Chapter VIII: Part 8

Sir Wilfrid Laurier (q.v.) became prime minister, and strengthened the cabinet which he formed by drawing into it from provincial politics the premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The administration thus established underwent many changes, but after winning three general elections it was still in power in 1909. The period of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's rule was one of striking progress in material growth, and a marked development of national feeling. While the federation of the provinces favoured the growth of a strong sentiment of Canadian individuality, the result of unification had been to strengthen decidedly the ties that bind the country to the empire. This was as true under Liberal as under Conservative auspices--as Canadians understood the meaning of these party names. The outbreak of the South African war in 1899 furnished an occasion for a practical display of Canadian loyalty to imperial interests. Three contingents of troops were despatched to the seat of war and took an active part in the events which finally secured the triumph of the British arms. These forces were supplemented by a regiment of Canadian horse raised and equipped at the sole expense of Lord Strathcona, the high commissioner of the Dominion in London. The same spirit was illustrated in other ways. In bringing about a system of penny postage throughout the empire; in forwarding the construction of the Pacific cable to secure close and safe imperial telegraphic connexion; in creating rapid and efficient lines of steamship communication with the motherland and all the colonies; in granting tariff preference to British goods and in striving for preferential treatment of inter-imperial trade; in assuming responsibility for imperial defence at the two important stations of Halifax and Esquimalt,--Canada, under the guidance of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his party, took a leading part and showed a truly national spirit.

Canadian expansion.

The opening years of the 20th century were marked by a prolonged period of great prosperity. A steady stream of emigrants from Europe and the United States, sometimes rising in number to 300,000 in a single year, began to occupy the vast western prairies. So considerable was the growth of this section of the Dominion that in 1905 it was found necessary to form two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, from the North-West Territories, the area of each being 275,000 sq. m. Each province has a lieutenant-governor and a single legislative chamber, with a representation of four members in the Senate and five in the House of Commons of the Dominion parliament. The control of the public lands is retained by the general government on the ground that it has been responsible for the development of the country by railway construction and emigration. With the rapid increase of population, production in Canada also greatly increased; exports, imports and revenue constantly expanded, and capital, finding abundant and profitable employment, began to flow freely into the country for further industrial development. New and great railway undertakings were a marked feature of this period. The Canadian Pacific system was extended until it included 12,000 m. of line. The Canadian Northern railway, already constructed from the Great Lakes westward to the neighbourhood of the Rockies, and with water and rail connexions reaching eastward to Quebec, began to transform itself into a complete transcontinental system, with an extension to the Hudson Bay. That this line owed its inception and construction chiefly to the joint enterprise of two private individuals, Messrs Mackenzie and Mann, was a striking proof of the industrial capacities of the country. To a still more ambitious line, the Grand Trunk Pacific, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, aiming at extensive steamship connexion on both oceans, and closely associated with the Grand Trunk system of Ontario and Quebec, the government of Canada gave liberal support as a national undertaking. The eastern section of 1875 m., extending from Winnipeg to Moncton, where connexion is secured with the winter ports of Halifax and St John, was, under the act of incorporation, to be built by the government, and then leased for fifty years, under certain conditions, to the Grand Trunk Pacific Company. The western portion, of 1480 m., from Winnipeg to the Pacific, was to be built, owned and operated by the company itself, the government guaranteeing bonds to the extent of 75% of the whole cost of construction. The discovery of large deposits of nickel at Sudbury; of extremely rich gold mines on the head-waters of the Yukon, in a region previously considered well-nigh worthless for human habitation; of extensive areas of gold, copper and silver ores in the mountain regions of British Columbia; of immense coal deposits in the Crow's Nest Pass of the same province and on the prairies; of veins of silver and cobalt of extraordinary richness in northern Ontario--all deeply affected the industrial condition of the country and illustrated the vastness of its undeveloped resources. The use of wood-pulp in the manufacture of paper gave a greatly enhanced value to many millions of acres of northern forest country. The application of electricity to purposes of manufacture and transportation made the waterfalls and rapids in which the country abounds the source of an almost unlimited supply of energy capable of easy distribution for industrial purposes over wide areas.

Relations with the United States.

Since confederation a series of attempts has been made with varying degrees of success to settle the questions in dispute between the Dominion and the United States, naturally arising from the fact that they divide between them the control of nearly the whole of a large continent and its adjoining waters. Considering the vastness of the interests involved, there is much cause for satisfaction in the fact that these differences have been settled by peaceful arbitrament rather than by that recourse to force which has so often marked the delimitation of rights and territory on other continents The Washington Treaty of 1871 has already been referred to. Its clauses dealing with the fisheries and trade lasted for fourteen years, and were then abrogated by the action of the United States. Various proposals on the part of Canada for a renewal of the reciprocity were not entertained. After 1885 Canada was therefore compelled to fall back upon the treaty of 1818 as the guarantee of her fishing rights. It became necessary to enforce the terms of that convention, under which the fishermen of the United States could not pursue their avocations within the three miles' limit, tranship cargoes of fish in Canadian ports, or enter them except for shelter, water, wood or repairs. On account of infractions of the treaty many vessels were seized and some were condemned. In 1887 a special commission was appointed to deal with the question. On this commission Mr Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Sackville West and Sir Charles Tupper represented British and Canadian interests; Secretary T.F. Bayard, Mr W. le B. Putnam and Mr James B. Angell acted for the United States. The commission succeeded in agreeing to the terms of a treaty, which was recommended to Congress by President Cleveland as supplying "a satisfactory, practical and final adjustment, upon a basis honourable and just to both parties, of the difficult and vexed questions to which it relates." This agreement, known as the Chamberlain-Bayard treaty, was rejected by the Senate, and as a consequence it became necessary to carry on the fisheries under a _modus vivendi_ renewed annually.

