Studies in The South and West, With Comments on Canada

Canada is really two countries, separated from each other by the vast rocky wilderness between the lakes and James Bay. For a thousand miles west of Ottawa, till the Manitoba prairie is reached, the traveller on the line of the railway sees little but granite rock and stunted balsams, larches, and poplars—a dreary region, impossible to attract settlers. Copper and other minerals there are; and in the region north of Lake Superior there is no doubt timber, and arable land is spoken of; but the country is really unknown. Portions of this land, like that about Lake Nipigon, offer attractions to sportsmen. Lake navigation is impracticable about four months in the year, so that Canada seems to depend for political and commercial unity upon a telegraph wire and two steel rails running a thousand miles through a region where local traffic is at present insignificant.

The present government of Canada is an evolution on British lines, modified by the example of the republic of the United States. In form the resemblances are striking to the United States, but underneath, the differences are radical. There is a supreme federal government, comprehending a union of provinces, each having its local government. But the union in the two countries was brought about in a different way, and the restrictive powers have a different origin. In the one, power descends from the Crown; in the other, it originates with the people. In the Dominion Government all the powers not delegated to the provinces are held by the Federal Government. In the United States, all the powers not delegated to the Federal Government by the States are held by the States. In the United States, delegates from the colonies, specially elected for the purpose, met to put in shape a union already a necessity of the internal and external situation. And the union expressed in the Constitution was accepted by the popular vote in each State. In the provinces of Canada there was a long and successful struggle for responsible government. The first union was of the two Canadas, in 1840; that is, of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada—Ontario and Quebec—with Parliaments sitting sometimes in Quebec and sometimes in Toronto, and at last in Ottawa, a site selected by the Queen. This Government was carried on with increasing friction. There is not space here to sketch the politics of this epoch. Many causes contributed to this friction, but the leading ones were the antagonism of French and English ideas, the superior advance in wealth and population of Ontario over Quebec, and the resistance of what was called French domination. At length, in 1863-64, the two parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals (or, in the political nomenclature of the day, the “Tories” and the “Grits”—i. e., those of “clear grit”), were so evenly divided that a dead-lock occurred, neither was able to carry on the government, and a coalition ministry was formed. Then the subject of colonial confederation was actively agitated. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick contemplated a legislative union of the maritime provinces, and a conference was called at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in the summer of 1864. Having in view a more comprehensive union, the Canadian Government sought and obtained admission to this conference, which was soon swallowed up in a larger scheme, and a conference of all the colonies was appointed to be held at Quebec in October. Delegates, thirty-three in number, were present from all the provinces, probably sent by the respective legislatures or governments, for I find no note of a popular election. The result of this conference was the adoption of resolutions as a basis of an act of confederation. The Canadian Parliament adopted this scheme after a protracted debate. But the maritime provinces stood out. Meantime the Civil War in the United States, the Fenian invasion, and the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty fostered a spirit of Canadian nationality, and discouraged whatever feeling existed for annexation to the United States. The colonies, therefore, with more or less willingness, came into the plan, and in 1867 the English Parliament passed the British North American Act, which is the charter of the Dominion. It established the union of the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and provided for the admission to the union of the other parts of British North America; that is, Prince Edward Island, the Hudson Bay Territory, British Columbia, and Newfoundland, with its dependency Labrador. Nova Scotia was, however, still dissatisfied with the terms of the union, and was only reconciled on the granting of additional annual subsidies.

In 1868, by Act of the British Parliament, the Hudson’s Bay Company surrendered to the Crown its territorial rights over the vast region it controlled, in consideration of £300,000 sterling, grants of land around its trading posts to the extent of fifty thousand acres in all, and one-twentieth of all the fertile land south of the north branch of the Saskatchewan, retaining its privileges of trade, without its exclusive monopoly. The attempt of the Dominion Government to take possession of this north-west territory (Manitoba was created a province July 15, 1870) was met by the rising of the squatters and half-breeds under Louis Riel in 1869-70. Riel formed a provisional government, and proceeded with a high hand to banish persons and confiscate property, and on a drumhead court-martial put to death Thomas Scott, a Canadian militia officer. The murder of Scott provoked intense excitement throughout Canada, especially in Ontario. Colonel Garnet Wolseley’s expedition to Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) followed, and the Government authority was restored. Riel and his squatter confederates fled, and he was subsequently pardoned.

