Part 11

The swamp occasioned many anxious nights, and much burning of midnight oil. At places it appeared to be bottomless. The ballast locomotive would haul train after train-load of spoil excavated from the ballast-pit, and push it cautiously along to the end of the dump, where the trucks would be discharged. The rubble would rush down the declivity, and as it came into contact with the surface of the morass there would be a wicked squelch. Then the bog would open, and slowly, but surely and silently, the discharged mass would disappear into the viscous mass until the last vestige had slipped from sight, and the slime had rolled over the spot, concealing all evidences of the few hundred tons of material emptied on to the spot but a few minutes before. The engineer would sound the bog anxiously for signs of the bottom. Yes, he could feel it all right--10, 15, perhaps 20 feet below the surface. The trains would continue to rattle up and down with heavily laden trucks, and send the contents crashing pell-mell into the swamp below. Ten train-loads of gravel, rock, and what not would disappear from sight, and the engineer would probe the treacherous sponge once more. But the soundings did not vary a foot. Where had the dump gone? The ballast had sunk simply to the bottom of the bog, and had spread itself out on all sides, finding its own level like water. The bed of the morass was as broken as the hill-side near by, and was intersected in all directions by ruts and gullies. Until these holes were filled, there could be no possible hope of the embankment appearing above the surface of the bog....

While the upper stretches of New Ontario and Quebec were occasioning the engineers many anxious moments, owing to the eccentricities of the muskeg and swamp, the graders advancing eastwards from Winnipeg were in close grips with rock, which offered a most stubborn resistance....

For hour after hour, day after day, month after month, nothing was heard but the chink-chink of drills and the devastating roar of explosive with its splitting and disintegrating work. Advance was exceedingly slow, some of the blasts requiring as much as six weeks or more to prepare, and then only breaking up sufficient of the granite mass to permit of an advance of about 200 feet....

It was on work of this nature where the greatest number of accidents occurred, the majority of which might have been avoided had the men engaged in the operations displayed but ordinary care.... Dynamite was responsible for more deaths on this undertaking than any other accident--the collapse of the Quebec Bridge notwithstanding--and sickness combined....

The slush on the lakes was one of the greatest obstacles which those in the field were doomed to face. From the bank it looks safe enough, but to venture upon its surface is to court certain death. Why? It is very simple to explain. The lakes freeze up under the advance of winter, but before the encrustation has assumed a sufficient thickness there is a heavy fall of snow. Under the weight of the white, fleecy mantle the ice slowly and steadily sinks below the level of the water, which, pouring over the mirror-like armour, saturates the snow. Under successive falls of snow the ice sinks lower and lower, and the slush assumes a greater and greater thickness, until at last it measures from 4 or 6 to 10 feet in depth. What is more, it persistently refuses to freeze. The appearance of its smooth surface tempts the daring to advance. It withstands his weight until he has ventured a fair distance from the shore; then, without the slightest warning, suddenly it opens up, drawing the unwary into its icy depths, where he is soon suffocated. One cannot escape from its embrace, no matter how great the struggle, and, when the end is reached, the slush gathers over one, giving no inkling of the ghastly secret beneath....

The greatest summer peril was from bush fires, which rage with terrific fury and are of frequent occurrence throughout New Ontario, the spruce, jack-pine and other indigenous resinous trees providing excellent fuel for the flames. The danger from this terror of the forest was not so much in regard to human life, as to the destruction of precious provisions hauled in and cached for the succeeding winter, the loss of which might have jeopardised the welfare of a whole survey party. Once this devastating fiend secures a firm grip it roars viciously. The forest through which it sweeps with incredible speed becomes a fiendish furnace, which either has to burn itself out, or to suffer extinction by a tropical downpour of rain.

56. CANADIAN NAVAL POLICY (1912).

=Source.=--_The Times_ Special Supplement, 31st December, 1912--a Review of the Year 1912.

Mr. Borden's main proposal was that a sum of £7,000,000 should be voted at once for the construction of three armoured ships of the latest and strongest type. These ships were to be built in England and placed at the disposal of the Admiralty, subject to recall at a later period should the permanent naval policy of the Dominion require it. To show their origin they were to bear Canadian names, and they were to be additional to the programme of construction already laid down for next year's Navy Estimates by the First Lord of the Admiralty. In order, meanwhile, that naval shipbuilding should make a start in Canada, yards were to be established for the construction of certain cruisers and auxiliary craft which the Admiralty engaged to order from the Dominion. A very important step towards closer consultation in matters of policy was, moreover, announced in the appointment of a Canadian Minister to the Committee of Defence. This Minister was to have the right of being present at all meetings of the Committee, which would thus be brought much more closely in touch with the Dominion Cabinet. In the course of his speech, Mr. Borden also read out an extremely lucid and well-worded Memorandum on the growth of foreign navies, with which he had been supplied at his own especial request by the Admiralty.

