wretched failure, an example of successful colonization in the wilderness, s fair enough per lonfir it was managed and led to prosper. n the first only for The location is in one of the Western States, on a good tract of I wither, some pre- md, mostly heavy timbered, of about, 12,000 acres in one block, bought Dossible continu- tione dollar an acre ; but a small sum to be paid down, balance in and easy terms. The colonists were Germans composed of about families, and about equally as many young unmarried men, metn- of the colony and outside of families, made up mostly of small ers and farmers' sons with a slight sprinkling of mechanics, num- g altogether not far from three hundred persons, men, women and ren. They were under the leadership of a pastor, an energetic and ex- ; a quota for a. From a ast territory, rnited States of the home mfort to the nd in truth I ement for the er of domestic iny calling, of r in maintain- farm laborers, IS error on the ith unthinking mber of them. in the country. jr bound to find It it is anything him at all, it is ■very point, and vill last out the )n the Canadian eve me, the man 30ut certain field on office a brisk t, as I know very and have as few .ffered, for which a ttle money earned, y cases of this des- lout the Dommion irhole year round is f^.^ .^uWlcii '.^ ^t*>-t/ii^iM 28 i cellent man, the right man in the right place. They went on the land early in spring, as soon as the weath*^ ' permitted, camping out in tents, that is, blankets spread over poles, substituting the regular ones of canvas, and in primitive shanties consisting of a few boards nailed together. It is a rough life this, and the air rings with loud and deep grumbling and laments, and the bitterest regrets and mutual reproaches are heard for having left sweet home and its thousand and one comforts. The first operation was performed by labor in common, the clearance of a site for the future village as central place, and the first buildings erected of logs thereon were a meeting house, answering as church and school house, and for municipal and general administrative deliberations, and a few shanties for a little store, blacksmith's, tailor's and shoemaker's shops. The land was divided judiciously ; one lot of eighty acres for each partner of the colony, to add from reserve according to circumstances and growth of family. The •colony set to work in 'earnest. In the erection of log houses, logging for burning away cut trees and brushes, and similar heavy works, mutual assist- ance was rendered. I observed a very wise arrangement that all of the grown up boys and girls who could possibly be spared hired out in the sur- ing districts ; advantageous both ways, less mouths to feed and giving financial aid to the young colony. Towards winter most of them would return to help in clearing. Of course this chance does not exist everywhere. The means of the colony were small, with a majority barely sufficient to hold out eighteen months for the first crop the year following. I have no space to go into more details. The pastor was the head man, and I merely wish more to draw the attention that I found this sacerdotal patriarchal form of government work admirably in a new colony ; no better arbitrator, no better silencer of grumblers. I hope it is needless for me to say, be it pastor or priest. Three years after the start of this colony there was a nice little village with a general store, and the whole colony in a prosperous con- •dition with hopeful improving prospects. At the outset school and religious education was under the pastor's superintendence. Now I think a would-be Moses of the agricultural laborers would presently have an excellent chance with the emigration-speculating Canadian Ministry, never more favorable, to obtain all that I penciled out as contributive to success, a large block of ^ nd, free grant at that, a first-rate pastor or priest paid out of emigra- .;.'») , «. :, and for some years an annual subsidy for colonization roads to .urr ' iV-ancial assistance. Colonies of this description are further com- nici.a; ' » in the chances they offer to mechanics to make farm life more accessible to them through mutual assistance at the start, and likely in time improve their homesteads by finding in part time use for their callings. He however, who prefers the flesh pots of Egypt, and finds his happiness in the dear indulgences of an old country home, had much better stay at home. I 34 29 ; land early ;nts, that is, ivas, and in 5 a rough life Its, and the : sweet home learance of a lings erected ichool house, I few shanties The land was the colony, to family. The s, logging for mutual assist- lat all of the jut in the sur- d and giving f them would St everywhere, ifficienttohold lave no space I merely wish archal form of ator, no better be it pastor or as a nice little rosperous con- ol and religious link a would-be ixcellent chance )re favorable, to 1 large block of d out of emigra- ization roads to ire further com- 2 farm life more nd likely in time ir callings. s his happiness in ter stay at home. No good can come except of the emigrant-pioneer of firm resolution that has determined of his own accord to leave where he can not emancipate hunstif from servitude, and is willing to bring the greatest self-sacrifice to reach the long coveted goal, of becoming his own master, and owner of land himself. Only with this resolution the man will conquer the wild land and make it verily his own. To those who in any decent way make a fair or sufficient living at home I would always give the advice, stay where you are ; and those who have actual comfort at home and emigrate appear to me like the ox who jumps a good pasture to look for the scanty pickings on the road, and gets hard abuse in the bargain. What scornful mockery did immigration present to me on my chair in the Immigrants Home I Here they bring out at great cost, and only by dint of the most unwarrantable pretences and promises, thousands of immigrants, and when they do realize the actual sight of them, it is but to find themselves in the idiotic perplexity not to know what to do or make of them. I would not help to -compare the Government to the overburdened ass, in its efforts to effect riddance by rubbing and kicking the immigrants away in all direction and at all hazards, with the difference that the ass has more wisdom and don't over burden himself. There is a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, why is not a society formed to prevent the Canadian Government from sys- tematic cruelty to human beings in the shape of immigrants ? One and all the published official reports on emigration and immigration are documents highly inflated with the gas of humbug, deliberately delusive,^ to nourish popular visions and illusory prospects, for creating a rosy political atmosphere, somewhat vaporous, essential to dim the sight of the people. I will now explain how those false reports are made up, purposely to make illu- sive impression on the public, dissembling the real state of affairs, yet with semblance of actuality. In the office of every immigration agency will be found a book of arrivals, rubricated for name of immigrant, age, calling, and where placed. The agent furnishes the immigrant with an address at which to apply for work. The immigrant returns with information of having found employment there, the rubric is at once filled with the address ; if he never returns, as is oftener the case, the same entry is made in presumption. When a large convoy of immigrants arrives the addresses are soon exhausted, with still a goodly number remaining on hand ; this balance, large or small, is now forwarded at Govern- ment's expense to different parts in the country, and entered accordingly. A little connivance at the exit from Canada is practiced sometimes from pure motives of charity. Above all things have the disappearance as noiseless as possible. If they do find employment, if they do remain where directed, or what becomes of them, — on these points the agent is as uncertain at the time as f-,i.:i^«->w;'>?'' ■*'rfM ^"m^^sfamsmm^^ 30 on the number of his days. In this manner the whole convoy of new arrivals figures as placed, and, when placed in the book, that is all that is required. This makes up a very satisfactory looking monthly report, and summarily a grand show for the whole season. But where, oh where, are the immigrants? Foolish question, if nobody knows where, what has that to do with the official business of emigration and immigration, or vice versa ? with the actual business in hand, to have a brilliant statement to give to the select standing committee K)n immigration and colonization, so that this may have in its annual report the gratifying intelligence for the public that immigration goes on swimmingly. I beg pardon of all the immigration agents in Canada, I don't mean to insult one of them, I don't mean to say that any one of them is not fully aware that the greater bulk of immigrants passing through their hands -don't remain in Canada, comprising the old Provinces. In any case I am both able and ready to make good all my statements on immigration. The palm of cleverness in doing it up brown for the Canadian public I concede to a Canadian immigration agent stationed in England. His imposition on the occasion was of that witty, laughter-provoking imperti- nence. It was during the epoch of the hardest depression in Canada and the United States, during the existence of an almost total impossibility to find work, that very many of the immigrants lately and longer arrived out, returned to Great Britain and the Continent, who in any way possessed the wherewith, otherwise starvation staring them in the face, and all the homeward bound steamers from Canada and the States registered high lists of steerage pas- sengers. Everybody here was fully aware that they consisted of disgusted 'immigrants only too glad to get back to what they left. It was then that this ingenious gentleman