In 1871 British Columbia was admitted into the Dominion. In 1873 Prince Edward Island came in. The original Act for establishing the province of Manitoba provided for a Lieutenant-governor, a Legislative Council, and an elected Legislative Assembly. In 1876 Manitoba abolished the Council, and the government took its present form of a Lieutenant-governor and one Assembly. By subsequent legislation of the Dominion the district of Keewatin was created out of the eastern portion of the north-west territory, under the jurisdiction of the Lieutenant-governor of Manitoba, ex officio. The Territories of Assiniboin, Alberta, and Saskatchewan have been organized into a Territory called the North-west Territory, with a Lieutenant-governor and Council, and a representative in Parliament, the capital being Regina. Outside of this Territory, to the northward, lies Athabasca, of which the Lieutenant-governor at Regina is ex officio ruler. Newfoundland still remains independent, although negotiations for union were revived in 1888. Some years ago overtures were made for taking in Jamaica to the union, and a delegation from that island visited Ottawa; but nothing came of the proposal. It was said that the Jamaica delegates thought the Dominion debt too large.

The Dominion of Canada, therefore, has a central government at Ottawa, and is composed of the provinces of Nova Scotia (including Cape Breton), New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia, and the North-west Territory.

It has been necessary to speak in this brief detail of the manner of the formation of the union in order to understand the politics of Canada. For there are radicals in the Liberal party who still regard the union as forced and artificial, and say that the provinces outside of Ontario and Quebec were brought in only by the promise of local railways and the payment of large subsidies. And this idea more or less influences the opposition to the “strong government” at Ottawa. I do not say that the Liberals oppose the formation of a “nation”; but they are critics of its methods, and array themselves for provincial rights as against federal consolidation.

The Federal Government consists of the Queen, the Senate, and the House of Commons. The Queen is represented by the Governor-general, who is paid by Canada a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year. He has his personal staff, and is aided and advised by a council, called the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada, thirteen members, constituting the ministry, who must be sustained by a Parliamentary majority. The English model is exactly followed. The Governor has nominally the power of veto, but his use of it is as much in abeyance as is the Queen’s prerogative in regard to Acts of Parliament. The premier is in fact the ruler, but his power depends upon possessing a majority in the House of Commons. This responsible government, therefore, more quickly responds to popular action than ours. The Senators are chosen for life, and are in fact appointed by the premier in power. The House of Commons is elected for five years, unless Parliament is sooner dissolved, and according to a ratio of population to correspond with the province of Quebec, which has always the fixed number of sixty-five members. The voter for members of Parliament must have certain property qualifications, as owner or tenant, or, if in a city or town, as earning three hundred dollars a year—qualifications so low as practically to exclude no one who is not an idler and a waif; the Indian may vote (though not in the Territories), but the Mongolian or Chinese is excluded. Members of the House may be returned by any constituency in the Dominion without reference to residence. All bills affecting taxation or revenue must originate in the House, and be recommended by a message from the Governor-general. The Government introduces bills, and takes the responsibility of them. The premier is leader of the House; there is also a recognized leader of the Opposition. In case the Government cannot command a majority it resigns, and the Governor-general forms a new cabinet. In theory, also, if the Crown (represented by the Governor-general) should resort to the extreme exercise of its prerogative in refusing the advice of its ministers, the ministers must submit, or resign and give place to others.

The Federal Government has all powers not granted expressly to the provinces. In practice its jurisdiction extends over the public debt, expenditure, and public loans; treaties; customs and excise duties; trade and commerce; navigation, shipping, and fisheries; light-houses and harbors; the postal, naval, and military services; public statistics; monetary institutions, banks, banking, currency, coining (but all coining is done in England); insolvency; criminal law; marriage and divorce; public works, railways, and canals.

