Daily British Whig (1850), 20 Aug 1910, p. 14

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CANADA A NATION - By STEPHEN LEACOCK, BA., Ph.D, McGill University. ML by Publishers Press, 1910. pet interesting thing in cohnec- the Bomigion of Canada is je. The present, relatively i® no great mater. What- native conceit may prompt of our own importance, bave no oaim 16 bulk very large the four corners of the British empire, and that even now it has become ne- censary in that end to make some change in the design and conduct of our common imperial government. But there are many of us who do not see the future in this light, who feel that it will be incumbent on us to adopt, sooner or later, in all peace and har mony, an i nt statis consis: tent, as they think, with our material power and greatness, Some few of us, perhaps, »till old to the older theory, of a natural destiny of ab- sorption into the United States, and cherish the vision of a United North America, speaking but a single tongue and held in common by a united na- tion. This cast of opinion, that has drifted of late years into the baek- ground, is liable at any tine, owing to our lack of a common political purpose to undergo a recrudescence. It is not, however, the purpose of the present article, to discuss the vari- ous politieal alternatives that are thus opened tous, but to speak of us in our internal aspect and to see what will be the necessary conditions and LORD STRATHCONA, The Grand Old Man of the Dominion. First 1 wax that somehow, the military, the effigy of King George on the cous and principle of allegiance itself, would conjure it out of the country. Lord Durham proposed to spirit away the French nationality with the presto change of a provincial union, After him confederation was to nocomplish it. And in our own time the same feat is to be performed on what is called business principles, meaning, one may presume, the impor- tation of hats and dry goods by com- mercial deummers who no French and who drive the French Ca- nadian shop keeper to learn English in sheer despair, The thing cannot be done. The disappearance of the Frqnoh language or the amalgamation of the races if it is ever to come, lies beyond the furthest range of our foresight. At the conquest the French numbered some HOO00 to T0000. At the umion of 1840 their number had reached 450, 0. At the end of the nineteenth cen- tury 1,649,000, Including the French- Canadian settlers of the United States the race now reaches a total of about 0000 peo i ple From the mother province lof Quebec they are extending along {the Ontario side of the valley of the {Ottawa und are descending in growing {numbers on the sea board of New Brunswick. At the present time the chances of the survival of their na tionality and language are greater | {than ever. They have comp te a point where their numbers ave suflicient to maintain reat newspapers, magazines, educational institutions and all the WHITE LABEL ALE Bottled by The Dominion Brewery Co. Limited Toronto "The Ale of Quality," the very life of the malt, caught and held in absolute PCRICY. INDIA PALE ALE y First in Progress -- first in Perfection --firgtin Po iularity, the finest example of what a PALE ALE should be. "INVALID STOUT Yon want strength--you can get it and keep it by taking DOMINION BREWERY CO., Invalid Stout. XXX PORTER, Will make you work better, play better, rest better and sleep sh under when you take environment of the Canadian nation, i i opertie "eC inwide or outside of the British em- {:4.346-blooq making m Sper Bare Wen pire. In the fiest place we note that the word nation is ambiguous and per- vlexing., Many of us in Canada have hesitated to use it for fear of its econ- veving a false connotation. Strictly speaking it ought to imply the bond of common blood and descent. The means {(o restrict an overgreat infix, Whole vayage distant, from the ports background of literature and inteilee we shall find that within ten years « Of California and Washington. tual intercourse 'that prevents a lan: | pelled. season of plenty and of prosperity will Pat for" the farther progress of our gaage from degenerating into a peas bong a million peopls to Canada. setilomefit. slong these lines the thing 'anis dialect. He who founds his polity * . Now let us consider whither this ip. of supreme importance is the mbinten- [6 Canada in the theory of abworp- DOMINION BREWERY G0., Limited coming population will direct itseli, ance of our east and west commusica- [tion of the French, Huilds upon the | (leographically our situation is pecul- ftion, We must have not merely the 'sand. TORONTO jar. Fast and west Canada faces the [physical communication of our rail- | tut the essential point is that we vy be LEACOCK. B.A. BTEPHEN Ph.D. es of the outer. world, We n all some severt and a half le, which puts us from the view of the census taker, in he same class an Roumania or one of p lesser provinces of China, In the a course of the world's history, for one moment when the fate pe was affected by the capture 'Quebec, we have sounited for very In arts ahd letters we have for nothing 'at all. Our only to eminence is 49 a land of pro country. of the future, ht here. our claim is great. Look Homan empire, a single state, contain wl not one bit many nations. South Africa: and Canada contain each two nations, or rather, parts of them. The word is aldo used to convey an exact- ly opposite sense and to indieste not ihe tie of blood, but the status of po- litical independence. But: apart from these two meanings and for want of a better tetm, we have come in Canada to use the word to mean a community of people enonomieally and politieally united but not necessarily independent of the outside world. Nationhood be ging when the internal progress and and economic development of