had inserted a letter in one of the Montreal papers, purporting that it was an entirely wrong impression, as far as Canada was concerned, that they were immigrants coming back for good ; far from it, they had only come to fetch, and return right off again with, their families. This agent ought to be knighted, since that is the order of the day for such great services to the State. I am prompted to this allusion from impulse to pro- tect the inventor against an interloper on his unique idea, in the person of an immigration agent of the Province of Quebec, who explained that, of nearly three thousand immigrants "entered in 1879, for the Province of " Quebec, an unusually large proportion (2,400 of the total number) were *' males, as due to the majority of the settlers being only pioneers, coming "" out in advance of families in order to ascertain the prospect here." How- ever to disparage the merits of no man, this home-agent certainly stands next to the Transatlantic agent on the list for high honors for professional efficiency. His legerdemain of converting the promiscuous fresh arrivals into settlers before they were done with ascertaining, if indeed before they <:ommenced prospecting, is certainly admirable, and his additional counting in I fwmm f new arrivals iquired. This larily a grand immigrants? th the official ctual business ng committee annual report I swimmingly. lon't mean to n is not fully their hands statements on the Canadian d in England, coking imperti- n Canada and ssibility to find d out, returned the wherewith, imeward bound )f steerage pas- ed of disgusted t was then that [ontreal papers, as Canada was far from it, they families. This / for such great impulse to pro- n the person of plained that, of :he Province of .1 number) were jioneers, coming ct here." How- certainly stands for professional is fresh arrivals eed before they onal counting in i I K){ the families before arrival stands in the first rank of comparisons with counting the chickens before they are hatched. As professional cleverness and for well-buttered official bread this is all very well, but I feel keenly my stranger-born short-comings in the English language to expressing in words my thoughts of a press always complacent in hob and nob with those delu- sive statements, when it may be termed an open secret with everybody, that but an insignificant percentage of the immigrants thus entered as settlers does actually remain and settle in the Province of Quebec, ■and that verily the number of dond fide settlers in the Province of Ontario is nearly as ignominious in proportion to the greater registers of arrivals under the same misnomer of settlers. The modus operandi in trumpet- ing up fictitiously great acquisitions of ne.v settlers is the same every- where in Canada. I am thoroughly acquainted with the fact that immigrant is as much a drug in the labor market of Ontario as in Quebec. It is a chance for the momentary hard beset immigration officer that he is " wisely " -empowered, at his discretion of whatever further expense, to disperse the crowd to the four quarters of the globe, and, by dint of liberal use of free tickets farther on — and every road in Canada leads to the United States — this is effected before the arrival of the next convoy with more of the ill advised strangers. Thus the mill runs them off, and still they are coming ; the wind mill turns, never short of the grist nor of the wind. Windy bulletins in the •organs of the ruling party blow that the immigration agent, So-and-so, had no difficulty to place within a few days all the immigrants per steamer numbering nearly three hundred. Indeed not, to place a goodly number of them again on the cars as government travellers and others to tramp it. •Such in great majority are the settlers, stated to be settlers in Canada in the official reports on immigration. What sardonic play on the words " birds of passage!'' As may be expected the organs of the Government keep mum on all things unpleasant to public ears ; and if it were not for the contrariness of the organs of the opposition and of the independent press, we might never hear ■any more of the settlers and neither of the settlements. Thus we read in the issue of the Montreal Herald {i-jih. November, 1879)^ •copied from the Hamilton limes : — " Over sixty mechanics from Lancashire " arrived at Quebec by the Allan steamer. They are now tramping the coun- ^* try in search of employment. They complained bitterly of being sent out *^ by the Canadian emigration agent at Sheffield on the assurance that all " they had to do was to start right out and work at good wages immediately ^' on leaving the boat. One of the party mournfully added : ' I only had four ^' pence ha'penny in my pocket when I landed at Quebec and yet I haven't "found any work.' It is months since we called the attention of ^* the Government to similar disgraceful conduct on the part of their 32 :i " agents in England, and so far nothing has been done to remedy affairs." (And never will.) In the Montreal Daily Witness of the 2nd December, 1879, we read under the heading " Duped Immigrants : " — " A party of immigrants, nine in " number, who arrived at Halifax on Friday evening per SS. * Sardinian,' " visited the Witness office this morning, and complained they had been in- " duced to come out here upon the false representations of steamship agents " in the old country." Again, two days after, we read in the Montreal Daily Witness of twenty poor old army pensioners from Ireland, even more cruelly duped, and in sad straits here. Their case ought to be taken up by the Imperial authorities. In this issue (4th December) the Witness has some interesting notes under the heading : *' More Emigrants brought out under False Representations — ** Twenty more Army Pensioners." NOTA BENE : — • . " The Dominion SS. ' Quebec ' arrived at Halifax on Monday evening "with ninety English, Irish and Scotch immigrants on board. " I. All spoken to by our reporter told the same tale ; they were all pro- *' mised work as soon as they should arrive, and they would be taken care of " until they were at work." " 2 . It appears from the statements of some of the immigrant army-pen- ** sioners that the practice (in Dublin at least) is for the staff officer to pay " the pensions of those emigrating to the emigration agents, who, after " deducting the fares, pay the balance to the pensioners. This is a matter for " investigation by the War Office." " 3. Mr. Daly, Government Immigration Agent, informs us that the Gov- " eminent are aware of these false representations by English shipping agents, " and will promptly endeavor to check the immigration from this cause." What ridiculous empty sound of words would carry this voice to the Gov- ernment. It is chat for a reporter and chaff to the wind. The Canadian im- migration officers know better than to make such fools of themselves in the eyes of their bosses, initiated as they are for ever so many years as in office in those secrets by which immigrants are recruited for Canada. Ask Mr. Daly how many thousands of free passages he signed in his long career to help away dupes in helplessness. s . ' In papers from Toronto, London and all the larger cities of Ontario we read every now and then, and more frequently at present, sad tales of poor unfortunate immigrants, how they tramp from place to place in hopeless search for work, under great privations and sufferings ; how some of those duped immigrants begged hard of the municipalities to be assisted to the United States. In the issue of the Montreal Daily 5/d!r of the loth Decem- ber, 1879, is the following clipping under Note and Comment : — niMH ly aflfairs." I, we read Its, nine in Sardinian/ d been in- >hip agents s of twenty aiid in sad authorities, lotes under lentations— lay evening ivere all pro- aken care of nt army-pen- pfficer to pay i who, after 3 a matter for that the Gov- pping agents, 5 cause." e to the Gov- Canadian im- nselves in the ,rs as in office la. Ask Mr. long career to of Ontario we tales of poor ; in hopeless some of those issisted to the loth Decem- 33 " There can be no doubt the Government is playing a most disgraceful " part in coaxing immigrants to this country to roam the Dominion without " employment after they get here. Every week, if not every day, the crowd " is swelled by new recruits, and the array of idle men and women is a burden " to the communities. There can be no question that wilfully false stories " are told them. Why should these people be brought to Canada at all, and " above all things, why should they be brought here at this season of the '• year, at the very beginning of a long winter."— St. Catharines JVgras (Lib.) Yet, but a tortuous way to the United States, where nearly all reach in the end. During my connection with immigration as far back as 1870, my superior (Conservative ) made strong remonstrations to a Conservative Gov- ernment against the perniciousness of this coaxed and forced system, still more aggravated with grim Canadian winter at the door. It is all of no use, it is considered a plank of popular policy. Lord Dufferin, thr lately replaced Governor General, was the right man for Canada all the way from Galway ; he is a master in the art of lathering the people in delightful fancies of grandeur and happiness to come, just as the Canadians like it, who are fond to look beyond every day life's hard fea- tures. Well I remember one of his Toronto speeches, where he tickled his hearers with the pleasantry, that in Canada, the land of plenty and happiness, no man should say of having too many of children, for just after reading it, I was accosted by an immigrant, well-known to me as an exemplary man and skilful mechanic, who dearly loved his young wife and his only child. " No work yet," said he to me, and with an expression in eye and voice that I'll never forget, he added, " oh, but for my unfortunate wife and child ! " What would I not have given to introduce this man to the lordly courtier of public favors, his earthly heaven. I have alluded here only to a few of the latest newspaper comments on immigration, but if I were to write down all the cases of heartless deception which came under my personal observation, volumes would not contain it. I have heard heaven-crying lamentations of the dupes of immigrants brought out to Canada. Acquisition by false pretences and promises is considered and punished as a crime, and it is one of the many strange things in life, that it is not considered a far greater crime to seduce away, under false pretences and promises, a son from his father, a daughter from the mother, a family out of positive livelihood, out of the comforts and sweetness of the native land. It is revolting in the extreme when one becomes deepiy acquainted with the enormity of how many lives are robbed of happiness by this coaxing persua- sion of selfish intent, ruined for the remaining rest of the fleeting days ; how many families, how many girls, curse the fatal day of emigration. What is lost is certain loss, very uncertain what is to be gained in the foreign land ; in the majority of cases (more so in the present times) it is the real piece of ■fi.'