In 1886 a difference about international rights on the high seas arose on the Pacific coast in connexion with the seal fisheries of Bering Sea. In that year several schooners, fitted out in British Columbia for the capture of seals in the North Pacific, were seized by a United States cutter at a distance of 60 m. from the nearest land, the officers were imprisoned and fined, and the vessels themselves subjected to forfeiture. The British government at once protested against this infraction of international right, and through long and troublesome negotiations firmly upheld Canada's claims in the matter. The dispute was finally referred to a court of arbitration, on which Sir John Thompson, premier of the Dominion, sat as one of the British arbitrators. It was decided that the United States had no jurisdiction in the Bering Sea beyond the three miles' limit, but the court also made regulations to prevent the wholesale slaughter of fur-bearing seals. The sum of $463,454 was finally awarded as compensation to the Canadian sealers who had been unlawfully seized and punished. This sum was paid by the United States in 1898.

As the result of communications during 1897 between Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Secretary Sherman, the governments of Great Britain and the United States agreed to the appointment of a joint high commission, with a view of settling all outstanding differences between the United States and Canada. The commission, which included three members of the Canadian cabinet and a representative of Newfoundland, and of which Lord Herschell was appointed chairman, met at Quebec on the 23rd of August 1898. The sessions continued in Quebec at intervals until the 10th of October, when the commission adjourned to meet in Washington on the 1st of November, where the discussions were renewed for some weeks. Mr Nelson Dingley, an American member of the commission, died during the month of January, as did the chairman, Lord Herschell, in March, as the result of an accident, soon after the close of the sittings of the commission. The Alaskan boundary, the Atlantic and inland fisheries, the alien labour law, the bonding privilege, the seal fishery in the Bering Sea and reciprocity of trade in certain products were among the subjects considered by the commission. On several of these points much progress was made towards a settlement, but a divergence of opinion as to the methods by which the Alaskan boundary should be determined put an end for the time to the negotiations.

In 1903 an agreement was reached by which the question of this boundary, which depended on the interpretation put upon the treaty of 1825 between Russia and England, should be submitted to a commission consisting of "six impartial jurists of repute," three British and three American. The British commissioners appointed were: Lord Alverstone, lord chief justice of England; Sir Louis Jette, K.C., of Quebec; and A.B. Aylesworth, K.C., of Toronto. On the American side were appointed: the Hon. Henry C. Lodge, senator for Massachusetts; the Hon. Elihu Root, secretary of war for the United States government; and Senator George Turner. Canadians could not be persuaded that the American members fulfilled the condition of being "impartial jurists," and protest was made, but, though the imperial government also expressed surprise, no change in the appointments was effected. The commission met in London, and announced its decision in October. This was distinctly unfavourable to Canada's claims, since it excluded Canadians from all ocean inlets as far south as the Portland Channel, and in that channel gave to Canada only two of the four islands claimed. A statement made by the Canadian commissioners, who refused to sign the report, of an unexplained change of opinion on the part of Lord Alverstone, produced a widespread impression for a time that his decision in favour of American claims was diplomatic rather than judicial. Later Canadian opinion, however, came to regard the decision of the commission as a reasonable compromise. The irritation caused by the decision gradually subsided, but at the moment it led to strong expressions on the part of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and others in favour of securing for Canada a fuller power of making her own treaties. While the power of making treaties must rest ultimately in the hands that can enforce them, the tendency to give the colonies chiefly interested a larger voice in international arrangements had become inevitable. The mission of a Canadian cabinet minister, the Hon. R. Lemieux, to Japan in 1907, to settle Canadian difficulties with that country, illustrated the change of diplomatic system in progress.

Education.

Under the British North American Act the control of education was reserved for the provincial governments, with a stipulation that all rights enjoyed by denominational schools at the time of confederation should be respected. Provincial control has caused some diversity of management; the interpretation of the denominational agreement has led to acute differences of opinion which have invaded the field of politics. In all the provinces elementary, and in some cases secondary, education is free, the funds for its support being derived from local taxation and from government grants. The highly organized school system of Ontario is directed by a minister of education, who is a member of the provincial cabinet. The other provinces have boards of education, and superintendents who act under the direction of the provincial legislatures. In Quebec the Roman Catholic schools, which constitute the majority, are chiefly controlled by the local clergy of that church. The Protestant schools are managed by a separate board. In Ontario as well as in Quebec separate schools are allowed to Roman Catholics. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and British Columbia the public schools are strictly undenominational. This position was only established in New Brunswick and Manitoba after violent political struggles, and frequent appeals to the highest courts of the empire for decisions on questions of federal or provincial jurisdiction. The right of having separate schools has been extended to the newly constituted provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Secondary education is provided for by high schools and collegiate institutes in all towns and cities, and by large residential institutions at various centres, conducted on the principle of the English public schools. The largest of these is Upper Canada College at Toronto. Each province has a number of normal and model schools for the training of teachers. For higher education there are also abundant facilities. M'Gill University at Montreal has been enlarged and splendidly endowed by the munificence of a few private individuals, Toronto University by the provincial legislature of Ontario; Queen's University at Kingston largely by the support of its own graduates and friends. University work in the maritime provinces, instead of being concentrated, as it might well be, in one powerful institution, is distributed among five small, but within their range efficient universities. The agricultural college at Guelph and the experimental farms maintained by the federal government give excellent training and scientific assistance to farmers. Sir William Macdonald in 1908 built and endowed, at an expenditure of at least L700,000, an agricultural college and normal school at St Anne's, near Montreal. While the older universities have increased greatly in influence and efficiency, the following new foundations have been made since confederation:--University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, 1877; Presbyterian College, Winnipeg, 1870; Methodist College, Winnipeg, 1888; Wesleyan College, Montreal, 1873; Presbyterian College, Montreal, 1868; School of Practical Science, Toronto, 1877; Royal Military College, Kingston, 1875; M'Master University, Toronto, 1888. All the larger universities have schools of medicine in affiliation, and have the power of conferring medical degrees. Since 1877 Canadian degrees have been recognized by the Medical Council of Great Britain.

