Canada and the British immigrant

Compared to many European nations, Canadians are a temperate people, and in many municipalities there is “prohibition.” Setting the present situation with regard to drunkenness against the state of things sixty or seventy years ago, the comparison is immensely in favour of the present day; for, in that early time, whiskey was manufactured in rude distilleries all over the country, and could be bought by the gallon for a few cents. Strong drink was expected by men working in the harvest fields or coming together in a threshing or raising “bee”; and many were the tragedies which resulted from this pernicious custom. Gentlemen counted drunkenness no disgrace, and it was a common fault of the officers of the garrison at Halifax and elsewhere.

In comparison, however, with conditions a few years ago, the showing is not satisfactory. In fact, it has been stated recently that “Canada’s drinking and criminal record is increasing faster than the population.” Some observers think that this is owing in part at least to the number of newcomers from less temperate countries, and “to the concentration of population in the large cities of the Dominion,” but, at the same time, “progress towards the general adoption of prohibition is certain and rapid.”

Taking Canada as a whole, excellent provision is made for education. The systems vary a little in the different provinces, but the common schools are everywhere free; and there are comparatively few native-born Canadians who cannot at least read and write.

In 1910-11 Canada had over 1,197,000 pupils in her schools, and a small army of thirty-four thousand teachers, a very large proportion of whom are women. The schools are the chief of all the forces for the Canadianizing, if not of this generation of adult foreign immigrants, at least of their children. The central government spends hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on the education of the Indians, and in each province a very considerable proportion of all money devoted to public uses is spent for education. In the prairie provinces millions of acres of land have been reserved by the Dominion government to be sold gradually for the support of schools. All schools below the grade of High Schools are free to children between the ages of five and fifteen; and High Schools in all the cities and large towns are free to resident pupils. The number of children for whom a school district can be organized in the western provinces varies from eight in Alberta to twenty in British Columbia.

With the exception of Prince Edward Island, which can take advantage of the universities in neighbouring provinces; and of British Columbia, which has colleges at Vancouver and Victoria affiliated with McGill University, and has recently set apart two million acres of public land for the endowment of a provincial university—each province has one or more universities. The University of McGill at Montreal is the richest of Canada’s universities; and that of Toronto, with over 4,100 students in 1913, is the largest.

An interesting fact in connection with all Canadian universities is that a large proportion of their students are drawn from classes by no means wealthy; and numbers of the undergraduates are “putting themselves through,” as it is sometimes called. Many of these, having been engaged as teachers or in some business, have saved a sum of money for the payment of the expenses of part of their course. To eke this out, they seek employment in the long summer vacation, which, happily for them, coincides with the busy season, when men are in demand for every form of work; and a resolute student usually finds something to do. If he is not of the physique to go into the harvest fields, he may find employment as a timekeeper over a gang of foreign labourers, a waiter in a summer hotel, or a teacher in some scattered settlement which can only aspire as yet to a summer school. Given reasonably good health, a determined man will usually find or make a way to earn something in the summer; and such are the men who make the most of what can be gained from their hard-won courses of instruction in the winter.

At intervals people lift up their voices in protest over the readiness with which poor men’s sons can rise into the professional classes, and imagine that it accounts, in part at least, for the continuous movement townward from the country districts; but there would surely be more loss than gain to Canadian life in general if any class of young people could be shut up by lack of wealth or other disability to the vocation of their fathers. Canada, though it has a growing wealthy class, and, alas, a growing submerged one, is a long way yet from the fixed “caste” idea.