-^'Vr*'' meat which is dropped for the shadow. For instance, a man is a manual laborer, domestic servant of some sort, mechanic, clerk and so forth, with no other financial assistance than what his hand earns for him ; it is forty nine blanks in fifty lots that he may remain here what he has been in the old coun- try, and then it is about of as much toil here to provide for many heads of a amily. Quite a different view 1 take, quite a different argument 1 hold con- cerning what I call the class of ready-made immigrants, that is, all those who emigrate from impulse of their own, from their own free will, seized with the emigration fever, from causes of ambition, greediness for gold, of misfortunes of any kind, of family and political troubles. Let them take the lots as cast by the throw of the die, leave all those to themselves ; if they bring any money and lose it, as is generally the case, the quir:ker they will learn to earn the money of the country of their adoption, or to make it support them in some way, the quicker they emancipate themselves in the new land and learn its ways and customs, the sooner they become useful to the country and conse- quently to themselves. They have no reproach to make to any body here, grumble they may over themselves. I'his is the healthy class of immigrants — the ship is burnt, they'll fight and stay ; this is the class that settles the coun- try. Doctoring with assisted passages, free meals and free railway tickets is not the thing, don't settle a country ; the immigrant himself has no faith in it, and will travel in search of better. Certes, honor demands of any govern- ment respect of ihe promises made through its authorized agents, and if the immigrant is enlisted by them by some means for Canada, the Government is bound to provide for this recruit, or send him back again; if duped, some- body ought to be responsible to the dupe. In the official meddling, subsidizing and puffing, the speculation, pam- phlet and placard, and all other devices by which the etat of immigration may be filled with delusive figures, palliative of the enormous squander of treasure, therein I concede high efficiency to the Dominion Government. For instance, in the Report of the Select Stand'u^r Committee on Immi- gration and Colonization for 1878, Mr. John Lowe, (he Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, gives in his evidenct th^ following figures ^^f immigration to Canada : — 1873 50.050- 1874 39.373- 1875 27,382. 1876 25,633. 1877 27,082. To the question by the Chairman : — " Can you inform the Committee how many immigrants entered Canada " during 1877, aiid how many passed through as passengers for the United '• States? " 35 a manual forth, with ■ forty nine i old coun- heads of a hold con- those who \ with the nisfortunes lots as cast any money o earn the :m in some id learn its and conse- body here, migrants — ;s the coun- ly tickets is 3 faith in it, ,ny govern- , and if the jovernment iped, some- lation, pam- g ration may of treasure, ee on Immi- itary of the figures ^f ired Canada )r the United Mr. Lowe answered : — " The total number of immigrant settlers in Canada in 1877 was 27,082, " and the number of immigrant passengers for the United States 5,640, " making the total number oi all immigrants who entered Canada 35,285." I suppose in the first place Mr. Lowe: and I differ in the definition of settler. I call only that person a settler who immigrates into a country with the settled purpose to remain in it, and as soon as conveniently possible after his arrival actually sets to work to settle down there, be it on land, in commercial pursuits of any kind, in whatsoever trade or workshop, on his own account, or in whatever capacity in the employment of others, whatever he begins with means the l/o/id fide settlement in his new adopted home. In this sense, and I believe the only correct one, if the word settler means what it conveys, it must be a modern addition in technology invented by Mr. Lowe as peculiarly suitable for shortness, occasion and purpose, to designate the whole annual batch as immigrant settlers, although at the time he makes the statement he knows no m »re of those immigrants than that they have been booked for Canada. What has become of them, where settled, in Canada, in the United States or in the moon, he i.s in equal blissful ignorance when he calls them settlers of Canada. Is it possible that Mr. Lowe pretends of being not aware of the insignificant small percentage of the number total which remains as actual settlers in Canada ! If he really knows no better, then it is very triste evidence of the management of Canada's public affairs. The sancta simplicitas of the Chairman is equally sans pareil, who never dreamt to question the location of the new settlers and how they fared. However, a still richer treat was in store for him, when Mr. Lowe answered him, that the amount of money re])orted by agents (I know from experience to be the most difficult thing to find out) to have been brought in i)y immi- grants in 1877 was $287,766; that the value of these settlers' goods was $344,503 ; and in addition the unascertained amounts, comprising the tools and effects brought by immigrants on shipboard, would swell the amount to at least a million. I hope the agents did not neglect to take into the count the heavy old anvil and the big bellows, and other weighty tools, which I saw brought here by an immigrant blacksmith ; the freight alone made them very valuable to Canada. I admire the capacity of the Chairman, no vessel arrives in port with as much. It will account somewhat for the unabated depression in 1877, when a majority of the immigrants did not remain, and took of course the greater part of the very considerable treasure in money, effects and tools away again. The best settler is the immigrant able and ready to pay his way — that's what's wanted ; the scarcity of this sort in Canada — that's what's the trouble . Never mind the tools and effects, better for both parties, immigrant and new J6 country, if he brings nothing but robust health and a well filled purse ; he gets here what he actually want? and is useful to him — wh at's the use of the worth- less trash he generally brings — and the country has the benefit of his purcha? i- This Select Standing Committee on Immigration and Colonization is of the same select mysticism as the whole of the Government Immigration system, but as far as my ordinary comprehension goes, I conceive that its investigations, for any practical worth, are not of the value of the paper on which its annual report is printed, let alone the costly printing. It is no use to call a spade by another name than spade. Romance has left me, and I shall not fail into this Don Quixote error. Windmill I shall call windmill and treat as windmill. False pretences and false promises for decoying immigrants I shall call abominable ; illusive representations of travelling immigiants as settlers I shall call detestable and stupid deception. Nothing can come more under the unalterable laws of nature and life in the truthfulness and bearings as existing than immigration ; nothing is more iron- handed, regula'.ed and conditioned in success and all its concerns than immi. gration is, by the realities of life and actualities in the land of promise. It is the transplantation and plantation of mankind, the master-piece of creation, and gifted with divine reason, who won't stick and remain in the ground^ where by his reason-guided will he will not. No artifice of trumpery, no mountebank tricks of the official immigrant-hunter can stupify his reason, as not to reason in the premises what is best for him to do when he cannot find the manna for bread. The law of gravitation is all potent, even in immigration, where it will show its irresistible influence, in causing an all-powerful inclination towards fields of richer substance, and which will continue or abate towards the United States in proportion to its greater unevenness on this side, or less separating evenness. I contend it is not in the powzr of any Canadian Government to counter- balance this all-powerful attraction ; I contend in the face of all the pompous boasting of the present Government at home and abroad that it can. The onl> chance it migb*: have to lessen it might be in the stoppage of squandering millions of treasure m immigrants, \vho do not remain and settle here, and devote it instead to assist the needy children of the soil, who over-crowd the labor market in the cities, in settlements on land, which might eventually lead to better openings for the strangers ; besides, charity should always commence at home. The grand array of hundreds of thousands of so-called immigrant set- tlers in the reports of