Indian tribes.

In her treatment of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country (numbering 93,318 in 1901) Canada has met with conspicuous success. Since the advance of civilization and indiscriminate slaughter have deprived them of the bison, so long their natural means of subsistence, the north-west tribes have been maintained chiefly at the expense of the country. As a result of the great care now used in watching over them there has been a small but steady increase in their numbers. Industrial and boarding schools, established in several of the provinces, by separating the children from the degrading influences of their home life, have proved more effectual than day schools for training them in the habits and ideas of a higher civilization. (See INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN.)

Constitution.

The constitution of the Dominion embodies the first attempt made to adapt British principles and methods of government to a federal system. The chief executive authority is vested in the sovereign, as is the supreme command of the military and naval forces. The governor-general represents, and fulfils the functions of, the crown, which appoints him. He holds office for five years, and his powers are strictly limited, as in the case of the sovereign, all executive acts being done on the advice of his cabinet, the members of which hold office only so long as they retain the confidence of the people as expressed by their representatives in parliament. The governor-general has, however, the independent right to withhold his assent to any bill which he considers in conflict with imperial interests. The following governors-general have represented the crown since the federation of the provinces, with the year of their appointment: Viscount Monck, 1867; Sir John Young (afterwards Baron Lisgar), 1868; the earl of Dufferin, 1872; the marquess of Lome (afterwards duke of Argyll), 1878; the marquess of Lansdowne, 1883; Lord Stanley of Preston (afterwards earl of Derby), 1888; the earl of Aberdeen, 1893; the earl of Minto, 1898; Earl Grey, 1904. The upper house, or Senate, is composed of members who hold office for life and are nominated by the governor-general in council. It originally consisted of 72 members, 24 from Quebec, 24 from Ontario, and 24 from the maritime provinces, but this number has been from time to time slightly increased as new provinces have been added. The House of Commons consists of representatives elected directly by the people. The number of members, originally 196, is subject to change after each decennial census. The basis adopted in the British North America Act is that Quebec shall always have 65 representatives, and each of the other provinces such a number as will give the same proportion of members to its population as the number 65 bears to the population of Quebec at each census. In 1908 the number of members was 218.

Members of the Senate and of the House of Commons receive an annual indemnity of $2500, with a travelling allowance. Legislation brought forward in 1906 introduced an innovation in assigning a salary of $7000 to the recognized leader of the Opposition, and pensions amounting to half their official income to ex-cabinet ministers who have occupied their posts for five consecutive years. This pension clause has since been repealed. One principal object of the framers of the Canadian constitution was to establish a strong central government. An opposite plan was therefore adopted to that employed in the system of the United States, where the federal government enjoys only the powers granted to it by the sovereign states. The British North America Act assigns to the different provinces, as to the central parliament, their spheres of control, but all residuary powers are given to the general government. Within these limitations the provincial assemblies have a wide range of legislative power. In Nova Scotia and Quebec the bicameral system of an upper and lower house is retained; in the other provinces legislation is left to a single representative assembly. For purely local matters municipal institutions are organized to cover counties and townships, cities and towns, all based on an exceedingly democratic franchise.

The creation of a supreme court engaged the attention of Sir John Macdonald in the early years after federation, but was only finally accomplished in 1876, during the premiership of Alexander Mackenzie. This court is presided over by a chief justice, with five puisne judges, and has appellate civil and criminal jurisdiction for the Dominion. By an act passed in 1891 the government has power to refer to the supreme court any important question of law affecting the public interest. The right of appeal from the supreme court, thus constituted, to the judicial committee of the privy council marks, in questions judicial, Canada's place as a part of the British empire.

The appointment, first made in 1897, of the chief justice of Canada, along with the chief justices of Cape Colony and South Australia, as colonial members of the judicial committee still further established the position of that body as the final court of appeal for the British people. The grave questions of respective jurisdiction which have from time to time arisen between the federal and provincial governments have for the most part been settled by appeal to one or both of these judicial bodies. Some of these questions have played a considerable part in Canadian politics, but are of too complicated a nature to be dealt with in the present brief sketch. They have generally consisted in the assertion of provincial rights against federal authority. The decision of the courts has always been accepted as authoritative and final.

An excellent bibliography of Canadian history will be found in the
volume _Literature of American History_, published by the American
Library Association. The annual _Review of Historical Publications
Relating to Canada_, published by the University of Toronto, gives a
critical survey of the works on Canadian topics appearing from year to
year. (G. R. P.)

LITERATURE

1. _English-Canadian Literature_ is marked by the weaknesses as well as the merits of colonial life. The struggle for existence, the conquering of the wilderness, has left scant room for broad culture or scholarship, and the very fact that Canada is a colony, however free to control her own affairs, has stood in the way of the creation of anything like a national literature. And yet, while Canada's intellectual product is essentially an offshoot of the parent literature of England, it is not entirely devoid of originality, either in manner or matter. There is in much of it a spirit of freedom and youthful vigour characteristic of the country. It is marked by the wholesomeness of Canadian life and Canadian ideals, and the optimism of a land of limitless potentialities.