The main effect of the Memorandum was to show the increasing concentration in home waters demanded of the British Navy by the swift expansion of the German Fleet and the consequent reduction of Imperial naval strength in all outlying seas. The statement was an eloquent corollary to a suggestion thrown out by Mr. Churchill on May 16 at a banquet of the Shipwrights' Company. The First Lord then urged that, while Great Britain made herself responsible for the security of the Empire in the central European theatre, the Dominions might combine to patrol the outer seas. This argument was strongly developed by Mr. Borden in the course of his speech; and, though it has not been repeated by Mr. Churchill, it is likely to exercise a very important influence on the development of opinion on the naval question in the Dominions. Mr. Borden's proposals were received with enthusiasm in this country; but Liberal critics showed a tendency to question the constitutional propriety of the addition to the Committee of Defence, and to complain of the cost of manning and maintaining ships which were to be strictly additional to those already demanded by the Admiralty. The latter line of complaint, though never at all widely urged, received some reinforcement from Sir Wilfred Laurier's speech a week later. The Leader of the Opposition supported, as we have already said, the vote of £7,000,000; but he moved an amendment to the Bill proposing that this sum should be devoted to the construction of a Canadian Navy, to be manned and maintained entirely by the Dominion. It was added that the ships proposed should be built in the Dominion and should form two separate fleet-units, one on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific Coast. Sir Wilfred Laurier also took occasion to reiterate a view formerly expressed that Dominion ships should not take part in any Imperial war except upon a vote of the Canadian Parliament....

It would, however, be leaving the most significant part of the event untold not to record the profound impression which it has created throughout the Empire. The gift of the Malay States had already roused a strong wave of Imperial sentiment when Mr. Borden delivered his speech. It is no exaggeration to say that the Canadian initiative was hailed with fervid enthusiasm everywhere. Opinions differed in regard to the details of control, but there was only one voice regarding the main proposal of three first-class ships. Great attention was, moreover, given to the announcement that a Canadian Minister should in future be regularly summoned to the Committee of Defence, and the opinion was freely expressed that in the proposal lay the germ of a much closer future union in foreign policy and defence.

57. CANADIAN STREAMS.

By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.

O rivers rolling to the sea From lands that bear the maple tree, How swell your voices with the strain Of loyalty and liberty!

A holy music heard in vain By coward heart and sordid brain, To whom this strenuous being seems Naught but a greedy race for gain.

O unsung streams--not splendid themes You lack to fire your patriot dreams! Annals of glory gild your waves, Hope freights your tides, Canadian streams!

St. Lawrence, whose wide water laves The shores that ne'er have nourished slaves! Swift Richelieu of lilied fame! Niagara of glorious graves!

Thy rapids, Ottawa, proclaim Where Daulac and his heroes came! Thy tides, St. John, declare La Tour, And, later, many a loyal name!

Thou inland stream, whose vales, secure From storm, Tecumseh's death made poor! And thou, small water, red with war, 'Twixt Beaubassin and Beauséjour!

Dread Saguenay, where eagles soar, What voice shall from the bastioned shore The tale of Roberval reveal Or his mysterious fate deplore?

Annapolis, do thy floods yet feel Faint memories of Champlain's keel, Thy pulses yet the deed repeat Of Poutrincourt and D'Iberville.

And thou far tide, whose plains now beat With march of myriad westering feet, Saskatchewan, whose virgin sod So late Canadian blood made sweet?

Your bulwark hills, your valleys broad, Streams where De Salaberry trod, Where Wolfe achieved, where Brock was slain, Their voices are the voice of God!

O sacred waters! not in vain, Across Canadian height and plain, Ye sound us in triumphant tone The summons of your high refrain.

NOTES

LORD DUFFERIN (Frederick Blackwood), 1826-92: Governor-General of Canada, 1872-8.

JACQUES CARTIER, 1491-1557: explored the St. Lawrence, 1535-42.

COUNT DE MONTS, 1560-1611: a Huguenot gentleman of the French Court, had a patent for the colonisation of Acadia (Nova Scotia) from 1603 to 1607.

SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN, 1567-1635: interested in Canada, 1603-35: founded Quebec, 1608.

THOMAS JAMES, 1593-1635: a Bristol man.

LUKE FOX, 1586-1635: sailed from London.

SIEUR DE MAISONNEUVE: founder of Montreal and Governor there for 22 years: died in 1676.

CHARLES DE MONTMAGNY: Governor of Canada, 1636-48, was opposed to the settlement of Montreal.

COUNT DE FRONTENAC, 1620-98: Governor of Canada, 1672-82 and 1689-98. The strongest Governor during the French period.

FRANCIS PARKMAN, 1823-93: the most picturesque of American historians: accurate as well as graphic.

MADELAINE VERCHÈRES: born 1678, married a second time in 1722, date of death unknown.

LOUIS-HECTOR DE CALLIÈRES, 1646-1703: came to Canada as Governor of Montreal in 1684: Governor-General at Quebec, 1699.

GILLES HOCQUART: Intendant of New France, 1731-48: an energetic and able official.

SIEUR DE LA VÉRENDRYE, 1685-1749: explored to the west of Canada, 1731-8. His sons are said to have sighted the Rockies in 1742.

MAJOR CHARLES LAWRENCE administered the government of Nova Scotia from 1753, became officially Governor in 1756: died in 1760.

HORACE WALPOLE, 1717-97: son of Sir Robert Walpole: wrote several books, but is most famous for his letters. Most of the letters here quoted were written to Sir Horace Mann, the British envoy at Florence.

HENRY SEYMOUR CONWAY, 1721-95: was a soldier and statesman, who had been much criticised for his failure in an expedition to Rochfort in 1757.

LORD HOLDERNESS (Robert D'Arcy), 1718-78: Secretary of State, 1751-61.

JAMES WOLFE, 1727-59: military commander of the Quebec expedition of 1759. On his death, George Townshend, 1724-1807, succeeded to the command at Quebec. He returned to England and left the defence to James Murray, 1719-94. The commander-in-chief in N. America was Jeffrey Amherst, 1717-97. The Admiral at Quebec was Sir Charles Saunders, 1713-75.

MARQUIS DE MONTCALM, 1712-59: French General in North America, 1756-9.

SAMUEL HEARNE, 1745-92: made the first inland explorations undertaken by the Hudson Bay Company, 1770-5.

SIR ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, 1755-1820: explored the Mackenzie river, 1789, and crossed the Rockies to the Pacific in 1793. Captain George Vancouver, R.N., 1758-98, was exploring the coast at the same time.

LOUIS RODRIGUE MASSON, 1833-1903: a member of the Canadian Senate and Lieut.-Governor of Quebec, collected and published narratives by a number of traders in the service of the North-West Company.

GEORGE HERIOT, 1766-1844: born in Jersey, became Postmaster-General of Canada: was second in command at the battle of Chateauguay in the War of 1812.

SIMON FRASER, 1776-1862: explored the Fraser river in 1808: declined knighthood in 1811: died poor near Montreal.

JAMES FITZGIBBON, 1780-1863: born in Ireland: won the battle of Beaver Dam, 1813: helped to put down the rebellion in Upper Canada, 1837: returned to England later.

SIR PHINEAS RIALL, 1775-1850: commanded at the battle of Chippawa: Governor of Grenada, 1816: knighted, 1833.

SIR GORDON DRUMMOND, 1771-1854: born at Quebec: fought as colonel against the French in Egypt, 1801: won the battle of Lundy's Lane, 1814: administrator of Lower Canada, 1815-6.

LORD SELKIRK (Thomas Douglas), 1771-1820: planted a colony in Prince Edward Island in 1803: his colonists on the Red River, 1815-6, twice driven out by the North-West Company, but restored in 1817.

ROBERT SEMPLE, 1766-1816: born at Boston: travelled widely: became Governor of the Hudson Bay Company's territories in 1815.

CUTHBERT GRANT, the leader of the attacking party, was a Scottish half-breed.

JOHN GALT, 1779-1839: best known as a Scots novelist: visited Canada in the interests of the Canada Company in 1824 and 1826-9.

THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON, 1796-1865: a Nova Scotian: Judge of the Supreme Court there: in _Sam Slick_ posed as a Connecticut clockmaker pointing out the foibles and want of initiative of the Nova Scotians: founded the American school of humour: later came to England, and was a Member of Parliament, 1859-65.