the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, say since Confederation, must have cost the Government over three millions of dollars, and, except the Mennonite and Icelandic settlements, it has no other settle, nipnts and settlers to show for it, at any rate not worth mentioning. I have always held that a passive attitude in immigration was the only ; ; he gets [he woi't.h- purchaf i- ition is of imigration ve that its ; paper on nance has iiill I shall I promises itations of deception, hfe in the more iron- han immi. lise. It is " creation, e ground mpery, no reason, as annot find t will show ards fields le United separating :o counter- pompous can. The luandering ; here, and -crowd the itually lead commence iiigrant set- ;, say since of dollars, ther settle. r. >• ls the only 37 sound policy for Canada. Not more than three agents in Great Britain, more for giving straightforward advice, than active, pushing, recruiting of immigrants. In this way quite enough immigrants, for all that is wanted, would have dropped in ; and if but a few of them would have got along well, it would have been infinitely preferable to the curses of thousands. When I learned on the part of the Government of its gratis invitation of delegates from different agricultural districts in Great Britain, I thought this was the result of the conviction having diwned at last on the powers that be, that their foolish and expensive agency business was a complete failure to obtain desirable immigrants, but I perceive it is more of a plan in addition from the synchronous continuance in full blast of granting assisted passages, yea, if any thing with more unlimited extravagance, and even more promiscuously, through the dodge of giving carfe blanche to steamship agents in filling up the forms, that very conveniently on their shoulders may be put all the blame ; but what do they care as long as the Government's money comes in readily for the filled up forms. What softness of some people to say, it is all the fault of the agents of the steamship lines, when by accident through the press, some of the unmerciful deceptions of immigrants are brought home to this class of agents. What sancta simplicitas t Their innocence is of the pure whiteness of the Canadian snow, when, indeed, they are the better halves of the Government's immigration agents. As sensible men of business they think but to please their instructors In wisely assuming that if a man is not a farm laborer he very likely may become a farmer by emigrating to the new world, where there is so much un- occupied land. Besides, owners of transatlantic steamship lines have a big " nigger in the fence." And it was but in accord with the regular course in the nature of things that when Canada's greatest man entered the field in persona propria as immigration courtier, he should prove himself the most finished artist in the line, the world may be challenged to enter in the lists, an immigration knight more worthy of the laurel crown as the highest authority on which my Lord Beaconsfield founded his statements in his extraordinary speech at Aylesbury, on agricultural depression, no doubt well meant for the consolation of his hearers, but unwittingly making him the laughing stock of two conti- nents. The Canadians have a good right to enjoy a triumphant pride, now that they can play off on the blustering Yankees, who think they are greatest in everything ; now that they can point to the great man of their own, who has successfully out-barnumed Barnum, before considered the greatest prince of humbugs ; now that the Canadians have a man greater than all Yankeedom can produce, before whom, the rising Sun of Canada, all the brilliant stars of the great republic will pale into insignificant glimmer, consigning them to a third-rate constellation in commercial and national importance. 38 Perhaps never before did leading statesman of such great prominence make himself so damagingly ridiculous before the whole civilized world as my Lord Beaconstield did, when he appeared on the rostrum with the foolscap placed on his head by his " highest authority," on the strength of which he consented to become the prime actor in a play of Punch and Judy for the amusement of John Bull, the climax of the roaring farce being in the grand finale, when pigmy Canada is represented on tremendous high stilts to make her appear even taller than her gigantic brother Jonathan, and how then the pigmy, by mad-brained use of the stilts, kicks the giant off the commercial and national theatre of the world. I hope my Lord Beaconsfield will yet enjoy many years full of honors and usefulness, when I have no doubt he will become convinced that his " highest authority " is a heartless joker, who caused him to commit such illogical and irrational blunders, that dimmed the light of his great star, at all events on this half of the hemisphere, a star which in brilliancy came once near to impair the lustre of Prince Bismarck's, but not more after this speech, i have no doubt my Lord Beaconsfield will become further convinced that his '• highest authority " is anything but a reliable factotum in statements on immigration or other important parts bearing on the actual status of Canadian afHiirs ; that neither the wheat nor the population grows as fast in the illimitable wilderness as represented by his " highest authority's " lively and highly developed powers of fantasy ; that in truth the statement of the multitudinous rush of the folk from over the line is an untruth fabricated from the whole cloth ; that, if in enviable long years to come, it might happen the disadvantage of the English farmer should be further and more painfully increased by telling quantities of wheat being thrown in addition on the English market from the " Illimitable Wilderness," it will be deprived even of the praised up sentimental consolation that it is branded '• Canadian ; " by that time, I predict, it will all be branded United States, and that as long as this does not come to pass, the English farmer need not fear this new ghost, which is more calculated to influence the English capitalists. My Lord Beaconsfield will improve such occasions far more in the true British interests by urging on the people full comprehension of the immoveable and continuing presence of the United States with all powerful influence on agricultural and industrial productions, and with giant strides marching to still more gigantic size, creating altogether a new era with which England is brought face to face, and it will take more than fanciful projects to guide England for holding its own in the competitive course, which has commenced and will be permanently felt in all that relates to British agriculture and com- merce. Canada's i)roject, in connection with its illimitable wilderness, of turning the commercial tables on its great neighbour, as fancied and pictured by this " Highest Authority " — four millions of disunited people swallowing up a great compact nation of fifty millions is mad chimera, — is grotesque nonsence. a 39 )rominence orld as my le foolscap f which he idy for the the grand ts to make »w then the :ommercial 11 yet enjoy v^ill become zaused him ight of his which in 's, but not n\\ become a reliable ring on the population s " highest n truth the line is an ig years to d be further I thrown in ," it will be is branded States, and ;ed not fear capitalists, in the true mmoveable ifluence on :hing to still England is ts to guide :ommenced e and com- derness, of pictured by owing up a ; nonsence. The great Republic is there in mighty positiveness, representing in grand realization the highest development of the human powers, the loadstar to which the eyes of all nations are directed ; Canada is there at its side, the stunted dwarf, usually quiet and unassuming, and when done with blow- ing, to which it is presently given with dangerous passion, fearful of bursting, all the fault of political showmen, of grand views in panorama, well then it will be of his normal size again. The report of the Imperial Parliamentary Commissioners will not very materially differ from my statements. In all the great state plans of the Government, Manitoba and the North- west is the highest trump c;ird, and so it is in immigration. It is a well calculated game this of bringing out delegates from different agricultural districts of Great Britain ; but I am not over-sanguine that the play will turn out so very successful. Thoroughly as I am acquainted with pioneer farming in the bush and on the wild prairie, I willnot attempt to des- cribe it, because I consider it an impossibility to convey practical impression to the reader. I found always, those who thought to know most of it through books and pamphlets, and had the most to do with over-layer and substrata, were the most bitterly disappointed and quickest discouraged, the romance melts away flister than snow in the sun. I have seen this kind of life in every stage, in every progress, in every break-down and in all its fortunate chances. The pioneer by trade ai'hi the native farmer inured to this species of hard work are the only proper and fit persons for the undertaking. Most of the others who attempt it will generally leave it before their money is all exhausted, or if it is at all possible to get away from it ; those of this class who stick to it under the force of circumstances, and from pride or fear to return, will as a rule not do much good till the old country money is all gone, i am certain the delegates know next to nothing of pioneer-farming from looking at it in their holiday suit, and not less certain I am, that all those they send will experience the most bitter disappointment from their descriptions. The commonplace stories of successful dime-fiirmers in the North-west are almost as pernicious for the guidance of the immigrant-settlers as those of dime novels. Cases of such brilliant success do occur, as Mr. Thomas White relates one in his Chronicles by the way, but beware of taking