The first few decades of the period of British rule were lean years indeed so far as native literature is concerned. This period of unrest gave birth to little beyond a flood of political pamphlets, of no present value save as material for the historian. We may perhaps except the able though thoroughly partisan writings of Sir John Beverley Robinson and Bishop Strachan on the one side, and Robert Fleming Gourlay and William Lyon Mackenzie on the other. In the far West, however, a little group of adventurous fur-traders, of whom Sir Alexander Mackenzie, David Thompson, Alexander Henry and Daniel Williams Harmon may be taken as conspicuous types, were unfolding the vast expanse of the future dominion. They were men of action, not of words, and had no thought of literary fame, but their absorbingly interesting journals are none the less an essential part of the literature of the country.

Barring the work of Francis Parkman, who was not a Canadian, no history of the first rank has yet been written in or of Canada. Canadian historians have not merely lacked so far the genius for really great historical work, but they have lacked the point of view; they have stood too close to their subject to get the true perspective. At the same time they have brought together invaluable material for the great historian of the future. Robert Christie's _History of Lower Canada_ (1848-1854) was the first serious attempt to deal with the period of British rule. William Kingsford's (1819-1898) ambitious work, in ten volumes, comes down like Christie's to the Union of 1841, but goes back to the very beginnings of Canadian history. In the main it is impartial and accurate, but the style is heavy and sometimes slovenly. J.C. Dent's (1841-1888) _Last Forty Years_ (1880) is practically a continuation of Kingsford. Dent also wrote an interesting though one-sided account of the rebellion of 1837. Histories of the maritime provinces have been written by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Beamish Murdoch and James Hannay. Haliburton's is much the best of the three. The brief but stirring history of western Canada has been told by Alexander Begg (1840-1898); and George Bryce (b. 1844) and Beckles Willson (b. 1869) have written the story of the Hudson's Bay Company. Much scholarship and research have been devoted to local and special historical subjects, a notable example of which is Arthur Doughty's exhaustive work on the siege of Quebec. J. McMullen (b. 1820), Charles Roberts (b. 1860) and Sir John Bourinot (1837-1902) have written brief and popular histories, covering the whole field of Canadian history more or less adequately. Alpheus Todd's (1821-1884) _Parliamentary Government in England_ (1867-1869) and _Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies_ (1880) are standard works, as is also Bourinot's _Parliamentary Procedure and Practice_ (1884).

Biography has been devoted mainly to political subjects. The best of these are Joseph Pope's _Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald_ (1894), W.D. le Sueur's _Frontenac_ (1906), Sir John Bourinot's _Lord Elgin_ (1905), Jean McIlwraith's _Sir Frederick Haldimand_ (1904), D.C. Scott's _John Graves Simcoe_ (1905), A.D. de Celles' _Papineau and Cartier_ (1904), Charles Lindsey's _William Lyon Mackenzie_ (1862), J.W. Longley's _Joseph Howe_ (1905) and J.S. Willison's _Sir Wilfrid Laurier_ (1903).

In _belles lettres_ very little has been accomplished, unless we may count Goldwin Smith (q.v.) as a Canadian. As a scholar, a thinker, and a master of pure English he has exerted a marked influence upon Canadian literature and Canadian life.

While mediocrity is the prevailing characteristic of most of what passes for poetry in Canada, a few writers have risen to a higher level. The conditions of Canadian life have not been favourable to the birth of great poets, but within the limits of their song such men as Archibald Lampman (1861-1891), William Wilfred Campbell (b. 1861), Charles Roberts, Bliss Carman (b. 1861) and George Frederick Cameron have written lines that are well worth remembering. Lampman's poetry is the most finished and musical. He fell short of being a truly great poet, inasmuch as great poetry must, which his does not, touch life at many points, but his verses are marked by the qualities that belonged to the man--sincerity, purity, seriousness. Campbell's poetry, in spite of a certain lack of compression, is full of dramatic vigour: Roberts has put some of his best work into sonnets and short lyrics, while Carman has been very successful with the ballad, the untrammelled swing and sweep of which he has finely caught; the simplicity and severity of Cameron's style won the commendation of even so exacting a critic as Matthew Arnold. One remarkable drama--Charles Heavysege's (1816-1876) _Saul_ (1857)--belongs to Canadian literature. Though unequal in execution, it contains passages of exceptional beauty and power. The sweetness and maturity of Isabella Valency Crawford's (1851-1887) verse are also very worthy of remembrance. The _habitant_ poems of Dr W.H. Drummond (1854-1907) stand in a class by themselves, between English and French Canadian literature, presenting the simple life of the _habitant_ with unique humour and picturesqueness.