The provinces have no militia; that all belongs to the Dominion. Marriage is solemnized according to provincial regulations, but the power of divorce exists in Canada in the Federal Parliament only, except in the province of New Brunswick. This province has a court of divorce and matrimonial causes, with a single judge, a survival of pre-confederation times, which grants divorces a vinculo for scriptural causes, and a mensa et thoro for desertion or cruelty, with right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the province and to the Privy Council of the Dominion. Criminal law is one all over the Dominion, but there is no law against adultery or incest. The British Act contains no provision analogous to that in the Constitution of the United States which forbids any State to pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts—a serious defect.

The Federal Government has a Supreme Court, consisting of a chief-justice and five puisne judges, which has original jurisdiction in civil suits involving the validity of Dominion and provincial acts, and appellate in appeals from the provincial courts. The Federal Government appoints and pays the judges of the Superior, District, and County courts of the provinces; but the provinces may constitute, maintain, and organize provincial courts, civil and criminal, including procedure in civil matters in those courts. But as the provinces cannot appoint any judicial officer above the rank of magistrate, it may happen that a constituted court may be inoperative for want of a judge. This is one of the points of friction between the federal and provincial authorities, and in the fall of 1888 it led to the trouble in Quebec, when the Ottawa cabinet disallowed the appointment of two provincial judges made by the Quebec premier.

The Dominion has another power unknown to our Constitution; that is, disallowance or veto of provincial acts. This power is regarded with great jealousy by the provinces. It is claimed by one party that it should only be exercised on the ground of unconstitutionality; by the other, that it may be exercised in the interest of the Dominion generally. As a matter of fact it has been sometimes exercised in cases that the special province felt to be an interference with its rights.

Another cause of friction, aggravated by the power of disallowance, has arisen from conflict in jurisdiction as to railways. Both the Dominion and the provinces may charter and build railways. But the British Act forbids the province to legislate as to lines of steam or other ships, railways, canals, and telegraphs connecting the province with any other province, or extending beyond its limits, or any such work actually within the limits which the Canadian Parliament may declare for the general advantage of Canada; that is, declare it to be a Dominion work. A promoter, therefore, cannot tell with any certainty what a charter is worth, or who will have jurisdiction over it. The trouble in Manitoba in the fall of 1888 between the province and the Canadian Pacific road (which is a Dominion road in the meaning of the Act) could scarcely have arisen if the definition of Dominion and provincial rights had been clearer.

But a more serious cause of weakness to the provinces and embarrassment to the Dominion is in the provincial subsidies. When the present confederation was formed the Dominion took on the provincial debts up to a certain amount. It also agreed to pay annually to each province, in half-yearly payments, a subsidy. By the British Act this annual payment was $80,000 to Ontario, $70,000 to Quebec, $60,000 to Nova Scotia, $50,000 to New Brunswick, with something additional to the last two. In 1886-87 the subsidies paid to all the provinces amounted to $4,169,341. This is as if the United States should undertake to raise a fixed revenue to distribute among the States—a proceeding alien to our ideas of the true function of the General Government, and certain to lead to State demoralization, and tending directly to undermine its self-support and dignity. It is an idea quite foreign to the conception of political economy that it is best for people to earn what they spend, and only spend what they earn. This subsidy under the Act was a grant equal to eighty cents a head of the population. Besides this there is given to each province an annual allowance for government; also an annual allowance of interest on the amount of debt allowed where the province has not reached the limit of the authorized debt. It is the theory of the Federal Government that in taking on these pecuniary burdens of the provinces they will individually feel them less, and that if money is to be raised the Dominion can procure it on more favorable terms than the provinces. The system, nevertheless, seems vicious to our apprehension, for nothing is clearer to us than that neither the State nor the general welfare would be promoted if the States were pensioners of the General Government.