The healthier recognition of a possible connection between the aspiration for college education amongst country-bred youths and the deserted farms in some of the older provinces, is the attempt made to lift agriculture to its true position amongst the great industries as a scientific profession. For long years agricultural societies have been working to stimulate the ambition of farmers in their own line of work. But this was not enough. It is possible for a dullard and an ignoramus to pick a meagre living from amongst the weeds of a neglected farm; but it takes not only brains, but cultivated brains, to farm well. No man is too good, whatever a “smart” lad may think, for the foundation industry of the world; and no farmer can have a too good educational equipment for this work. Perhaps the people of the Dominion, when reviewing what has been done in this country for education, have a reasonably good right to look with pleasure on the effort to bring well-trained minds to bear on agriculture. At sixteen different points in the Dominion, there are Government experimental farms, and the result of their work in testing seeds and methods suitable to various soils and conditions, finding out good stock and so forth, are at the free service of the farmers. Nor is this all. For nearly forty years Ontario has had in the Agricultural College at Guelph, a school, at once practical and scientific, for farmers; and this is only one of several agricultural colleges, while in the new University of Saskatchewan, one of the first departments to be organized was that of agriculture.

In connection with the colleges and universities are short courses—in England they would probably be called “University Extension” lectures—on agriculture and subjects related to the farm, especially designed for the benefit of dairymen, threshermen, housewives, beekeepers, etc., etc. The imparting of the special knowledge to make a scientific instead of a blundering amateur “thresherman” fits in oddly at first sight with one’s preconceived notions of a university; but why should the extension downward in such utilitarian directions—the striking deep of its roots into the common earth—prevent a great educational institution flowering freely in the higher realms of science and art and philosophy?

There is another aspect to the case. I was much interested, a few months ago, on a chance conversation in a train with an old western farmer of rugged aspect, by his remark that the institution of college and university courses in agriculture would tend to raise the young fellows of the farming classes in their own eyes and in those of other people, and would also enable them better to hold their proper place in the country. (I give the substance of his remarks, not his words.) Now, it is a fact that the Canadian farmer is, as a rule, a much less self-assertive and a more retiring being than his brother—the doctor, the merchant, the manufacturer, the lawyer or the politician, as the case may be; and sometimes his interests suffer on account of his modesty. Nevertheless, there are not a few men amongst the farmers who are of excellent intellectual capabilities. They are men who think, moreover, and some day, now that they are beginning to organize themselves, the result of their thinking will have considerably more effect on the public life of the Dominion than it has had hitherto.

In the various provinces there has been a widespread movement of late years in the direction of the formation of farmers and country-women’s clubs or institutes, which not only serve as a means for the dissemination of information, but give a much-needed stimulus to the social life of thinly settled districts, where hitherto (in the case of the women especially) the churches have been the chief social factor.

The churches will continue, both in town and country, to be of account in the social side of life, apart from their primary importance as definite religious agencies. According to the latest census there were in Canada over 2,833,000 adherents of the Roman Catholic church, which gains immense strength from its solidarity. The Protestants, on the other hand, though stronger numerically, are split up into numerous divisions, and in hundreds of little villages throughout the Dominion, there are three or four churches of different denominations, whilst numberless other places have no church at all. This over-lapping adds immensely to the toils, and perhaps detracts from the efficiency, of the country ministers and missionaries as a body. But projects of union are in the air, and there is hope that the several great Protestant churches may devise some plan of working together much more than has been done hitherto, even if they do not accomplish the corporate union which many of their adherents desire. In numerical strength the Protestant churches come in the following order:—Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, and a large number of smaller organizations. Apart from definite efforts by the churches themselves to arrive at some basis of union, there are numerous inter-denominational associations which are tending towards unity. One of the most notable of these is the organized effort, known as the “Laymen’s Missionary Movement,” to arouse the interest of business men in missions. This organization, first started in the United States, has resulted in largely increased giving for missionary purposes.

The immense immigration to Canada of foreigners and others necessitates constantly increasing effort on the part of the churches to keep abreast of their duties and opportunities; and amongst the numbers of newcomers there is much call to foreign missionary work within the borders of the Dominion, if it is to remain, in anything more than name, a Christian country. For instance, Montreal and Toronto each have thousands of Jewish citizens, many of them from Russia and other foreign lands. Galicians, adherents of the Greek Church, are numerous in the prairie provinces; and there are over fifteen thousand Mormons in Canada, chiefly in Alberta and Ontario. As farmers they are said to be excellent settlers; whether or not they will be equally successful in sowing the seeds of their distinctive tenets, so degrading to women and to the sanctity of home life, yet remains to be seen. It is, however, only fair to add that the Mormons in Canada do not, as in Utah, practise polygamy openly.