The first distinctively Canadian novel was John Richardson's (1796-1852) _Wacousta_ (1832), a stirring tale of the war of 1812. Richardson afterwards wrote half a dozen other romances, dealing chiefly with incidents in Canadian history. Susanna Moodie (1803-1885) and Katharine Parr Traill (1802-1899), sisters of Agnes Strickland, contributed novels and tales to one of the earliest and best of Canadian magazines, the _Literary Garland_ (1838-1847). _The Golden Dog_, William Kirby's (1817-1906) fascinating romance of old Quebec, appeared in 1877, in a pirated edition. Twenty years later the first authorized edition was published. James de Mille (1833-1880) was the author of some thirty novels, the best of which is _Helena's Household_ (1868), a story of Rome in the 1st century. _The Dodge Club_ (1869), a humorous book of travel, appeared, curiously enough, a few months before _Innocents Abroad_. De Mille's posthumous novel, _A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder_ (1888), describes a singular race whose cardinal doctrine is that poverty is honourable and wealth the reverse. Sir Gilbert Parker (b. 1862) stands first among contemporary Canadian novelists. He has made admirable use in many of his novels of the inexhaustible stores of romantic and dramatic material that lie buried in forgotten pages of Canadian history. Of later Canadian novelists mention may be made of Sara Jeannette Duncan (Mrs Everard Cotes, b. 1862), Ralph Connor (Charles W. Gordon, b. 1866), Agnes C. Laut (b. 1872), W.A. Fraser (b. 1859) and Ernest Thompson Seton (b. 1860). Thomas Chandler Haliburton (q.v.) stands in a class by himself. In many respects his is the most striking figure in Canadian literature. He is best known as a humorist, and as a humorist he ranks with the creators of "My Uncle Toby" and "Pickwick." But there is more than humour in Haliburton's books. He lacked, in fact, but one thing to make him a great novelist: he had no conception of how to construct a plot. But he knew human nature, and knew it intimately in all its phases; he could construct a character and endow it with life; his people talk naturally and to the point; and many of his descriptive passages are admirable. Those who read Haliburton's books only for the sake of the humour will miss much of their value. His inimitable _Clockmaker_ (1837), as well as the later books, _The Old Judge_ (1849), _The Attache_ (1843), _Wise Saws and Modern Instances_ (1853) and _Nature and Human Nature_ (1855), are mirrors of colonial life and character.

For general treatment of English-Canadian literature, reference may be
made to Sir John Bourinot's _Intellectual Development of the Canadian
People_ (1881); G. Mercer Adam's _Outline History of Canadian
Literature_ (1887); "Native Thought and Literature," in J.E. Collins's
_Life of Sir John A. Macdonald_ (1883); "Canadian Literature," by J.M.
Oxley, in the _Encyclopaedia Americana_, vol. ix. (1904); A.
MacMurchy's _Handbook of Canadian Literature_ (1906); and articles by
J. Castell Hopkins, John Reade, A.B. de Mille and Thomas O'Hagan, in
vol. v. of _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the Country_ (1898-1900);
also to Henry J. Morgan's _Bibliotheca Canadensis_ (1867) and
_Canadian Men and Women of the Time_ (1898); W.D. Lighthall, _Songs of
the Great Dominion_; Theodore Rand's _Treasury of Canadian Verse_
(1900); C.C. James's _Bibliography of Canadian Verse_ (1898); L.E.
Horning's and L.J. Burpee's _Bibliography of Canadian Fiction_ (1904);
S.E. Dawson's _Prose Writers of Canada_ (1901); "Canadian Poetry," by
J.A. Cooper, in _The National_, 29, p. 364; "Recent Canadian Fiction,"
by L.J. Burpee, in _The Forum_, August 1899. For individual authors,
see Haliburton's _A Centenary Chaplet_ (1897), with a bibliography;
"Haliburton," by F. Blake Crofton, in _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the
Country_; C.H. Farnham's _Life of Francis Parkman_ and H.D. Sedgwick's
_Francis Parkman_ (1901); and articles on "Parkman," by E.L. Godkin,
in _The Nation_, 71, p. 441; by Justin Winsor in _The Atlantic_, 73,
p. 660; by W.D. Howells, _The Atlantic_, 34, p. 602; by John Fiske,
_The Atlantic_, 73, p. 664; by J.B. Gilder in _The Critic_, 23, p.
322; "Goldwin Smith as a Critic," by H. Spencer, _Contemp. Review_,
41, p. 519; "Goldwin Smith's Historical Works," by C.E. Norton, _North
American Review_, 99, p. 523; "Poetry of Charles Heavysege," by Bayard
Taylor, _Atlantic_, 16, p. 412; "Charles Heavysege," by L.J. Burpee,
in _Trans. Royal Society of Canada_, 1901; "Archibald Lampman," by
W.D. Howells, _Literature_ (N.Y.), 4, p. 217; "Archibald Lampman," by
L.J. Burpee, in _North American Notes and Queries_ (Quebec), August
and September 1900; "Poetry of Bliss Carman," by J.P. Mowbray,
_Critic_, 41, p. 308; "Isabella Valency Crawford," in _Poet-Lore_
(Boston), xiii. No. 4; _Roberts and the Influences of his Time_
(1906), by James Cappon; "William Wilfred Campbell," _Sewanee Review_,
October 1900; "Kingsford's History of Canada," by G.M. Wrong, _N.A.
Review_, I p. 550; "Books of Gilbert Parker," by C.A. Pratt, _Critic_,
33, p. 271. (L. J. B.)

2. _French-Canadian Literature_ at the opening of the 20th century might be described as entirely the work of two generations, and it was separated from the old regime by three more generations whose racial sentiment only found expression in the traditional songs and tales which their forefathers of the 17th century had brought over from the _mere patrie_. Folk-lore has always been the most essentially French of all imaginative influences in Canadian life; and the songs are the quintessence of the lore. Not that the folk-songs have no local variants. Indian words, like _moccasin_ and _toboggan_, are often introduced. French forms are freely turned into pure Canadianisms, like _cageux_, raftsman, _boucane_, brushwood smoke, _portage_, &c. New characters, which appeal more directly to the local audience, sometimes supplant old ones, like the _quatre vieux sauvages_ who have ousted the time-honoured _quatre-z-officiers_ from the Canadian version of _Malbrouk_. There are even a few entire songs of transatlantic origin. But all these variants together are mere stray curios among the crowding souvenirs of the old home over sea. No other bridge can rival _le Pont d'Avignon_. "_Ici_" in _C'est le ban vin qui danse ici_ can be nowhere else but in old France--_le ban vin_ alone proves this. And the Canadian folk-singer, though in a land of myriad springs, still goes _a la claire fontaine_ of his ancestral fancy; while the lullabies his mother sang him, like the love-songs with which he serenades his _blonde_, were nearly all sung throughout the Normandy of _le Grand Monarque_. The _habitant_ was separated from old-world changes two centuries ago by difference of place and circumstances, while he has hitherto been safeguarded from many new-world changes by the segregative influences of race, religion, language and custom; and so his folk-lore still remains the intimate _alter et idem_ of what it was in the days of the great pioneers. It is no longer a living spirit among the people at large; but in secluded villages and "back concessions" one can still hear some charming melodies as old and pure as the verses to which they are sung, and even a few quaint survivals of Gregorian tunes. The best collection, more particularly from the musical point of view, is _Les Chansons populaires du Canada_, started by Ernest Gagnon (1st ed. 1865).

