CHAPTER VI

TORONTO AND ITS EXHIBITION

Montreal, like Quebec, is rich in historic associations, fine old buildings, and French-Canadians. To stand on Mount Royal—a precipitous park rising to a height of seven hundred and forty feet—and look down over the magnificent, ruddy city of domes and spires, with the St. Lawrence sweeping away into a lilac haze of Canadian geography, is a thrilling experience one never forgets. When I last saw that scene, little birds were singing in overhanging trees, and I heard the peaceful music of bells ringing in the old convents far below.

In point of population, and because it is the headquarters of commerce, shipping and railways, Montreal holds the title of the metropolis of Canada. Its shops and theatres are superb, and greatly have I enjoyed my sojourns in that city. It makes a wide appeal to one’s sympathies. It belongs not only to the present, but to the past. It represents old Canada and new Canada. It contains both Protestants and Catholics. And because of its manifold merits and ineffable charms, Montreal misses the quality that makes Toronto so fascinating.

Not that the two cities admit of comparison. As well might one weigh the attractions of Bruges against those of New York, or set the useful qualities of chalk against the nutritive value of cheese. Montreal is a city of to-day and yesterday. Toronto is a city of to-day and to-morrow. The history of Montreal would make an interesting fat volume; Toronto’s two-pennyworth of history would go into a paragraph.

I admire Montreal. But I simply fell head over heels in love with Toronto. It has a population of 350,000 progressive optimists. The whole city is full of bustle, but of bustle without hustle. It is a hive of healthy and vivacious industry. Toronto lives at the brisk pace that keeps the blood in a healthy glow. The people have discovered the happy mean between the hurry that wrecks nerves and the sloth that impairs digestion. Everybody in Toronto seems to be busy for the sheer joy of the thing. Tread on a man’s foot in that city and, instead of swearing, he smiles—then goes bustling off on whatever matter of business may happen to engage his enthusiasm. Nobody in Toronto gave me the impression of working under a sense of mere necessity. Everybody seemed to find his or her daily occupation an absorbing hobby.

In a word, the spirit of Toronto is the newest spirit of the New World, undiluted. The life of Toronto is the life of modern Canada as developed amid the amenities of a city; and the life of modern Canada is the life of modern England—with the care and worry left out. The mechanic commands his £5 a week; a living wage, with some margin for luxuries, is accessible to everyone. The loss of a berth in London is apt to be a catastrophe. The loss of a berth in Toronto doesn’t matter—you can easily get another. Hence the prevailing optimism. And optimism is a condition of progress. When a man is not living in daily dread of what the morrow may bring forth he dares to do things.

Toronto is a dashing, go-ahead, clean, handsome, well-governed city. It is not run in the interests of ground landlords and private monopolies. The inhabitants, when they pay their five cents for a ride by electric tramcar (and you go as far as you like for that), are putting money into their own pockets. Indeed, the municipal revenue from the tramway traffic since 1891 has totalled about £1,000,000, the annual instalments having appreciably assisted to keep down the rates. The tramway system is not a haphazard growth—it is not, as in some English cities, a tangle of unrelated parts. It is a scientific unity supplying means of quick transit over the twenty-eight square miles on which the city stands. No one dreams of walking any distance in Toronto. Its electric cars annually carry a number of passengers equal to the population of the United States.

Toronto, I say, breathes the spirit of progress and of the opening era—of the good new times controlled by a concern for the many, instead of for the few. Still in its early youth, Toronto is already one of the notable cities of the world. It is growing vigorously. Measure its future greatness if you can.

There is no need to preach Garden City principles in Toronto. Its administrators will never be under the necessity of seizing upon half-rood burial grounds, and clearing off the gravestones, in order to provide a gasping population with a little live air. In addition to broad, tree-planted thoroughfares, Toronto has fifty parks and gardens, covering an area of over fifteen hundred acres. Not that the city is in any danger of running short of unpolluted atmosphere, since it is situated beside a lake that is wider than many parts of the English Channel and nearly two hundred miles longer. Moreover, electric power from Niagara obviates the nuisance of smoky chimneys.

Another source of substantial civic revenue is the water supply—that advantage being accompanied by the boon of low charges to the consumer. For a four-roomed house the annual water rate is 8s. 4d., subject to an increase of 2s. 1d. for every additional room, and to a like charge for a bath; while by meter the tariff is a trifle over 3d. per 1,000 gallons for ordinary manufacturers and nearly 8½d. for brewers. The local exchequer also derives considerable assistance from a system of licensing the vocations that derive profit from the organisation of a populous city. Thus the bill-poster, the milkman, the fish pedlar, the plumber, and the rag collector are among those who pay toll to the tune of 4s. 2d. per annum; the cab-driver being let off lightly with a fee of 1s. 0½d. The proprietor of an ice-cream parlour or of a wax-work show has to disburse £1 0s. 10d.; the auctioneer’s yearly tax is £10 8s. 4d.; while the owner of each of Toronto’s one hundred and ten taverns has to pay £340 for his annual licence. With regard to the last item, I may mention that, Canada being a free country, there are places in Toronto where a man may consume alcoholic refreshment, either in moderation or to excess, according to his individual bent; but neither in Toronto nor elsewhere in Canada do you find liquor shops at almost every corner, and dotted along the principal streets, as in England.

But, as I have already hinted, what particularly took my fancy in the Ontario capital was its population. When the people of Toronto do a thing, they do it heartily, and therefore well. Let me give an instance of their thoroughness.

