CHAPTER XXIX

ANNEXING CANADA--LADY ABERDEEN--LADY MINTO

The first person from whom I heard of the American immigration into Canada was Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He told me it had begun quietly, a few American farmers drifting across the border in search of better and cheaper land than could be had at home. There was no sound of drum or trumpet. These men had nothing to do with the talk of annexation. They had no political object. Their object was agricultural; only that and nothing more. It is possible enough that the reputed riches of the North-west province of Canada had something to do with the policy, if it can be called a policy, of the American annexationists, desiring to fire the hearts of the farmers in Illinois and Minnesota who saw the yield of their wheat lands diminishing yearly. It seems never to have occurred to the politicians that the farmers were quite capable of looking after their own interests, and that it was cheaper to buy land than to make war for it.

The movement had, at the time of this conversation in 1902, been going on for years. Beginning by scores, it had risen to hundreds yearly, then {278} thousands. Sir Wilfrid computed that there were altogether some fifty or sixty thousand American settlers in the Canadian North-west, and that the yearly exodus from "the States" had reached six thousand.

"But does not that raise or threaten to raise a political issue?"

"Oh, it is much too soon to think of that."

Nevertheless, I imagine Sir Wilfrid did think of it, and it may have been present to Lord Grey's mind when he launched his memorable declaration at the Waldorf Hotel two years later. Now, the number of Americans who are moving northward and acquiring Canadian soil is computed at a hundred thousand yearly or more. The political difficulty, if there were one, would seem to be met by the Canadian law allowing aliens to hold land but requiring them to become Canadians at the end of three years. I am told there is such a law but I do not know.

In truth, the political difficulty has never outgrown manageable limits. There has always been more or less "tall talk" about annexing Canada. Eloquent phrases have been heard--"One continent, one flag," or "the Stars and Stripes from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle." But no party has taken up this cry. One newspaper in New York, _The Sun_, did for a time preach annexation. _The Sun_ is a journal which does not disdain sensations, and has taught its readers to expect them, and from time to time fulfils the expectations it excites. The editor at that time was {279} Mr. Paul Dana, son of the Mr. Charles A. Dana who made _The Sun_ a powerful journal. Mr. Paul Dana started a society to promote the acquisition of Canada. The capital of the society was $125,000, or £25,000. That was the sum which Mr. Paul Dana and his friends thought sufficient, or were able to raise, if they did raise it, to sever from the British Empire a Dominion larger than the United States without Alaska, capable, in military opinion, of self-defence, but, in any case, with the military and naval power of Great Britain behind it. Mr. Paul Dana, however, did not pursue matters to the bitter end. He has ceased to be editor of _The Sun_ and Canada remains British. I do not know whether his annexation society is still in existence. But the American appetite for Canada, never keen, has grown duller still. Men's minds turn to other things. The Philippines and Hawaii and Porto Rico and the defence of the Pacific Coast are more than enough to occupy our attention. The Senate itself has grown tractable, and on the chief points of difference an agreement has been reached where five years ago no agreement seemed possible.

Two years after Sir Wilfrid Launer became Prime Minister the somewhat agitated and perhaps agitating Governor-Generalship of Lord Aberdeen came to an end. I suppose the cause of the troubled waters on which that particular ship of State was tossed was not to be found wholly or mainly in Lord Aberdeen himself, but in the multitudinous energies of Lady Aberdeen. Her {280} convictions were strong, her zeal was continuous, her certainty of being in the right was a certainty she shared with her sex, or with all those women who think public affairs their proper sphere. She had many admirable qualities and a courage which shrank from no adventure merely because it was an adventure.

Her zeal in the cause of Home Rule for Ireland is well known. It had been shown in Dublin. It was shown now at Ottawa. It crossed the border and hung out a flag in Chicago. In the Chicago Exhibition, or, as it was officially called, the "World's Columbian Exposition," in 1893, there was, among other attractions, an Irish village. This village Lady Aberdeen took under her patronage, and over it she hoisted an Irish flag of the kind in which the Home Rule heart rejoices; a flag with the Harp but without the Crown. If Lady Aberdeen had done this as a private individual it could hardly have been allowed to pass. But she did it as wife of the Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada. There were official remonstrances and the flag was lowered. Against an indiscretion of that kind may be set many useful and charitable enterprises, begun or encouraged by this lady in Ottawa and all over Canada. She is kindly remembered there, and her visits to Canada since Lord Aberdeen ceased to be Governor-General have been welcomed. But there are many stories of her crusading spirit besides the one I have told, and I suppose the Canadians really like to live a more peaceful life {281} than they were allowed to when Lady Aberdeen ruled over them.

Lord Minto succeeded Lord Aberdeen. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was Prime Minister during the whole of Lord Minto's term, and Mr. Chamberlain was Secretary for the Colonies down to the last year. I suppose it may be remarked that seldom have three great officials worked in a harmony more complete than did these three. It can hardly be necessary to say anything of Mr. Chamberlain except this; that his masterfulness never made itself felt in Canada in such a way as to weaken, but always in such a way as to strengthen, the tie between the Motherland and the Colony. His Imperialism took account of the Dominion as well as of the Empire; it took equal account for all purposes. It was under this strong hand that Canada felt her independence, perhaps for the first time, completely safeguarded.

Between Lord Minto and Sir Wilfrid Laurier there was on all subjects an understanding. That is not the same thing as saying they never differed, which would be absurd. But they had before them the same high objects, and they pretty well agreed as to the means of attaining them. The relations between Government House and Parliament House, where the Prime Minister had his headquarters, were cordial, frank, unrestrained, and delightful. That there should be relations of that kind between the representative of the Crown and the representative of the Dominion is of equal advantage to the Crown and to the {282} Dominion. They have not always existed, but there seems every reason to believe they will exist in the future, as they did in Lord Minto's time, and as they do now that Lord Grey speaks for the Sovereign and Sir Wilfrid Laurier is still the trusted Prime Minister of a Dominion which has grown too great to be called a Colony.

As I have mentioned Lady Aberdeen, I may say a word, though for a different reason, about Lady Minto, who for six years was the idol of Ottawa and of the whole Dominion. If ever there was an example of tact and felicity in the discharge of the duties that fall to the wife of a Governor-General, Lady Minto was that example. What need be added except that the statement is not a compliment but a testimony? The Canadian Press has paid its tribute and there are other tributes. One is that in Quebec and Toronto, the capital of the French Roman Catholic province and the capital of the British Protestant province, Lady Minto was equally popular and equally beloved. In a very literal but strictly correct and conventional sense it may be said that she was a power in the Dominion. The receptions at Government House were very interesting; perhaps sometimes curious as an example of democracy undergoing a social evolution. In all the Commonwealths beyond the seas the same process, I presume, may be studied. When Lady Carrington issued three thousand invitations to a reception at Government House in Sydney the limit had perhaps been reached for the time.

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There can be no such throng at Government House in Ottawa because it is not large enough; perhaps is not quite large enough for the dignity of the Dominion in these days of its amazing growth and ever-increasing importance. But Ottawa, though a flourishing city, is not a great city. It is a compromise capital; the middle term in which the rivalries of Quebec on the one hand and Toronto on the other found a means of peace on neutral and central ground.

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