country fi KING GEORGE V., whom all British dominions are united in a common allegiance. you will, compress one's mo $0 the smallest space compa- ite continued existence, one realize that we have in Can- basix of a felure status, 1 great nities of the world. of late years-this great future towards at a rate of never old days we wero struggle with ¥ bail all we could |B. keep our westtersd provinces to- , It was enough for ug to dreany the vast solitudes of the west one day form an actual and ted part of Cavada. All of that hanged ' now. Suddenly, it wo stand pon the threshold of ern. as yet but little conscious path we are to tread. of our future indeed still impepetrable veil. In the 3 we do not seem to pon nsx of lies reaches a point which makes it: ap- pear a united and more or less sell sufficient unit. It is this point of maturity that we are reaching in Canada. Without en- quiring into the political future, Tet us see upon what sort of environment our national future is to rest. Take first the inevense of our population. The census office' estimates of March of the present year gives us 7,250,000 oe Not ago Lord Strathcona, speaking in London, said that Canada would have a population of 100,000,000 before the present cen- tury runs out. A statistical estimate will amply corroborate this. The rate of increase in the United States when it . was of about our t numer ical strength meant a ing of the population every twenty-five At that rate, with 7,750,000 in 19H, we should have 15,500,000 in 1936, 31,000, 000 in 1961, 62,000,000 in 1986 and ap- proximately, 100,000,000 at the close of the century. But it is"quite possible that our po- first quarter of th century will increase faster than this. It is not generally understood that by immi stands in a two great oceans, norfhward i southward it lies contignous on the | commercial, intellectual and moral. nhaolutely | is the possible discord intérest of east and west. only he counterpctad thought and sagaeious for hundreds. of miles frontierless, The geographical divisions ron north and south. The maritime provinces lie side hy sule with New Eng- | land. Ontario and Quebec are separ- | have to fear that there will grow This by careful policy. of the the inhospitable country the north western, with the repu'yPe either directly across the reat lakes. The country has no boundary against Da kota and its sister states while the passage to British Columbia is block edtiy the great barrier of the Rocky mountains. Worse than all, the down ward projection of the Hudson and James Bays well nigh cuts do minion in two, penetrating it at very point where settloment lies mi st | thinly. All through our history, till | yesterday, this formation lent eolonr | to the theory of a manifest desting of | union with the American roouiblic, We | seemed to have length without breath | ~a nation lying slong a shoe string But we are coming naw to see that | the case is pot as bad as it seemed The thindrawn aspect of our settle] ment was not a consequence of elim ite | and. 20il so much as of communica | tions, Conveniint access could he bad | to Unnada only hy the Rt, Lawrence or | from the American border, The north shore of the St. Lawrence front Mon. treal to Quebec is probably no Heiter suited for settlement than the Lanke of the Axhabaska or the Veace but the ome district was accessible, the other not. Hence the Canadian popu- lation spead itself thinly along its kne of communication like the van- guard of an army on the march. This is changing now. The striking feature of the present moment is ° the northern advance of Canadian settle ment, Our climate easily permits it. We have got away at last, from the bogey of the "acres of snow" and the "Christmas-in-Canada" pictures of the [the other a country of whose inhahi- [tants vast masses stand in no heredi- |ada, whose divigion from the Ameri- jean republic is our the | on; . BIIt JOHN A. MACDONALD, The grand statesman of confederation. London press. Lav down the Pritish Isles on the map of this country and the bottom 'end of them is slung up as far north as Winnipeg." The isother- mal line that marks the growth of the valuable timber of the temperate zone | and the northern edge of the cereal | belt, hangs low, it is true, in the een | tre of the dominion, but sweeps west- | 1 in a generous and ascending | curve till it crosses the valley of the Peace nearly 100 miles above the American frontier. Quebec has a vast northern hinter- | hack groaned "the Mstore" of two great land which we are reaching . already | European nations. ' through the valley of the Saguenay. have loved Canada best have failed For the production ,of power, this dis {to appreciate the trict, in which the Hamilton river [They have alone has a potential development 9,600,000 horse power, is perhaps surpassed in the world, We are 'soon | ated hy to see large Canadian cities set far {mere handful of British officers from the frontier and obviously mere adjunets of the settlement of the | fist' from United States. The Johannesburg of 'altered Canada will be besidp Lake Temiscam- | set tiers. ing, Edmonton will be the road centre and distributing oint of lin Canada has been. the subject of pa- the far north and = we shall havé in| triotic expectation in the part of a Prince Rupert a Pacific sfaport a mistaken section of the British people. ple with all the forceful aspiration and eager daring of will lack perhaps that flupnce exercised hy the existence of a ed day. should dawn, with the confederation of Ounada. Ure other point, too, of great | the Canadian nation. Racially, | among us two languages and, the tongue of 60,000. French Ever since the conquest, the sels [romd sistem, bul an active, direct in- 'onght not to wish for sueh ite back against the frozen seas, hut |tercoirse