Race-patriotism is the distinguishing characteristic of French-Canadian literature, which is so deeply rooted in national politics that L.J. Papineau, the most insistent demagogue of 1837, must certainly be named among the founders, for the sake of speeches which came before written works both in point of time and popular esteem. Only 360 volumes had been published during 80 years, when, in 1845, the first famous book appeared--Francois Xavier Garneau's (1809-1866) _Histoire du Canada_. It had immense success in Canada, was favourably noticed in France, and has influenced all succeeding men of letters. Unfortunately, the imperfect data on which it is based, and the too exclusively patriotic spirit in which it is written, prevent it from being an authoritative history: the author himself declares "_Vous verrez si la defaite de nos ancetres ne vaut pas toutes las victoires_." But it is of far-reaching importance as the first great literary stimulus to racial self-respect. "_Le Canada francais avait perdu ses Ictlres de noblesse; Garneau les lui a rendues_." F.X. Garneau is also remembered for his poems, and he was followed by his son Alfred Garneau (1836-1904).

A. Gerin-Lajoie was a mere lad when the exile of some compatriots inspired _Le Canadien errant_, which immediately became a universal folk-song. Many years later he wrote discriminatingly about those _Dix ans au Canada_ (1888) that saw the establishment of responsible government. But his fame rests on _Jean Rivard_ (1874), the prose bucolic of the _habitant_. The hero, left at the head of a fatherless family of twelve when nearly through college, turns from the glut of graduates swarming round the prospects of professional city-bred careers, steadfastly wrests a home from the wilderness, helps his brothers and sisters, marries a _habitante_ fit for the wife of a pioneer, brings up a large family, and founds a settlement which grows into several parishes and finally becomes the centre of the electoral district of "Rivardville," which returns him to parliament. These simple and earnest _Scenes de la vie reelle_ are an appealing revelation of that eternal secret of the soil which every people wishing to have a country of its own must early lay to heart; and _Jean Rivard, le defricheur_, will always remain the eponym of the new _colons_ of the 19th century.

Philippe de Gaspe's historical novel, _Les Anciens Canadiens_ (1863), is the complement of Garneau and Gerin-Lajoie. Everything about the author's life helped him to write this book. Born in 1784, and brought up among reminiscent eye-witnesses of the old regime, he was an eager listener, with a wonderful memory and whole-hearted pride in the glories of his race and family, a kindly _seigneur_, who loved and was loved by all his _censitaires_, a keen observer of many changing systems, down to the final Confederation of 1867, and a man who had felt both extremes of fortune (_Memoires_, 1866). The story rambles rather far from its well-worn plot. But these very digressions give the book its intimate and abiding charm; for they keep the reader in close personal touch with every side of Canadian life, with songs and tales and homely forms of speech, with the best features of seigniorial times and the strong guidance of an ardent church, with _voyageurs, coureurs de bois_, Indians, soldiers, sailors and all the strenuous adventurers of a wild, new, giant world. The poet of this little band of authors was Octave Cremazie, a Quebec bookseller, who failed in business and spent his last years as a penniless exile in France. He is usually rather too derivative, he lacks the saving grace of style, and even his best Canadian poems hardly rise above fervent occasional verse. Yet he became a national poet, because he was the first to celebrate occasions of deeply felt popular emotion in acceptable rhyme, and he will always remain one because each occasion touched some lasting aspiration of his race. He sings what Garneau recounts--the love of mother country, mother church and Canada. The _Guerre de Crimee, Guerre d'ltalie_, even _Castel-fidardo_, are duly chronicled. An ode on _Mgr. de Montmorency-Laval_, first bishop of Quebec, brings him nearer to his proper themes, which are found in full perfection in the _Chant du vieux soldat canadien_, composed in 1856 to honour the first French man-of-war that visited British Quebec, and _Le Drapeau de Carillon_ (1858), a centennial paean for Montcalm's Canadians at Ticonderoga. Much of the mature work of this first generation, and of the juvenilia of the second, appeared in _Les Soirees canadiennes_ and _Le Foyer canadien_, founded in 1862 and 1863 respectively. The abbe Ferland was an enthusiastic editor and historian, and Etienne Parent should be remembered as the first Canadian philosopher.

At Confederation many eager followers began to take up the work which the founders were laying down. The abbe Casgrain devoted a life-time to making the French-Canadians appear as the chosen people of new-world history; but, though an able advocate, he spoilt a really good case by trying to prove too much. His _Pelerinage au pays d'Evangeline_ (1888) is a splendid defence of the unfortunate Acadians; and all his books attract the reader by their charm of style and personality. But his _Montcalm et Levis_ (1891) and other works on the conquest, are all warped by a strong bias against both Wolfe and Montcalm, and in favour of Vandreuil, the Canadian-born governor; while they show an inadequate grasp of military problems, and practically ignore the vast determining factor of sea-power altogether. Benjamin Sulte's comprehensive _Histoire des Canadiens-francais_ (1882) is a well-written, many-sided work. Thomas Chapais' monographs are as firmly grounded as they are finely expressed; his _Jean Talon_ (1904) is of prime importance; and his _Montcalm_ (1901) is the generous _amende honorable_ paid by French-Canadian literature to a much misrepresented, but admirably wrought, career. A. Gerin-Lajoie's cry of "back to the land" was successfully adapted to modern developments in _Le Saguenay_ (1896) and _L'Outaouais superieur_ (1889) by Arthur Buies, who showed what immense inland breadths of country lay open to suitable "Jean Rivards" from the older settlements along the St Lawrence. In oratory, which most French-Canadians admire beyond all other forms of verbal art, Sir Wilfrid Laurier has greatly surpassed L.J. Papineau, by dealing with more complex questions, taking a higher point of view, and expressing himself with a much apter flexibility of style.

