Part 31

The general policy of the Conservative Government may fairly be described as one for the rapid development of the country. This leads it to desire more federal power, and there are some leading spirits who, although content with the present Constitution, would not oppose a legislative union of all the provinces. The policy of “development” led the party to adopt the present moderate protective tariff. It led it to the building of railways, to the granting of subsidies, in money and in land, to railways, to the subsidizing of steamship lines, to the active stimulation of immigration by offering extraordinary inducements to settlers. Having a vast domain, sparsely settled, but capable of sustaining a population not less dense than that in the northern parts of Europe, the ambition of the Conservative statesmen has been to open up the resources of the country and to plant a powerful nation. The Liberal criticism of this programme I shall speak of later. At present it is sufficient to say that the tariff did stimulate and build up manufactories in cotton, leather, iron, including implements of agriculture, to the extent that they were more than able to supply the Canadian market. As an item, after the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty, the factories of Ontario were able successfully to compete with the United States in the supply of agricultural implements to the great North-west, and in fact to take the market. I think it cannot be denied that the protective tariff did not only build up home industries, but did give an extraordinary stimulus to the general business of the Dominion.

Under this policy of development and subsidies the Dominion has been accumulating a debt, which now reaches something over $200,000,000. Before estimating the comparative size of this debt, the statistician wants to see whether this debt and the provincial debts together equal, per capita, the federal and State debts together of the United States. It is estimated by one authority that the public lands of the Dominion could pay the debt, and it is noted that it has mainly been made for railways, canals, and other permanent improvements, and not in offensive or defensive wars. The statistical record of 1887 estimates that the provincial debts added to the public debt give a per capita of $48.88. The same year the united debts of States and general government in the United States gave a per capita of $32, but, the municipal and county debts added, the per capita would be $55. If the unreported municipal debts in Canada were added, I suppose the per capita would somewhat exceed that in the United States.

Before glancing at the development and condition of Canada in confederation we will complete the official outline by a reference to the civil service and to the militia. The British Government has withdrawn all the imperial troops from Canada except a small garrison at Halifax, and a naval establishment there and at Victoria. The Queen is commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces in Canada, but the control of the same is in the Dominion Parliament. The general of the military force is a British officer. There are permanent corps and schools of instruction in various places, amounting in all to about 950 men, exclusive of officers, and the number is limited to 1000. There is a royal military school at Kingston, with about 80 cadets. The active militia, December 31, 1887, in all the provinces, the whole being under Dominion control, amounted to 38,152. The military expenditure that year was $1,281,255. The diminishing military pensions of that year amounted to $35,100. The reserve militia includes all the male inhabitants of the age of eighteen and under sixty. In 1887 the total active cavalry was under 2000.

The members of the civil service are nearly all Canadians. In the Federal Government and in the provinces there is an organized system; the federal system has been constantly amended, and is not yet free of recognized defects. The main points of excellence, more or less perfectly attained, may be stated to be a decent entrance examination for all, a special, strict, and particular examination for some who are to undertake technical duties, and a secure tenure of office. The federal Act of 1886, which has since been amended in details, was not arrived at without many experiments and the accumulation of testimonies and diverse reports; and it did not follow exactly the majority report of 1881, but leaned too much, in the judgment of many, to the English system, the working of which has not been satisfactory. The main features of the Act, omitting details, are these: The service has two divisions—first, deputy heads of departments and employés in the Ottawa departments; second, others than those employed in Ottawa departments, including customs officials, inland revenue officials, post-office inspectors, railway mail clerks, city postmasters, their assistants, clerks, and carriers, and inspector of penitentiaries. A board of three examiners is appointed by the Governor in council. All appointments shall be “during pleasure,” and no persons shall be appointed or promoted to any place below that of deputy head unless he has passed the requisite examination and served the probationary term of six months; he must not be over thirty-five years old for appointment in Ottawa departments (this limit is not fixed for the “outside” appointments), nor under fifteen in a lower grade than third-class clerk, nor under eighteen in other cases. Appointees must be sound in health and of good character. Women are not appointed. A deputy head may be removed “on pleasure,” but the reasons for the removal must be laid before both Houses of Parliament. Appointments may be made without reference to age on the report of the deputy head, on account of technical or professional qualifications or the public interest. City postmasters, and such officers as inspectors and collectors, may be appointed without examination or reference to the rules for promotion. Examinations are dispensed with in other special cases. Removals may be made by the Governor in council. Reports of all examinations and of the entire civil service list must be laid before Parliament each session. Amendments have been made to the law in the direction of relieving from examination on their promotion men who have been long in the service, and an amendment of last session omitted some examinations altogether.