of all sections of the praple, | The | whole length with the United States, {gravest danger: that can face Canada [in our special relation and divergent Jveatest national can world. We 'and buidl our future on it. We must up harmonize the east andl west but i ated from the west hy the rugged and | among us two peoples, the eastern and cannot join them. In a sense and for | : one a comununity ONY [Featest good they will always be shore and communicate at every 'point | frained in an bistoric setting, built of difierent. The energy of the west, the | or [two races, remembering the past, with steadiness of the east, these must prairie | an economic stricture and with mari- | blended in our national character. An {time and trade relations of its own; #0 with our two races. We must build {tary relation to the history of Can- chivalry and idealism of the only the imaginary the {frontier of the gedgrapher, whose peo- and { I {ble by minute tentacles. : | 8 pew country, 'hoard the Buraside have named it the restraining in- {spool. icommon history. If such an ill-omen- shaped like an it is all over 'least two dozen tentacles instead im- clinging to portance should never be forgotten in | thought considering the future development of Whole sections of the cable : we are for inspection were. found covered. sev- {pot a single buts 'dual people, having 'eral feet deep with strange plaots and as our animal fife. Many of those who dominated. i meaning of this. found on the cable was a flesh colored E ¢haferd at what they think fish not more than four feet long, ol {the "initial blunder" of the conquest 'which was found enveloped in the ten. un- | when the French language was toler tacles the viotors; as if indeed a brought to the surface its. body { and swollen like a balloon. no [Scotch traders, on the strength of a loney, the ship's surgeon, who exam- Downing street, could have jped it, said he helieved the fish Miss Emily Jane Wilson, daughter of on aorp- tion, We have an great asset in our doudle history, our dual tongues, and to the .two histories of the is We must take our country as it we | be into the structure of our common wealth all that is "Hest in each. The French temperament, the steally reliability of Seoteh, the gayely of the Irish the solid plum-puddire; common- sense of the Britisher, must all be found as inzredignts in the make up of the Canadian nationality. ODD FISH. Brought Up Through Repair of Goy-| ernment Cables, Beattle Post-Intelligencer Strange monsters the like of which have seldom been seen by man, were dragged up from a depth of 8,500 feet by the crew of the cable ship Burnside when they repaired the Alaska .eable of Mount St, Elias last month, The Burnside is moored at its buoy in Eliott Bay, after two months of repairing and relaying the cables of the United States Army Signal Corps system. On board were a score of huge flasks filled with aleohol. In them floated strange shapes which it was hard to believe were living crea: tures, Balls of red hair, which looked like tousled human heads, proved upon dis- section to be a strange kind of deep water crab. Flesh colored round masses were found] clinging to the ca- Une creature is shaped like the diablo toy, narrow in the middle with big concave white disks at either end hy which it catches hold of any object. The sailors on Another strange marine creature is octopus, but has at of Many octopuses were found the cable, but they were common to preserve. pulled up eight. too Seaweed, black instead of green, sponges and sen urching pre the creature Probably strangest When "is E XR. of a young octopus. De. J. ; was choked by the hold of the octopus. The section of gable upon which all b rail: | disappearance of the French language 'this strange life was found had een down ten years sta depth of a mile and a half. The specimens which have been preserved and which are now on board the Burnside are to he handed over to the Smithsonian Institution for scientific study. By Special Messenger. Success Magazine, It is told that after rol. Aytoun had made proposals of marriage to "Christopher North," he was, y to her, "Emily, my dear, you must speak to him for me. 1 could not summon Soarnge to speak to the professor' on this subject." . "Papa is in the library," said the "Then you had beiter go- said the professor, "and 1 will There being appareritly ho help, for it, the lady proweded to "Papa's answer is pi back of my dress," de "2 1 5 wait RIGNEY & HICKEY ,Agents 1868 PRINCESS STREET, KINGSTON. O to your grocer, buy a kage of Ascpto-- it will cost Loh a! e it home and diuive a single teaspoonful in a pan of dishwater, That's what you do--then see the result. Note how it cuts the » how it leaves your chins and glassware bright and shining--how clean and wholesome it leaves your pots -- your pans -- your cooking utensils, It does all that--and more. It destroys every trace of the germ life that exists wherever there is sus- tenance for these microscopic trouble breeders to feed upon--it sterilizes and renders every. thing antiseptically--surgically, if you will-- clean, That's why you should always wash glass, chinaware, cutlery -- any article used for eating or drinking with Asepto. It makes contagion impossible. Perhaps the w quickest way for you realize how it cleanses is for you to note the way it sweetens your dish-cloths, : Tell your grocer to send you a package of Asepto ~ all good grocers sell it at five cents. 3 THE ASEPTO MFG. CO. ST. JOHN, N.B. SEPTO SOAP POWDER. weetens the home + FRUIT i the best possible way means to use the best fruit obtainable and ; will have preserves of highest ee: failure by using substitutes ? L Ar Always ask for" Redpaib's Red Seal Paris SUGAR Lumps, Packed in Dust proof Cartoss. *

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