Among later poets may be mentioned Pierre Chauveau (1820-1890), Louis Fiset, (b. 1827), and Adolphe Poisson (b. 1849). Louis Frechette (1830-1908) has, however, long been the only poet with a reputation outside of Canada. In 1879 _Les Fleurs boreales_ won the Prix Monthyon from the French Academy. In 1887 _La Legende d'un peuple_ became the acknowledged epic of a race. He occasionally nods; is rather strident in the patriotic vein; and too often answers the untoward call of rhetoric when his subject is about to soar into the heights of poetry. But a rich vocabulary, a mastery of verse-forms quite beyond the range of Cremazie, real originality of conception, individual distinction of style, deep insight into the soul of his people, and, still more, the glow of warm-blooded life pulsing through the whole poem, all combine to give him the greatest place at home and an important one in the world at large. _Les Vengeances_ (1875), by Leon Pamphile Le May, and _Les Aspirations_ (1904), by W. Chapman, worthily represent the older and younger contemporaries. Dr Neree Beauchemin keeps within somewhat narrow limits in _Les Floraisons matutinales_ (1897); but within them he shows true poetic genius, a fine sense of rhythm, rhyme and verbal melody, a _curiosa felicitas_ of epithet and phrase, and so sure an eye for local colour that a stranger could choose no better guide to the imaginative life of Canada.

A Canadian drama hardly exists; among its best works are the pleasantly epigrammatic plays of F.G. Marchand. Novels are not yet much in vogue; though Madame Conan's _L'Oublie_ (1902) has been crowned by the Academy; while Dr Choquette's _Les Ribaud_ (1898) is a good dramatic story, and his _Claude Paysan_ (1899) is an admirably simple idyllic tale of the hopeless love of a soil-bound _habitant_, told with intense natural feeling and fine artistic reserve. Chief-Justice Routhier, a most accomplished occasional writer, is very French-Canadian when arraigning _Les Grands Drames_ of the classics (1889) before his ecclesiastical court and finding them guilty of Paganism.

The best bibliographies are Phileas Gagnon's _Essai de bibliographie
canadienne_ (1895), and Dr N.E. Dionne's list of publications from the
earliest times in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_
for 1905. (W. Wo.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The census is taken every ten years, save in these three
provinces, where it is taken every five. Their population in 1906
was:--Manitoba, 360,000; Saskatchewan, 257,000; Alberta, 184,000.

[2] The areas assigned to Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick and British Columbia are exclusive of the territorial seas,
that to Quebec is exclusive of the Gulf of St Lawrence (though
including the islands lying within it), and that to Ontario is
exclusive of the Canadian portion of the Great Lakes. About 500,000
sq. m. belong to the Arctic region and 125,755 sq. m. are water.

[3] In Canada a city must have over 10,000 inhabitants, a town over
2000.

[4] The date of foundation is given in brackets.

CANAL (from Lat. _canalis_, "channel" and "kennel" being doublets of the word), an artificial water course used for the drainage of low lands, for irrigation (q.v.), or more especially for the purpose of navigation by boats, barges or ships. Probably the first canals were made for irrigation, but in very early times they came also to be used for navigation, as in Assyria and Egypt. The Romans constructed various works of the kind, and Charlemagne projected a system of waterways connecting the Main and the Rhine with the Danube, while in China the Grand Canal, joining the Pei-ho and Yang-tse-Kiang and constructed in the 13th century, formed an important artery of commerce, serving also for irrigation. But although it appears from Marco Polo that inclines were used on the Grand Canal, these early waterways suffered in general from the defect that no method being known of conveniently transferring boats from one level to another they were only practicable between points that lay on nearly the same level; and inland navigation could not become generally useful and applicable until this defect had been remedied by the employment of locks. Great doubts exist as to the person, and even the nation, that first introduced locks. Some writers attribute their invention to the Dutch, holding that nearly a century earlier than in Italy locks were used in Holland where canals are very numerous, owing to the favourable physical conditions. On the other hand, the contrivance has been claimed for engineers of the Italian school, and it is said that two brothers Domenico of Viterbo constructed a lock-chamber enclosed by a pair of gates in 1481, and that in 1487 Leonardo da Vinci completed six locks uniting the canals of Milan. Be that as it may, however, the introduction of locks in the 14th or 15th century gave a new character to inland navigation and laid the basis of its successful extension.