such as an average sample, they are just as rare as the men who accomplish it- As far as the ten cents is concerned, that must be taken as the proverbial ten cents. No man can take a free grant and pre-emption of land with only ten cents in his i)0cket presenting his means total, and convert it in three years into a fine farm furnishing aheady the comforts of life, and making it in this short time worth several thousand dollars. If he has but ten cents, say no money at all, of course he cannot live on the wild grass, he must have got a stock of provisions from somebody, and not even this will be all of the needful, 40 he must have, in addition, a chance to earn a little money by working out, by the chase or in some way ; believe me, there is some kind of a nigger in the fence, for all we know there may be one in the sanctum of the Chronicler. When Mr. Thomas White did not find a single telegraph pole in Manitoba having been set right either below or above ground during the Mackenzie Administration, we can understand that very well ; but when he called in the Gazette for reports of such cases of successful farmers to submit a selection, *' out of hundreds like it and hundreds far more remarkable," to the British Agricultural Commission as to '' go some length in aiding it to solve the great " problem with which they are face to face," then he travels out of his way and desires to lay out the fancy stock of the immigration puffer and land factor. But Manitoba, is especially, not the paradise described by interested parties for the man with only ten cents in his pocket. As a rule, successful farming on the wild prairie requires more capital than bush farming, and Manitoba is par excellence the land where no immigrant need apply without capital, where, as a rule, with only ten cents in his pocket, he will never touch the precious gift of i6o acres free grant land; where, as a rule, the poor man is more miserable than in any other part of the Dominion. A dis- interested friend of mine writes me from Manitoba, that there are already but- two classes here, one with money, the other without, and the latter are verit able slaves here, slaving for existence. The man in quest of employment, the man without means is harder set, in worse plight, here than in any other part of the Dominion. There are large tracts of fertile lands, and there are large tracts which are not, to whom fails the unlucky lot, and has invested his all, is robbed of every good day in his life. It cannot be the paradise it is cracked up to be by interested parties and mercenaries in the pay of the Government I say, for the Gaiden of Eden was never located in a treeless prairie with full long six months hard winter, the thermometer eveiy now and then denoting from 25 to 50 degrees below zero. This long winter burns considerable of a hole in the wheat granary. The majority of the settlers in Manitoba and the North- West is composed of parties emigrating from the older Canadian provinces. From this cause the North-west is a source of weakness to the other parts of the Dominion. The influx of foreign immigrant-settlers with well filled purses is very sparse yet, and leaves much to desire for the Northwesterns. The new-comers in quest of free grants count too many of the nip and tuck class of customers. I will but remark en passant what everybody knows, that the reported influx of native-bom Americans as settlers for good in any notable numbers is mythical. What there is of them must be mostly counted amongst the floating population. All the eulogistic lecturers on the North-west never can find language enough to do full justice to all the immense resources of the illimitable wilder" 41 ing out, by gger in the Chronicler. Manitoba Mackenzie ailed in the a selection, the British 'e the great of his way • and land interested , successful rming, and ply without will never a rule, the on. A dis- .Iready but- er are verit )yment, the y other part re are large sted his all, iradise it is pay of the in a treeless ;iy now and inter burns :omposed of is cause the inion. The sjjarse yet, ers in quest lers. be reported »le numbers .mongst the d language able wilder* ness, yet astonishing and unpardonable, they leave to this humble writer to divulge what constitutes at present the greatest resource of the North-west, namely, the money brought into the country, in the pockets of the immigrants : it is tantamount to all the other resources put together, and the great railway schemes along with it, for all the brilliant prognostications of the immense all- eclipsing grandeu r of this vast region in the very near future will fail if this resource fails. " What are hopes and projects which man the perishable builds," exclaims the great poet Schiller. I believe next year will see a pretty fair immigration to the North-west, after that the influx will diminish, and the quick march will slacken down to the usual slow pace, normal of all that is Canadian — vide the push of Hamilton, Ottawa and Montreal. The vitality of support is not within and collapse is inevitable. The meddlesomeness and political speculation of the dominant federal faction will not fail to operate injuriously to the North-west as to other Provinces. I am inclined to think that the first energetic demonstration against this meddlesome confederation business may come from this very North-West ; the jewel most highly prized at present, may first break out of the the crown. The projected and very necessary railways to connect the North-VVest with the older Provinces and the seaports, are sure to make the already heavy burden of debts still more burdensome, but districts in Canada did never yet derive the predicted benefit from new railways : take the Grand Trunk* running through the fairest portion of Canada, absolutely necessary as it is, immense the good it has done to the country, still it has done very little towards the increase of the population on the way stations, or towards the increase of farm-settlements ; the increase of the area of cultivated land is not in fair proportion, expectations have not been fulfilled as they might and have been in other countries from this cause, and the enormous expen- diture of treasure for the North-West is not any surer in the effects ; they are surer to turn out also far below expectations under the present confederation and system of Government. Without reci^^rocity with the United States the efforts will be barren of appreciable results, and the North west will never realize the grand hopes entertained till the bright polar star of this North- western firmament is counted in the galaxy of brilliant stars in Columbia's diadem. In the issue of the Montreal Herald of the 19th November, 1879, we find under the heading *' Canadian Celebrities " a clipping from the New York Tribune, being the report of an interview of the Hon. Peter Mitchell of Montreal by a TW/^////^ reporter at the Gilsey House in the city of New York. In the course of the interchange of questions and answers on divers public topics, tariff and so forth, the party was augmented by another Canadian gentleman ; his participation in the conversation, touching 42 ■p The Question of Annexation, is stated literally as follows .-" A. Yates, of Bradford, a large capitalist, *' who came over from England as one of the engineers of the Grand Trunk " road, and afterwards settled in Canada, joined Mr. Mitchell in the course of " the conversation, and expressed his views in regard to annexation." " As " an independent citizen of Canada, he remarked, and one having nothing to " do with politics, I do not hesitate to express my opinion that annexation to *' the United States is the best thing that could happen us. It would increase " the volume of our commerce and manufactuies, and help us in every way. *' Loyalty is mere sentiment ; what we want is trade. We want to be placed " on a par with America. A reciprocity treaty might do it, and, if we had a " thorough reciprocity treaty, I think we should drift into annexation without " any difficulty. This, let me tell you, is the opinion of business men, not of " politicians." If one is but desirous of information on this point he will be surprised at learning that by far the gre. "er ^. tion of the people share in the opinion frankly expressed by Mr. Yates, and even when it is not willingly admitted the conviction is in proce.s'^ of ripening, and is but covered with a thin layer, •n most cases for prudential ieasw ..;, a.ia it will not escape the observer, that what there is of a sort of sentimental loyalty, never of depth, is susceptible of very easy eruption and evaporation from very slight cause, indeed if only imaginary. Amongst his many questions the Tribune reporter also put the ques- tion to Hon. Peter Mitchell : " Is it true that two-thirds of the immigrants " brought over at the expense of the Canadian Government quickly leave the " Dominion for the United States ? " The reply of Mr. Mitchell was : " This has resulted from a scarcity of railway facilities only. In two " years our North-west territory will be traversed with roads, and we are '* certain to have a large influx of settlers " — in direct sense an entirely evasive answer to the question, and makes me feel inclined to insert in here my final quietus on concerns of immigration in the Dominion. In his indulgence of vain-gloriousness on his visits to the " Hum," Sir Leonard Tilly essays to hoist immigration in his boom of the National Policy, thereby furnishing, unwittingly, detrimental proof that withal he is practically still all at sea on this his very pet subject. I allude to the following sentence in his speech on the occasion of the banquet to Sir John A. Macdonald in Ottawa : " The citizens generally are satisfied, because they find population coming " in. The emigration agent tells me that there is double the immigration of " last year, and not half the trouble. Capitalists of the United States are "' coming in here and expending