The provinces are miniature copies of the Dominion Government. Each has a Lieutenant-governor, who is appointed by the Ottawa Governor-general and ministry (that is, in fact, by the premier), whose salary is paid by the Dominion Parliament. In theory he represents the Crown, and is above parties. He forms his cabinet out of the party in majority in the elective Assembly. Each province has an elective Assembly, and most of them have two Houses, one of which is a Senate appointed for life. The provincial cabinet has a premier, who is the leader of the House, and the Opposition is represented by a recognized leader. The Government is as responsible as the Federal Government. This organization of recognized and responsible leaders greatly facilitates the despatch of public business. Affairs are brought to a direct issue; and if the Government cannot carry its measures, or a dead-lock occurs, the ministry is changed, or an appeal is had to the people. Canadian statesmen point to the want of responsibility in the conduct of public business in our House, and the dead-lock between the Senate and the House, as a state of things that needs a remedy.

The provinces retain possession of the public lands belonging to them at the time of confederation; Manitoba, which had none when it was created a province out of north-west territory, has since had a gift of swamp lands from the Dominion. Emigration and immigration are subjects of both federal and provincial legislation, but provincial laws must not conflict with federal laws.

The provinces appoint all officers for the administration of justice except judges, and are charged with the general administration of justice and the maintenance of civil and criminal courts; they control jails, prisons, and reformatories, but not the penitentiaries, to which convicts sentenced for over two years must be committed. They control also asylums and charitable institutions, all strictly municipal institutions, local works, the solemnization of marriage, property and civil rights, and shop, tavern, and other licenses. In regard to the latter, a conflict of jurisdiction arose on the passage in 1878 by the Canadian Parliament of a temperance Act. The result of judicial and Privy Council decisions on this was to sustain the right of the Dominion to legislate on temperance, but to give to the provincial legislatures the right to deal with the subject of licenses for the sale of liquors. In the Territories prohibition prevails under the federal statutes, modified by the right of the Lieutenant-governor to grant special permits. The effect of the general law has been most salutary in excluding liquor from the Indians.

But the most important subject left to the provinces is education, over which they have exclusive control. What this means we shall see when we come to consider the provinces of Quebec and Ontario as illustrations.

Broadly stated, Canada has representative government by ministers responsible to the people, a federal government charged with the general good of the whole, and provincial governments attending to local interests. It differs widely from the English Government in subjects remitted to the provincial legislatures and in the freedom of the municipalities, so that Canada has self-government comparable to that in the United States. Two striking limitations are that the provinces cannot keep a militia force, and that the provinces have no power of final legislation, every Act being subject to Dominion revision and veto.

The two parties are arranged on general lines that we might expect from the organization of the central and the local governments. The Conservative, which calls itself Liberal-Conservative, inclines to the consolidation and increase of federal power; the Liberal (styled the “Grits”) is what we would call a State-rights party. Curiously enough, while the Ottawa Government is Conservative, and the ministry of Sir John A. Macdonald is sustained by a handsome majority, all the provincial governments are at present Liberal. The Conservatives say that this is because the opinion of the country sustains the general Conservative policy for the development of the Dominion, so that the same constituency will elect a Conservative member to the Dominion House and a Liberal member to the provincial House. The Liberals say that this result in some cases is brought about by the manner in which the central Government has arranged the voting districts for the central Parliament, which do not coincide with the provincial districts. There is no doubt some truth in this, but I believe that at present the sentiment of nationality is what sustains the Conservative majority in the Ottawa Government.

The general policy of the Conservative Government may fairly be described as one for the rapid development of the country. This leads it to desire more federal power, and there are some leading spirits who, although content with the present Constitution, would not oppose a legislative union of all the provinces. The policy of “development” led the party to adopt the present moderate protective tariff. It led it to the building of railways, to the granting of subsidies, in money and in land, to railways, to the subsidizing of steamship lines, to the active stimulation of immigration by offering extraordinary inducements to settlers. Having a vast domain, sparsely settled, but capable of sustaining a population not less dense than that in the northern parts of Europe, the ambition of the Conservative statesmen has been to open up the resources of the country and to plant a powerful nation. The Liberal criticism of this programme I shall speak of later. At present it is sufficient to say that the tariff did stimulate and build up manufactories in cotton, leather, iron, including implements of agriculture, to the extent that they were more than able to supply the Canadian market. As an item, after the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty, the factories of Ontario were able successfully to compete with the United States in the supply of agricultural implements to the great North-west, and in fact to take the market. I think it cannot be denied that the protective tariff did not only build up home industries, but did give an extraordinary stimulus to the general business of the Dominion.