It must be stated also that the service is not free from favoritism, and that influence is used, if not always necessary, to get in and to get on in it. The law has been gone around by means of the plea of “special qualifications,” and this evasion has sometimes been considered a political necessity on account of service to a minister or to the party generally. I suppose that the party in power favors its own adherents. The competitive system of England has a mischievous effect in the encouragement of the examinations to direct studies towards a service which nine in ten of the applicants will never reach. This evil, of numbers qualified but not appointed, has grown so great in Canada that it has lately been ordered that there shall be only one examination in each year.

The federal pension system cannot be considered settled. A man may be superannuated at any time, but by custom, not law, he retires at the full age of sixty. While in service he pays a superannuation allowance of two and a half per cent, on his salary for thirty-five years; after that, no more. If he is superannuated after ten years’ service, say, he gets one-fiftieth of his salary for each year. If he is not in fault in any way, Government may add ten years more to his service, so as to give him a larger allowance. If a man serves the full term of thirty-five years he gets thirty-five fiftieths of his salary in pension. This pension system, recognized as essential to a good civil service, has this weakness: A man pays two and a half per cent, of his salary for twenty years. If the salary is $3000, his payments would have amounted to $1200, with interest, in that time. If he then dies, his widow gets only two months’ salary as a solatium; all the rest is lost to her, and goes to the superannuation fund of the treasury. Or, a man is superannuated after thirty-five years; he has paid perhaps $2100, with interest; he draws, say, one year’s superannuative allowance, and then dies. His family get nothing at all, not even the two months’ salary they would have had if he had died in service. This is illogical and unjust. If the two and a half per cent, had been put into a life policy, the insurance being undertaken by the Government, a decent sum would have been realized at death.

A civil service is also established in the provinces. That in Quebec is better organized than the federal; the Government adds to the pension fund one-fourth of that retained from the salaries, and half pensions are extended to widows and children.

It will be seen that this pension is an essential part of the civil service system, and the method of it is at once a sort of insurance and a stimulation to faithful service. Good service is a constant inducement to retention, to promotion, and to increase of pension. The Canadians say that the systems work well both in the federal and provincial services, and in this respect, as well as in the matter of responsible government, they think their government superior to ours.

The policy of the Dominion Government, when confederation had given it the form and territory of a great nation, was to develop this into reality and solidity by creating industries, building railways, and filling up the country with settlers. As to the means of carrying out this the two parties differed somewhat. The Conservatives favored active stimulation to the extent of drawing on the future; the Liberals favored what they call a more natural if a slower growth. To illustrate: the Conservatives enacted a tariff, which was protective, to build up industries, and it is now continued, as in their view a necessity for raising the revenue needed for government expenses and for the development of the country. The Liberals favored a low tariff, and in the main the principles of free-trade. It might be impertinence to attempt to say now whether the Canadian affiliations are with the Democratic or the Republican party in the United States, but it is historical to say that for the most part the Unionists had not the sympathy of the Conservatives during our Civil War, and that they had the sympathy of the Liberals generally, and that the sympathy of the Liberals continued with the Republican party down to the Presidential campaign of 1884. It seemed to the Conservatives a necessity for the unity and growth of the Dominion to push railway construction. The Liberals, if I understand their policy, opposed mortgaging the future, and would rather let railways spring from local action and local necessity throughout the Dominion. But whatever the policies of parties may be, the Conservative Government has promoted by subsidies of money and grants of land all the great so-called Dominion railways. The chief of these in national importance, because it crosses the continent, is the Canadian Pacific. In order that I might understand its relation to the development of the country, and have some comprehension of the extent of Canadian territory, I made the journey on this line—3000 miles—from Montreal to Vancouver.