The Languedoc Canal (Canal du Midi) may be regarded as the pioneer of the canals of modern Europe. Joining the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean it is 148 m. long and rises 620 ft. above sea-level with 119 locks, its depth being about 6-1/2 ft. It was designed by Baron Paul Riquet de Bonrepos (1604-1680) and was finished in 1681. With it and the still earlier Briare canal (1605-1642) France began that policy of canal construction which has provided her with over 3000 m. of canals, in addition to over 4600 m. of navigable rivers. In Russia Peter the Great undertook the construction of a system of canals about the beginning of the 18th century, and in Sweden a canal with locks, connecting Eskilstuna with Lake Malar, was finished in 1606. In England the oldest artificial canal is the Foss Dyke, a relic of the Roman occupation. It extends from Lincoln to the river Trent near Torksey (11 m.), and formed a continuation of the Caer Dyke, also of Roman origin but now filled up, which ran from Lincoln to Peterborough (40 m.). Camden in his _Britannia_ says that the Foss Dyke was deepened and to some extent rendered navigable in 1121. Little, however, was done in making canals in Great Britain until the middle of the 18th century, though before that date some progress had been made in rendering some of the larger rivers navigable. In 1759 the duke of Bridgewater obtained powers to construct a canal between Manchester and his collieries at Worsley, and this work, of which James Brindley was the engineer, and which was opened for traffic in 1761, was followed by a period of great activity in canal construction, which, however, came to an end with the introduction of railways. According to evidence given before the royal commission on canals in 1906 the total mileage of existing canals in the United Kingdom was 3901. In the United States the first canal was made in 1792-1796 at South Hadley, Massachusetts, and the canal-system, though its expansion was checked by the growth of railways, has attained a length of 4200 m., most of the mileage being in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The splendid inland navigation system of Canada mainly consists of natural lakes and rivers, and the artificial waterways are largely "lateral" canals, cut in order to enable vessels to avoid rapids in the rivers. (See the articles on the various countries for accounts of the canal-systems they possess.)

The canals that were made in the early days of canal-construction were mostly of the class known as _barge_ or _boat canals_, and owing to their limited depth and breadth were only available for vessels of small size. But with the growth of commerce the advantage was seen of cutting canals of such dimensions as to enable them to accommodate sea-going ships. Such _ship-canals_, which from an engineering point of view chiefly differ from barge-canals in the magnitude of the works they involve, have mostly been constructed either to shorten the voyage between two seas by cutting through an intervening isthmus, or to convert important inland places into seaports. An early example of the first class is afforded by the Caledonian Canal (q.v.), while among later ones may be mentioned the Suez Canal (q.v.), the Kaiser Wilhelm, Nord-Ostsee or Kiel Canal, connecting Brunsbuttel at the mouth of the Elbe with Kiel (q.v.) on the Baltic, and the various canals that have been proposed across the isthmus that joins North and South America (see PANAMA CANAL). Examples of the second class are the Manchester Ship Canal and the canal that runs from Zeebrugge on the North Sea to Bruges (q.v.).

_Construction._--In laying out a line of canal the engineer is more restricted than in forming the route of a road or a railway. Since water runs downhill, gradients are inadmissible, and the canal must either be made on one uniform level or must be adapted to the general rise or fall of the country through which it passes by being constructed in a series of level reaches at varying heights above a chosen datum line, each closed by a lock or some equivalent device to enable vessels to be transferred from one to another. To avoid unduly heavy earthwork, the reaches must closely follow the bases of hills and the windings of valleys, but from time to time it will become necessary to cross a sudden depression by the aid of an embankment or aqueduct, while a piece of rising ground or a hill may involve a cutting or a tunnel. Brindley took the Bridgewater canal over the Irwell at Barton by means of an aqueduct of three stone arches, the centre one having a span of 63 ft., and T. Telford arranged that the Ellesmere canal should cross the Dee valley at Pont-y-Cysyllte partly by embankment and partly by aqueduct. The embankment was continued till it was 75 ft. above the ground, when it was succeeded by an aqueduct, 1000 ft. long and 127 ft. above the river, consisting of a cast iron trough supported on iron arches with stone piers. Occasionally when a navigable stream has to be crossed, a swing viaduct is necessary to allow shipping to pass. The first was that built by Sir E. Leader Williams to replace Brindley's aqueduct at Barton, which was only high enough to give room for barges (see MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL). One of the earliest canal tunnels was made in 1766-1777 by Brindley at Harecastle on the Trent and Mersey canal; it is 2880 yds. long, 12 ft. high and 9 ft. wide, and has no tow-path, the boats being propelled by men lying on their backs and pushing with their feet against the tunnel walls ("leggers"). A second tunnel, parallel to this but 16 ft. high and 14 ft. wide, with a tow-path, was finished by Telford in 1827. Standedge tunnel, on the Huddersfield canal, is over 3 m. long, and is also worked by leggers.

Dimensions.

The dimensions of a canal, apart from considerations of water-supply, are regulated by the size of the vessels which are to be used on it. According to J.M. Rankine, the depth of water and sectional area of waterway should be such as not to cause any material increase of the resistance to the motion of the boats beyond what would be encountered in open water, and he gives the following rules as fulfilling these conditions:--

Least breadth of bottom = 2 X greatest breadth of boat.
Least depth of water = 1-1/2 ft. + greatest draught of boat.
Least area of waterway = 6 X greatest midship section of boat.

The ordinary inland canal is commonly from 25 to 30 ft. wide at the bottom, which is flat, and from 40 to 50 ft. at the water level, with a depth of 4 or 5 ft., the angle of slope of the sides varying with the nature of the soil. To retain the water in porous ground, and especially on embankments, a strong watertight lining of puddle or tempered clay must be provided on the bed and sides of the channel. Puddle is made of clay which has been finely chopped up with narrow spades, water being supplied until it is in a semi-plastic state. It is used in thin layers, each of which is worked so as to be firmly united with the lower stratum. The full thickness varies from 2 to 3 ft. To prevent the erosion of the sides at the water-line by the wash from the boats, it may be necessary to pitch them with stones or face them with brushwood. In some of the old canals the slopes have been cut away and vertical walls built to retain the towing-paths, with the result of adding materially to the sectional area of the waterway.

Water supply.