In British Columbia, and to a less extent throughout Canada, are to be found numbers of quiet, industrious Chinamen, working on the railways, in the hotels of the West, in the canning factories of the Pacific Coast, and in laundries from Victoria to Halifax. Despite the heavy head tax of $500 (£100) on each newcomer, no less than 6,083 Chinamen came to Canada in a recent year. Amongst them are very few women; but a number of young boys have recently been brought out by their relatives to attend the public schools, with a view to their learning English and the “Western learning” that goes with it.

The records of the British and Foreign Bible Society are suggestive in connection with the influx of foreigners into the Dominion. In 1912 sales were made of the Bible, or portions of it, in 44 languages in Toronto alone; and of 110 languages in all Canada. The earliest foreign version of the Scriptures issued by the Bible Society in its first year—1804—was, by the way, that intended for the Mohawk Indians in Canada. Many organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations and the Salvation Army are doing their useful work all over Canada. There is indeed great scope for such organizations, for the Dominion is full of young people and friendless strangers, who in their loneliness are in great need of a helping hand.

But constantly fresh districts open beyond the reach of the churches and philanthropic agencies, and here the need is for individuals whose Christianity is deep enough to stand the hard test of isolation. Many immigrants (so-called Christian), when deprived of church services and the influences of old days, seem to forget their faith. But to those who hold fast their religion under the new trials may come the reward of giving an uplift to, and stamping a Christian character upon, a whole community. Indeed, a neighbourhood often reflects for years the type of its earlier settlers.

V

INDUSTRIES AND TRANSPORT

THE most important industry of Canada is, of course, agriculture, which employs nearly twice as many people as any other class of industries, and has a greater annual product. With comparatively few exceptions, the farmers of Canada own their own land. Considered from the point of view of its returns, the greatest crop is wheat. Saskatchewan ranks first as a wheat-growing province; Manitoba and Alberta coming respectively second and third. In the older provinces the farmers are going in to a great extent for mixed farming, and for the raising of apples and other fruit. British Columbia is also giving much attention to the fruit industry. At present many of the prairie farms are devoted solely to the growing of grain; but already the leaders of the agricultural world of the Dominion are urging the extension of “mixed farming,” for the sake of saving the fertile soil from exhaustion and for the simplification of the labour problem, which is aggravated by the crowding of all the work of the farms into a few brief weeks of summer.

The second great industry of those depending directly on natural resources is lumbering. When the French settled on the St. Lawrence, they perceived at once the value of the forest wealth of the land, reporting to the home government that the colony would prove a rich source for the supply of masts and spars for the royal navy; and soon “stringent regulations were issued for the preservation of the standing oak.” The early British governors were also instructed to take measures for the preservation of lumber likely to be useful for the navy.

The export of Canada’s forest products began, it is said, in 1667, when the first shipload of lumber was sent to Europe. For years forest products came first in value on the list of exports. During the earlier part of the nineteenth century, Canada’s lumber went chiefly to Great Britain; but during the last forty years much has been exported to the United States. This has, however, been offset in part by considerable imports of American lumber into Canada.

In Canada there is, of course, an immense domestic demand for wood. Over half the people live in wooden houses, immense quantities of wood are still used as fuel, our thousands of miles of railway tracks are laid on wooden ties or “sleepers;” fleets of wooden ships and boats still ply on our coast and inland waters—in fact, it has been said that “our civilization is built on wood. From the cradle to the coffin in some shape or other it surrounds us as a convenience or necessity.” Our childhood’s toys, our furniture, the very paper on which the news of the day is printed, are forest products strangely transmuted. No sane person would dispute the value of the forests, and Canada is richly endowed in this respect; though, perhaps, hardly so richly as some estimates would lead us to believe.