their capital." , J capitalist, rand Trunk le course of ion." " As nothing to inexation to Lild increase every way. o be placed if we had a tion without men, not of surprised at the opinion ly admitted a thin layer, ^server, that Lisceptible of peed if only it the ques- im migrants Icly leave the ily. In two and we are an entirely isert in here " Hum," Sir ional Policy, is practically ing sentence [acdonald in ition coming imigration of d States are Since the citizens generally of Canada never did express themselves satisfied except they find population coming in with capital, and since the citizens generally never yet did get sight of this kind of additional immigrant population, '* his auricular correctness must have been somewhat impaired by the hum of machinery to which he exposed himself lately so much. Moreover the doub- ling of the number of immigrants would undoubtedly cost Sir I.eonar J his popularity with the workmen, as they would express anything but satisfac- tion with the superabundance of labor thus brought into competition with the more than ample home supply. Double the immigration and half the trouble for the recruiting agents, means, in metaphrase, double expense by quadruple the trouble in the more or less expeditious transfer of immigrants from Canada to the United States. American tourists are always a God-send to Canada ; yet this time the revival of trade in the United States was, in its beneficial vibrations to Canada, of such electric swiftness that it caused many to contemplate it with surprise and more than passing thoughts. The hum caused by the precipitous appearance of Americans in the Canadian market as heavy purchasers of staple specialties is surpassingly keener felt than the hum caused by Sir Leonard Tilley & Co. Sir Leonard will be misleading by metamorphosing purchasers into investors of capital in new manufacturing establishments ; these latter have not made their appearance yet, or so very few of them that Sir Leonard will not exhaust the fingers on one of his hands in counting them. This " boom " of Tory creation is very good grist for the political windmill, but the real hum and solid boom will not be till enterpris. ing American citizens take a hand in with proverbial go-a-head energy, and inspired by national interest. The partisan flunkeyism of the ruling party will accelerate the fulfilling of my predictions ; fulfilled they'll be, sooner Or later, founded on both historical and rational bases. The most potent reason is that the great majority of immigrants don't make a stay in Canada ; that what casual increase there is from this source is more than counter-balanced by the constant and considerable immigration of natives, principally to the United States ; that, therefore, population is almost stagnant. Any country which cannot welcome every honest and able-bodied immigrant, no matter how poor, as frankly and cordially as the open sea-shore embraces each incom- ing wave, is neither a good land for the immigrant to go to, nor fit to receive immigration. Circumstanced as Canada is, and badly and extravagantly governed and over-officered as it is, it has no such cordial welcome to offer to the immigrant who brings but the labor and skill of his hands, not in its whole territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; therefore it must again lose quickly what it does not possess the power to retain . Why, grand schemes and vast enterprises of state, federal or provincial, of enormously large outlay, speculatively, calculated on fast populous increase in the North-west, will all prove more or less of a failure, sure in the certain creation of an over- whelm- 44 ing burden, but not of advantages commensurate to the sacrifice. No colony, no state, will grow fast unless it can welcome a general immigration. From having been connected with immigration in my early life, I have al- ways taken a lively interest in it. I am an attentive student of its pulsations, and, active or passive, have remained a close observer. I have taken the trouble of keeping memoranda of batches of immigrants received by me in the Immigrants-Home, and on continuing my registers watchfully, and with unceasing care, I have arrived at the following positive statement : 25 per cent, of the arrivals are off to the States in the first week. 25 percent, more of the arrivals are off to the States within three months. 30 per cent, more of the arrivals are off to the States within the next nine months. Making 80 per cent, of immigrants booked and entered for the older Pro- vinces of Canada that are no more to be found within the Dominion after the lapse of one year after arrival. On this I challenge all the immigration officers of Dominion and Provinces and the whole press of Canada as a unit. I include that Mani- toba and the North-west do not retain 50 per cent, of immigrants booked and entered for there. The animated Canadian immigration- scheme to the North West operates very favorably to the Western States. Some of my counts have been clean balanced by tota) vanishing of the lot before six months. Indeed my challenge is very safe, with odds in my favor. I took note that, immediately after arrival, very many of the immi- grants were occupied in letter-writing, and that three-fourths of the letters were directed to parties living in the United States. In the very act ot tramping with an immigrant over the whole city to place him. I did know that I underwent all the trouble merely to help this man to earn enough money to carry out his predestined plan of going to the United States. The Canadian agent engages the emigrant to go to Canada, he accepts assisted passage to that end, all the while his brain is haunted with, in his thought, the real America, that is the United States. '* Well," he says to him- self, " I'll try, if I don't like it, I am quick to the States." Nearly all immigrants come, as I may call it, half-hearted to Canada ; soon, as things are, they lose all heart. The United States absorb the immigrants ; the States add quickly millions to millions of people. Canada stands still, dreaming pleasant dreams of a grand future, and its great statesmen are promising to perform wonderful things to make it a great country, meanwhile the public debts are growing fast, its great statesmen live jolly and unconcerned, their money is easy earned and England will lend more. Canada has no immigration at all events, with what little remains it cannot think of recouping its incomparable larger emigration, and that is the national stumbling-block that causes the abortiveness of all calculations, the 45 colony, 1. 1 have al- )ulsations, taken the by me in and with months, next nine older Pro- m after the linion and that Mani- its booked erne to the me of my I lot before my favor, the immi- the letters ery act ot I did know ,rn enough ;ed States, he accepts ath, in his ays to him- immigrants 2, they lose idd quickly lant dreams 1 wonderful ,re growing 2asy earned remains it I that is the lations, the barrenness of results of the grandest undertakings, the sinking of treasure and reaping no fruits. I hold that immigration will not flourish in Canada till the moderate zone south of the boundary line is thickly settled, making more northerly pastures acceptable. Immigration into Canada is a wave which will have to roll in from America. When this time comes the destinies of Canada will be shaped, as by nature destined. Annexation to the United States. This is the natural transition which will accomplish itself almost imper- ceptibly, but events may impatiently hasten the combination. Strictly spoken, if the whole truth must be out, no standing in Canada ad- mits of extolment for prosperity save the State official , side by side with this, no other standing can hold up its head for certainty and ease of bread? or securing the comforts for age, yea, for making a fortune. Incomparably more fortunes are made, and faster too, by satellites basking in governmental sunshine, than by outsiders. Cabinet Minister, in Canada is the official ely- sium. Just about three months persevering work in the whole year, in preparation for and during the parliamentary session. No sooner is the session over, towards spring, than every minister becomes a butterfly, keeping the newspapers busy to announce the ministerial flittings hither and thither, with occasional transatlantic trips, of course, and, who would not believe it? — all the flights are winged with the purest motives in the highest interest of the people. Happy is the man to whom falls the happy lot of being a Canadian Minister j he can enjoy his large salary, for the people pay extra for his pleas- ure o travelling. A seat in the Cabinet is in other countries a hard and laborious seat the whole year round ; here it demands close attention only for a few months in winter, and for the more genial seasons it is easy geniality in liO.ce far niente. On the lips, seriously purposed economical manage- ment, promises of great prosperity coming, with magnificent prospect- ive views in the future ; the heart bent on selfish projects and personal aggrandisement and wonted indulgence of extravagance. The problematical ulterior projects of Canada, based on Confederation, on a closer knitted unit, on National Policy, on the conceited national paraphernalia of a resident min- ister, and so forth, is all of the play of Vanity Fair, played by professional political actors for their own and sole benefit, a l-)f air and no substance, no possible realization in the real state of affairs. The great statesmen and politicians have so far only succeeded to make Canada a success in the most successful demonstration of the multifariousness of polyarchy, by the procre- ation of the greatest multitude possible of fully equipped Governments, to make gubernatorial emoluments partitive to as many as possible. Where is a sj^eck on the '^a^ of the civiHzed world to beat Canada in this respect? The people divided into but two classes, one