Under this policy of development and subsidies the Dominion has been accumulating a debt, which now reaches something over $200,000,000. Before estimating the comparative size of this debt, the statistician wants to see whether this debt and the provincial debts together equal, per capita, the federal and State debts together of the United States. It is estimated by one authority that the public lands of the Dominion could pay the debt, and it is noted that it has mainly been made for railways, canals, and other permanent improvements, and not in offensive or defensive wars. The statistical record of 1887 estimates that the provincial debts added to the public debt give a per capita of $48.88. The same year the united debts of States and general government in the United States gave a per capita of $32, but, the municipal and county debts added, the per capita would be $55. If the unreported municipal debts in Canada were added, I suppose the per capita would somewhat exceed that in the United States.

Before glancing at the development and condition of Canada in confederation we will complete the official outline by a reference to the civil service and to the militia. The British Government has withdrawn all the imperial troops from Canada except a small garrison at Halifax, and a naval establishment there and at Victoria. The Queen is commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces in Canada, but the control of the same is in the Dominion Parliament. The general of the military force is a British officer. There are permanent corps and schools of instruction in various places, amounting in all to about 950 men, exclusive of officers, and the number is limited to 1000. There is a royal military school at Kingston, with about 80 cadets. The active militia, December 31, 1887, in all the provinces, the whole being under Dominion control, amounted to 38,152. The military expenditure that year was $1,281,255. The diminishing military pensions of that year amounted to $35,100. The reserve militia includes all the male inhabitants of the age of eighteen and under sixty. In 1887 the total active cavalry was under 2000.

The members of the civil service are nearly all Canadians. In the Federal Government and in the provinces there is an organized system; the federal system has been constantly amended, and is not yet free of recognized defects. The main points of excellence, more or less perfectly attained, may be stated to be a decent entrance examination for all, a special, strict, and particular examination for some who are to undertake technical duties, and a secure tenure of office. The federal Act of 1886, which has since been amended in details, was not arrived at without many experiments and the accumulation of testimonies and diverse reports; and it did not follow exactly the majority report of 1881, but leaned too much, in the judgment of many, to the English system, the working of which has not been satisfactory. The main features of the Act, omitting details, are these: The service has two divisions—first, deputy heads of departments and employés in the Ottawa departments; second, others than those employed in Ottawa departments, including customs officials, inland revenue officials, post-office inspectors, railway mail clerks, city postmasters, their assistants, clerks, and carriers, and inspector of penitentiaries. A board of three examiners is appointed by the Governor in council. All appointments shall be “during pleasure,” and no persons shall be appointed or promoted to any place below that of deputy head unless he has passed the requisite examination and served the probationary term of six months; he must not be over thirty-five years old for appointment in Ottawa departments (this limit is not fixed for the “outside” appointments), nor under fifteen in a lower grade than third-class clerk, nor under eighteen in other cases. Appointees must be sound in health and of good character. Women are not appointed. A deputy head may be removed “on pleasure,” but the reasons for the removal must be laid before both Houses of Parliament. Appointments may be made without reference to age on the report of the deputy head, on account of technical or professional qualifications or the public interest. City postmasters, and such officers as inspectors and collectors, may be appointed without examination or reference to the rules for promotion. Examinations are dispensed with in other special cases. Removals may be made by the Governor in council. Reports of all examinations and of the entire civil service list must be laid before Parliament each session. Amendments have been made to the law in the direction of relieving from examination on their promotion men who have been long in the service, and an amendment of last session omitted some examinations altogether.