LORD DURHAM (John George Lambton), 1792-1840: radical member of Parliament: helped to prepare the Reform Bill: son-in-law of Earl Grey, who carried the Bill: ambassador to Russia, Prussia, and Austria: sent as Special Commissioner to Canada after the rebellion of 1837: his Report is a "State paper on colonial affairs which will live to all time" (Sir Charles Lucas).

JOSEPH HOWE, 1804-73: a distinguished Nova Scotian statesman, who led the movement for responsible government in his native province: became Lieut.-Governor of N.S., 1873.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL, 1792-1878: son of the sixth Duke of Bedford: whig statesman: Home Secretary, 1835: Colonial Secretary, 1839: Prime Minister, 1846: Foreign Secretary, 1852: Lord President of the Council, 1854: Colonial Secretary, 1855: Foreign Secretary, 1859: Prime Minister, 1865. The most important period in his career is probably that of his ministry from 1846 to 1852.

SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, 1792-1860: Governor of the Hudson Bay Company's territories, 1821-60: crossed North America, 1828: made "overland" journey round the world, 1841-2.

JOHN ROBERT GODLEY, 1814-61: much interested in colonisation: helped to found the Church of England Colony of Canterbury in New Zealand, 1850: later became Under Secretary at War.

LORD ELGIN (James Bruce), 1811-63: Governor of Jamaica, 1842: Governor-General of Canada, 1847-54: carried out Lord Durham's plan of responsible government--he was Durham's son-in-law: envoy to China, 1857-8 and 1860-1: Viceroy of India, 1862-3.

SIR GEORGE GREY (1799-1882), who was Colonial Secretary, 1854-5, and several times Home Secretary, was a nephew of the Earl Grey who carried the Reform Act. He must not be confused with the more famous Sir George Grey (1812-98), who was Governor of South Australia, of New Zealand, and of Cape Colony.

SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD, 1815-91: born at Kingston, Ontario: leader of his (Conservative) party, 1856-91: led the federation movement, and became the first Prime Minister of the Dominion: politically responsible for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway: Prime Minister, 1878-91.

GEORGE BROWN, 1818-80: founder and editor of the Toronto _Globe_: leader of the radical party, but formed a coalition with Macdonald in order to carry Confederation, resigning as soon as success was assured.

CHRISTOPHER DUNKIN, 1811-81: born in London, England: went to Canada, 1836: he was at first an opponent, but later a strong supporter, of Confederation: passed the Canada Temperance Act: became a Judge of the Supreme Court of Quebec.

LORD STRATHCONA (Donald Smith), born in 1820 in Elginshire: entered the service of the Hudson Bay Co. in 1838: Governor of its territories, 1868: on the rebellion at the Red River in 1870, he succeeded in maintaining peace until the arrival of troops under Lord Wolseley: financially responsible for the making of the Canadian Pacific Railway: Governor of the Hudson Bay Co. in London, 1889: raised to the peerage, 1897.

GARNET, LORD WOLSELEY, 1833-1913: Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, 1895-1900: served in the Crimea and in India and China: commanded in Ashanti and Egypt as well as in the Red River expedition.

GEORGE MONRO GRANT, 1835-1902: Principal of Queen's University, Kingston, 1877: President of the Imperial Federation League, Ontario, 1889.

MISS E. PAULINE JOHNSON, "Tekahionwake," the descendant of Indian chiefs, who were the loyal allies of the British, has published several volumes of Canadian poetry.

SIR WILFRED LAURIER, born 1841, in Quebec: leader of the Liberal party, 1887: Prime Minister, 1896-1911.

ROBERT LAIRD BORDEN, born 1854, in Nova Scotia: leader of the Conservative party, 1901: Prime Minister, 1911.

CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, Canadian poet, historian and novelist, born in New Brunswick, 1860: has been a Professor in Nova Scotia and an editor in New York.

GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Written by Mlle. de Verchères at the request of Governor de Beauharnois.

[2] Cf. Extract 14, pp. 28-30

[3] Mackenzie found his situation to be on an arm of "Vancouver's Cascade Canal," part of what is now Burke Channel, about 52° 20′ N. lat.

[4] Representative institutions without responsible government.

[5] Colonial Secretary in the early part of 1839.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example: reunion, re-union; any one, anyone; casque; inconveniency; embogged; burthen; lenity.

Pg 33, 'an oble' replaced by 'a noble'.

Pg 44, 'he witholds' replaced by 'he withholds'.