apparently only existing to supply the luxur- 46 ions existence of the other, numerous out of all proportion— like a polypetalous species of weed impoverishing the land. Hopeless state, when the represen- tatives of the people represent in the parliamentary majority but the body- guard of the powers that be, its mere satellites, oblivious altogether of their duties to act the [)eople's guard ! Party and self-interest is synonymous, yet, as a rule, the golden calf is the highest idol What is the use to struggle onwards with an incubus thus lucidly described in the issue of the Montreal Herald of the 24th November, 1879, under the heading *' Things Worth Attention." " The population of Canada is about 4,000,000, just about the number " who inhabit the city of London. To legislate for these we have a Governor "General, a Dominion House of Commons of 206, a Senate of 77 and a "Cabinet of 13 Ministers; seven Lieutenant Governors, seven Houses of " Assembly, five Legislative Councils and seven Cabinets. Besides all these, " we have the hundreds of county councils, city councils and township coun- "cils, with their thousands of mayors, Wardens and reeves. Fancy the little "island of Prince Edward, with its 100,000 inhabitants, very little more than " the united population of the city of Hamilton and the county of VV^entworth, " burdened with a Lieutenant Governor, a Legislative Council, an Execu- " tive Council and a House of Assembly, with all the subordinates of such a " system. And fancy British Columbia, with a population of less than one- " third that of Hamilton, tottering under the weight of a Lieutenant Gover- " nor, an Executive Council and a House of Assembly. The Parliament of " Great Britain legislates for the largest empire yet known to history, and still "finds leisure to make laws for the domestic government of England, Ire- " land. Scotland and Wales. These islands have not separate Governments, " though they contain a population of over thirty millions, while Canada, " with a population of but four millions, and having no foreign policy to con- " duct, having nothing to do but bask under the protection of the mighty "power of Britain and provide simple laws for the domestic government of " a people numbering no more than one city in England, is bent to the earth " by a mass of officials, who infest every nook and cranny of her system, and " spend luxurious existence in sucking her very life blood." And to this I will add in support a Hard-fact-Editorial in the issue of the Montreal Y^dXXy Star of the 22nd December, 1879, under the heading, '' Call- ing a Halt." " With seven ministers the President of the United States manages to " administer the affairs of a nation of nearly fifty milHons of people, and those "ministers or secretaries are paid about the same salaries as the members of " the Canadian Cabinet. They are perfectly satisfied with their pay, and " they put in, on on average, a good deal more work than the gentlemen who " assist Sir John A. Macdonald in advising the Governor General. In this " Dominion, of less than five millions of souls, we have a Cabinet of thirteen 47 )etalou3 ipresen- le body* of their i, yet, as onwards Jfenild tention." number jovernor and a [ouses of all these, ip coun- the little lore than intworth, 1 Execu- af such a than one- nt Gover- iament of , and still jland, Ire- ernments, : Canada, cy to con- lie mighty rnment of i the earth stem, and sue of the ng, " Call- lanages to and those lembers of pay, and emen who 1. In this af thirteen " ministers, the same number as that of Great Britain, and he would be a "bold man who would venture to affirm that the country obtains even a frac- •' tional return in value for the libjral salaries paid these gentk-n.en. J^orttb- «* lios have gradually been multiplied to make places for jioliticians, vmtil the " annual cost of the maintenance of the Government has become a terrible " buflen upon a poor and strugglii.j people. For, si)ite of our talk and our "habit of boasting of our boundless resources, we are a i)cople struggling un- "der federal, provincial and municipal indebtedness, footing uj) some $.^oo,- "000,000, a burden which is to be heavily increased before we get through " with our Pacific Railroad. We are struggling under disadvantages of the "gravest character, struggling bravely, and with the bcHef that tiie dawn of " better times is breaking ; but in our efforts to rise we are cramped by the " incubus of a dead weight bureaucracy, costing enormous sums annually to "maintain, and by the pressure of antiquated forms of royalty aping, which " grow more intolerable year by year. Some of the Cabinet ofhces, which " Sir John A. Macdonald used to describe as the ' minor ' ones, are of a " purely ornamental nature. The Presidency of the Council, for instance, is " a palpably unnecessary office, as has been demonstrated time out of mind, "notoriously when Mr. Blake was thrust in it, by way of quietly retiring him " in such a way as to actually refrain from snubbing him outright. What is "there to prevent the Agricultural Department swallowing up the newly-cre- " ated and wholly unnecessary Ministry of the Interior? 'ihese are reduc- " tions in a highly expensive and little worked (save in two or three depart- ' ments) Cabinet. The saving to be effected would not be alone in the sala- ' ries of the ministers, but of their deputies and expensive suites generally. " By combining the functions of departments work could be got through by a "smaller number of departmental employees; the multiulication of offices " has had the effect of filling the public buildings with hordes of laxatives, "holding their places in reward for political service^ through personal inilu- " ence, or by the sort of hereditary right, which is fast becoming a fixed fact " in the civil service. " We have too many ministers, and we are paying too much entirely for " the purposes of Government, too much for show and glitter, for which the "people get no return whatever. The statement of the revenue and o.^'ridi- " ture on account of the Consolidated Fund of the Dominion show.-> uiat, " while the expenditure was $9,240,690, the total revenue was only $8,265,- " 216, a deficit of $985,474. This is a state of affairs which cannot go on for " ever. We are living far above our income, and the screw must be put on " somewhere. That somewhere locates itself among the pomi)s and luxuries "which came in with expensive ideas in 1867. We are supporting a Cabinet " numerically large enough to govern an empire ; let us cut it down to one ** just large enough for the requirements of a country sunk to the neck in pub- 48 " lie debt, and running ahead of the constable by a million dollars in less than '* a year. Let us reduce the civil service, fast growing into an army, to rea- " sonable proportions, and call a halt to further appointments." I may add the following to the finish of the silhouette, from the Mont- real Z>rt//y IVitness- — " A grand public Christmas and New Year's gift is suggested by a corres- ♦* pondent * Pro Bono Publico,' himself out of work. It is the immediate " undertaking of the construction of the Occidental Railway from Hochelaga " to the Quebec Gate Barracks, as decided upon by the Provincial Govern- " ment last year and advertised. An immense number of able and willing " men in our city out of work, with large families to provide for, would be **glad of this public work. It would be a true Christmas and New Year's *' gift, he adds, to many a poor and needy home at present." " Toronto (special to the IVitness, December 5th). Another party of im- " migrants, numbering about eighty, arrived last night from the East, and were " taken up to the Immigration Office." Vide Ontario papers on the sufferings of these sufferers, who are not wanted. (1) " Toronto " (special to the IVitness, November 21st) : ^^ Farm laborers ^^fiot in demand. Mr. Donaldson, emigrant agent, finds that there is not so " much demand for farm laborers as formerly, A letter from him to that "effect was read at the York County Council meeting yesterday from The '• Montreal Daily Star (30th December, iSjg), //om Quebec: *• Work for the poor. — Quebec, December 30th. A deputation of work- " men waited on Hon, H. L. Langevin yesterday in solicitation of work for " the winter. The Minister promised to give the appeal his consideration. " There is some talk of having the fortification stones cut this winter for the " summer's work, and if this is decided on it will be the means of helping the " jioor to a livelihood." (Special to the Witness, January 12th,) *' A depu- " tation of unemployed laborers waited on Sir John Macdonald this morning " to ask for work. They were sent to the Mayor, who told them that he could " do nothing until the new Council took ofiice." I cannot see where the grandiose boom is coming in, any more in immigration than in any- thing else ; no matter how the Ministers and their organs blow the sails. Let everybody write and speak well of his country, and praise all its sunny sides, but the characteristics of a full six months vigorous winter is of a too vigorous reality, especially for the poor, not to remind of its stern presence ; and to sustain population in a northern climate, agriculture must be assisted by the highest possible development of manufacturing power, or else the sum- mer is too short. Once I dreamed a glorious dream of Canada's greatness, behold- ing in delighted vision the uprising of the highest and strongest May-pole to !ss than to rea- ; Mont- corres- mediate chelaga iovern- willing ould be Year's Y of im- nd were are not laborers s not so to that rom The of work- work for deration. r for the Iping the A depu- morning he could e where \ in any- ails. its sunny of a too resence ; assisted the sum- behold- y-pole to 49 liberty, attracting crowds from all nations, uniting in building the next great realm to freedom on tliis continent, entering with noble patriotic spirit in emulation