Some thirty-and-odd years ago the authorities of the province decided to institute an annual Provincial Exhibition, and the people of Toronto assisted the project on the understanding that their city was to be the scene of the event for two succeeding years. This concession, if it were ever made, was withdrawn; whereupon Toronto felt spurred to institute a more important annual exhibition (on national, instead of provincial, lines) that should perpetually recur within its boundaries.

For this purpose it set apart an area of 260 acres in the heart of the city and having a frontage to Lake Ontario extending for a mile and a half. On that area it erected exhibition buildings—not temporary edifices of wood and plaster, but huge, handsome structures of brick, stone, concrete and steel. Then it beautified the surroundings with terraces, promenades and flower gardens.

Control was vested in a board of twenty-five directors, eight being elected by the City Council, eight by the manufacturing interests of Canada, and eight by agricultural associations, the remaining seat being allotted to the Minister of Agriculture. The first exhibition, held in 1879, was a success, the number of visitors being 101,794, and the receipts reaching a total of £11,400, while £3,400 was given away in prizes. Year by year the scope of the Exhibition has been enlarged, and year by year the success of the Exhibition has increased. Last year (1910) the visitors numbered 837,200, the receipts were £58,000, and the value of prizes £10,260. And note these two remarkable facts: the Exhibition is open for only a fortnight every year, and it always shows a handsome margin of profit. The amount in 1909 was £13,000. This surplus is handed over to the City Council, to be used in extending the buildings and improving the grounds. When not in use for the Exhibition the place is available as a public park.

Thus the Toronto Exhibition is popular, prosperous, and permanent. Special excursions are run to it from all settled regions of Canada, the railway and steamboat companies granting reduced rates for the occasion. Also the event always attracts a host of Americans.

It is said—and I believe with justice—that so successful an institution of this character is to be found in no other country. What is the explanation, the reader will ask, of this remarkable achievement of a Canadian city? The only answer I can suggest is—enthusiastic thoroughness.

Let us glance at the scope of the Exhibition. From each section of the Dominion the Provincial Government sends a representative collection of local products. Distinct buildings are allotted to agriculture, manufactures, industries, art, transportation, dairying and machinery. In addition, there are an “Applied Art Building,” a “Women’s Building,” an “Administration Building,” a “Press Building,” a “Dog Building,” and a “Poultry Building.” Stabling is provided for 1,500 horses, 1,200 head of cattle, and 600 swine. A livestock arena was recently constructed at a cost of £22,000. There is a grand stand (having a length of 725 feet and seating accommodation for 16,800 persons), which cost £46,000, and is built of brick, steel and concrete. Including police and fire stations, telegraph and telephone offices, a bank, restaurants, rest rooms, etc., the Exhibition buildings represent a value of nearly half a million pounds sterling. Apart from visitors, there is a permanent population of ten thousand persons on the grounds during the annual fortnight.

To each day belongs a special interest. Thus, last year’s diary was as follows: Saturday (August 27th), Preparation Day; Monday, Opening Day; Tuesday, Inauguration Day; Wednesday, School Children’s Day; Thursday, Manufacturers’ Day; Friday, Press Day; Saturday, Commercial Travellers’ Day; Monday, Labour Day; Tuesday, Stock Breeders’ and Fruit Growers’ Day; Wednesday, Farmers’ Day; Thursday, Americans’ Day; Friday, Fraternal Society and Review Day; Saturday, Citizens’ Day; and Monday (September 12th), Break-up Day.

Everything that Canada makes and that other countries sell to Canada is found at the Exhibition. In 1909 that represented a mammoth collection of goods which filled the four large buildings devoted to manufactures, transportation, industries and machinery, besides overflowing into a Manufacturers’ Annexe, and into a vast area beneath the grand stand. Even so, the collection was cramped, so last year, to relieve the pressure, a special building was provided for British exhibits. Goods in process of manufacture are a feature of the Manufacturers’ department, and dense crowds gather daily to witness the making of silks, cotton, shoes, and a hundred and one other articles.

The Exhibition attracts the finest collection of horses and cattle to be seen in Canada, the number of animals totalling about ten thousand, and including many herds specially imported to compete against those bred in the Dominion.

The Art Loan Exhibit, selected by a resident agent in England, affords Canadians an opportunity to see examples of the great European Masters. Prominence is given to work done in the public schools of Canada, the co-operation of manual training colleges of the United States giving an international interest to this department. New inventions are another strong feature of the Exhibition. The first electric railway to be seen on the Continent was operated there, and that may also be said of the important developments in telegraphy, telephony, and other branches of applied science that recent years have witnessed. Nor does the energetic Board fail to provide high quality in music, military tournaments, and such frivolities as fireworks and variety-concert performances.

I cannot forbear in conclusion to quote the words used by the public-spirited directors to describe their achievement. “The Canadian National Exhibition,” they say, “is the one place to see Canada at a glance. It shows all that Canada makes, mines, and grows. It gathers the products of her homes, her farms, her forests, her waters, her mines and her industries, within the limits of the finest Exhibition Park on the North American Continent. It is recognised from coast to coast, and from the frozen north to the Gulf of Mexico, as the greatest of all annual Exhibitions, distinctly Canadian in its characteristics, and educational in its tendencies, and yet including so many high-class amusements and attractions as to make it the annual holiday centre for three-quarters of a million people drawn from all parts of North America. And the number is increasing every year.”

Bravo, Toronto!