In time past there has been most reckless waste of the Dominion’s forest wealth. In early pioneering days, perhaps it was unavoidable that the immigrants, far from markets, and hemmed in by great woods, should treat the trees as natural enemies, and clear them off the face of the earth as rapidly and as thoroughly as they could. So, in Ontario, were destroyed millions of magnificent trees; in many instances of kinds that would now be of immense value for the making of the better kinds of furniture; but black walnut trees were used to make fences of, and beeches and maples, too heavy to raft down the lakes to the seaports, as was done with the pine, were drawn together and burned in great heaps so that the settler could plant his first little crops of corn and vegetables amongst their stumps, and could turn an honest penny by selling the potash he made from their ashes.

Not only the pioneers, however, have been responsible for the destruction of trees. The Indians and hunters of game in the woods, the lumbermen, leaving their great heaps of dry brush and other inflammable refuse, only needing a chance spark from the lighting of a pipe, or a camp fire carelessly left burning, to turn it into kindling, ready laid for a great conflagration; the railways with the unguarded smoke stacks of their engines, have all had their share in the destruction of the forests; and it has been estimated that more timber has been destroyed in the Dominion by fire than by the axe. The nation is, however, awakening to the seriousness of the situation. For the last fourteen years the Canadian Forestry Association, with branches all over the Dominion, has been doing excellent work in disseminating information and rousing public interest concerning the preservation of the forests, and a new governmental policy has been inaugurated. Large areas of land have been set apart in Ontario and other provinces and by the Dominion government, where it has direct control, as “Forest Reserves.”

In 1909 there was established the non-partizan “Conservation Commission,” upon which each province is represented in the person of the cabinet minister most definitely connected with the administration of natural resources. Ontario’s representative, for instance, is the Minister of Lands and Mines. The several universities of Canada are also represented. The functions of the Commission are advisory and educational, and its members are carefully studying the various natural resources. But it is recognized that the people are the greatest asset the country possesses; and while the Commission endeavours to devise plans for avoiding wasteful methods in lumbering and mining, to prevent the depletion of the fish in the waters and the game in the woods, it is concerned above all to discover means of stopping the fearful waste of human life by industrial accidents, unhealthy conditions, preventable diseases, and the ignorant treatment of infants and young children, which last results in such appalling mortality in the first five years of life.

It must not, however, be inferred from this reference to infant mortality that the climate of Canada is by any means unhealthy. The experience of immigrants from the British Isles and from all European countries shows that it is well fitted for Europeans; and, as a general rule, the children especially enjoy the cold months, finding delight in the sports that winter brings. Often the snow is too firm and powdery for that favourite sport of British youngsters—snowballing! But little ones who have not long learned to toddle alone can find amusement with their small sleighs, and for bigger children and young boys and girls there are the endless delights of “coasting” and toboganning and skating and snow-shoeing and ski-ing.

Of course, here the country children have the best of it. But if one wants to realize the delights offered by a brisk winter’s day, he cannot do better than visit some open hilly spot within the limits of one of Canada’s cities—especially on a Saturday afternoon when the fathers have time to join in the fun. Then the white hillside is fairly alive with children in gay blanket-coats (often of scarlet) and knitted French-Canadian “tuques” ending in saucy bobs on the top, or long bag-like arrangements finished with dangling tassels; but it is the eagerness of the children and their quaint attitudes which give the picture its chief interest. A favourite way of making the descent is prone on the little sleighs, head foremost, legs stuck stiffly up from the knees, or trailing out behind, as an excellent rudder. Sometimes two “bob-sleighs,” connected by a long board, form a more ambitious vehicle for half a dozen boys and girls at once, and loud are the shrieks and the laughter, as the “bobs” jolt over some rough bit of the track or shoot their passengers off at last into some heap of snow. As a rule, the mothers see that the youngsters are warmly clad in woollen garments from head to heel, and then no one is hurt by a roll in the soft snow.

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