with the neighboring republic, who will offer the best asylum to the hard-struggling, down-trodden and op[)ressed people in the old countries ; but the hard prose of Canadian reality must rudely dispel all the dreams of such dreamers— fantasy is shamed with scornful laughter. Liberty does not dwell with the effeminate ; it is rigorous, and generally prospers in a rigorous climate, yet it wants to be watched with great care and kept well-fenced, otherwise its value sinks. Canada is as free a country as any under the sun ; its liberties are pro- tected by good laws, making freedom enjoyable in the full sense, surely a most favorable soil for a vigorous growth of national manhood, and for the development of keen appreciation of political importance, voice and presence in alhthe internal and external affairs of state ; but, from causes of peculiari- ties peculiar to Canada, it has not engendered patriotism, without which all national efforts remain barren. Its great inspiring power of soul for all that leads to national grandeur is entirely unknown amongst the Canadian people and statesmen ; it has not even engendered loyalty to any depth, that even is a very superficial sentiment, for loyalty is only entertained for convenient raison d'etre and for financial advantages, what there is of it is mainly from political phlegma, proof— -its instant evaporation from the slightest cause, if only imaginary. Loyalty for reasons of financial politics ever gives way forth- with on financial disappointment or to offers of superior financial advantages by outside combination. Proof of thin-skinned loyalty was amply given by the disgusting, disloyal uproar of the Conservatives on the occasion of the Letel- lier embroglio, and for no real cause whatsoever ; what was feigned was of the meanest of personal intent ; even Conservatism proved bare of the tradi- tional Conservative loyalty. If there is any loosening of the ties between the Colony and the Mother Country, the first knot has been untied by the Conser- vatives in the introduction of the new fiscal measures, particularly harsh towards England, and through the swagger in the airings of the National Policy, mean- ingless, I admit, except what it means for the gratification of lust of power. Extraordinarily favored with political freedom, the political apathy of the Canadians is extraordinarily remarkable ; they are very careless in regard to the exercise of their political rights. The force of circumstances must be very great if they make their political presence felt. Political knaves can easily lead them or blind them, and do the governing as it suits best their own interests. En masse Canada has not reached political majority. They are politically the most easy-going, most easily forgiving, most easily humbugged people in the world. A public man may almost commit any act of corrup- tion in his public character ; if he but understands well how to steer with the popular wind, it's all forgotten and forgiven, and the highest posts of honor E so and official emolument are at his command as readily as ever. Such a thing as a code of honor for the character ot a public man does not exist ; it is tviped out, it is tabula rasa. No wonder that corruption and deception in the administration of Government is rampant ; its partizans in the ranks of senators, legislative councillors, and representatives of the people are its abettors and accomplices. Perhaps in no country in the world is patronage abused as much as in Canada. Qualification for the post applied for has nothing to do with the ap- pointment, political party services everything, or relationship with a member of any of the Houses. Smecures are created ai/ libiimh. Class, nationality and creed distinctions are the very plague of Canada, of leper-like fatality to all national efforts; its corrosive influence has penetrated every vein of Canadian life and the whole system of Government, every body politic and municipal* So many Cabinet Ministers must be Protestants and so many Catholics ; of Catholics so many must be French Canadians, and sO many Irish. Except concerning the Premier .these rules of distinctive composition are all- powerful in the formation of the Cabinet ; so much does creed and nation- ality take precedence that, even for the highest posts in the State, capacity is Of greatly inferior consideration. And it is of incumbency in political etiquette of state, as strict as in China, to observe this rule, from the Minister down to the locker of the meanest door, with no more change, than English-speak- ing Protestant for one position, French Canadian for another, and Irish Catholic for the next. In the Provinces it will operate in the converse, according to Catholic or Protestant preponderance in population. For this cancer no cure will ever be found than wliat there is in annexation to the United States, where they understand the secret to pass all the different nationalities throu{»h a mill, and have them come out, c '1 of the one American nationality. This is the short sense of the longest argument on this point. Never did little frog attempt such enormous inflation as Canada in its present gigantic schemes, in small part under work, more on the tapis, and the grandest in design for the future. One bundled millions of dollars is an insuffi- cient sum towards realization. Never did Prince of Humbug so successfully delude his audience, except, may be, that England is anxious to have Canada in triplet to Turkey and Egypt. To propose to America, a union with its enterijrising citizens will alone further your projected enterprises, and with anything like success. England has great and wise statesmen, its wisest and most patriotic have all along foreseen and predicted this coming annexation, and look perfectly calm on it, if anything, considering it just as well and better for Great Britain, as the riddance of an appendage of more trouble than the profit is worth. The minority of imperialism may give a little sigh, no more, and that is all. Confederation has accomplished nothing, not in a fraction what was a thing ;t ; it is »n in the anks of are its ch as in the ap- ember of ality and ity to all anadian unicipal- lolics ; of Excef)t are all- d nation- acity is of etiquette ster down ish-speak- and Irish converse, nnexation e different American this point, ida in its s, and the an insuffi- iccessfully '^e Canada will alone •iotic have c perfectly at Britain, t is worth, that is all. what was 51 expected from it. The Provinces composing it stand to-day as averse as ever to the intermixture and the consummation of the melting in one united mass, as much as oil and water. Each Province adheres still with obstinate singleness of action to what it considers is its own and best interest. Con- federation has not created cohesiveness in the least, not a pulsestroke of warmer attachment, neither to n ;rtsnor to the whole. Far from it, the ties to the Dominion will feel more and more disadvantageous and oppressive, as the Dominion machinery oi government in the Idng run will impoverish and exhaust them by its sucking propensities to draw all the treasure collected and borrowed in its large and insatiable whirl. The breaking up of this con- federation, which is sure to come as a natural consequence, and is but matter of a little more or less time, means annexation. I contend that there is no other country in the world, civilized or semi* barbaric, possessing as little patriotism, as deficient in sympathetic national spirit, as poor in vitality of power for nationalism, and, in short, as barren of a!l the elements required to form into an independent nation, as Canada. Afghanistan and Zululand have proved to possess infinitely more of it. There is but an instinctive attachment to birthplace, a clannish predilection for one's own nationalty ; but love of country in the higher sense, warm feeling for common citizenship, do not exist. Canada, can vegetate as a colony for generations to come, as it has done in generations past, but it can not exist as a colony without observing colonial dependence and obligation. To hang on to the motherly apron and cry for money and money more, at the sometime assuming defiant airs and acting the independent lord and master in the Dominion, is incompatible, and one or the other must be dropped. However, on the display of independent national proclivities by the Government, t look but as play of '^ the powers that be " to exist, ever com- placently ready to take a turn with the turn of the political kaleidoscope ; yet such things happen as sitting down between two chairs. What Canada needs is an infusion of the stirring blood of American life ; its enterprising citizens must take hold of Canadian resources to develop them, and this will come to pass by dictum of the natural course of events, without violent political eruption ; that the effect of the exchange will be won- derful, the late revival of trade across the line in its quick beneficial vibration to Canada gives some faint id^ a. The rise in the value of all sorts of proper- ties would ') surprising and surpassing all expectations. What improvement would it not cause in the aspect of the cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, etc. As this subject is at present receiving deeper thought and unusual serious contemplation, the sooner the problem is worked out, the better for Canada. Not till the American eagle spreads its wings over the whole Dominion 5"- «rt of its srauc? schemes, will con-: will Canada receive im"'iP''7" '" . ^^"^^ "^ American eagle soars above federation become a rentable fact no^' * ^^^^ fo^h unbounded the illimitable wilderness of the No"h "^^ ^^^^ ^ ,^^„g look :rr 1= :t:;rp4r i::^:^^^^^^^^^ - - — ^ happy harmony of nationaUty. ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^he harm Mark these predictions, and m^rk ^isQ ^n^iv 7 5Qme peopl? may pqssil)ly imagmQ. 1 » 1&2 , will cqn- )ars above inbounded esting look tablished a 3 the harm