The Canadians have contributed liberally to the promotion of railways. The Hand-book of 1886 says that $187,000,000 have been given by the governments (federal and provincial) and by the municipalities towards the construction of the 13,000 miles of railways within the Dominion. The same authority says that from 1881 to July, 1885, the Federal Government gave $74,500,000 to the Canadian Pacific. The Conservatives like to note that the railway development corresponds with the political life of Sir John A. Macdonald, for upon his entrance upon political life in 1844 there were only fourteen miles of railway in operation.

The Federal Government began surveys for the Canadian Pacific road in 1871, a company was chartered the same year to build it, but no results followed. The Government then began the construction itself, and built several disconnected sections. The present company was chartered in 1880. The Dominion Government granted it a subsidy of $25,000,000 and 25,000,000 acres of land, and transferred to it, free of cost, 713 miles of railway which had been built by the Government, at a cost of about $35,000,000. In November, 1885, considerably inside the time of contract, the road was finished to the Pacific, and in 1886 cars were running regularly its entire length. In point of time, and considering the substantial character of the road, it is a marvellous achievement. Subsequently, in order to obtain a line from Montreal to the maritime ports, a subsidy of $186,000 per annum for a term of twenty years was granted to the Atlantic and North-west Railway Company, which undertook to build or acquire a line from Montreal via Sherbrooke, and across the State of Maine to St. John, St. Andrews, and Halifax. This is one of the leased lines of the Canadian Pacific, which finished it last December.

The main line, from Quebec to Montreal and Vancouver, is 3065 miles. The leased lines measure 2412 miles, one under construction 112, making a total mileage of 5589. Adding to this the lines in which the company’s influence amounts to a control (including those on American soil to St. Paul and Chicago), the total mileage of the company is over 6500. The branch lines, built or acquired in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, are all necessary feeders to the main line. The cost of the Canadian Pacific, including the line built by the Government and acquired (not leased) lines, is: Cost of road, $170,689,629.51; equipment, $10,570,933.22; amount of deposit with Government to guarantee three per cent, on capital stock until August 17, 1893, $10,310,954.75. Total, $191,571,517.48.

Without going into the financial statement, nor appending the leases and guarantees, any further than to note that the capital stock is $65,000,000 and the first mortgage bonds (five per cent.) are $34,999,633, it is only necessary to say that in the report the capital foots up $112,908,019. The total earnings for 1885 were $8,308,493; for 1886, $10,081,803; for 1887, $11,600,412, while the working expenses for 1887 were $8,102,294. The gross earnings for 1888 are about $14,000,000, and the net earnings about $4,000,000. These figures show the steady growth of business.

Being a Dominion road, and favored, the company had a monopoly in Manitoba for building roads south of its line and roads connecting with foreign lines. This monopoly was surrendered in 1887 upon agreement of the Dominion Government to guarantee 3 1/2 per cent, interest on $15,000,000 of the company’s land grant bonds for fifty years. The company has paid its debt to the Government, partly by surrender of a portion of its lands, and now absolutely owns its entire line free of Government obligations. It has, however, a claim upon the Government of something like six million dollars, now in litigation, on portions of the mountain sections of the road built by the Government, which are not up to the standard guaranteed in the contract with the company.

The road was extended to the Pacific as a necessity of the national development, and the present Government is convinced that it is worth to the country all it has cost. The Liberals’ criticism is that the Government has spent a vast sum for what it can show no assets, and that it has enriched a private company instead of owning the road itself. The property is no doubt a good one, for the road is well built as to grades and road-bed, excellently equipped, and notwithstanding the heavy Lake Superior and mountain work, at a less cost than some roads that preceded it.

The full significance of this transcontinental line to Canada, Great Britain, and the United States will appear upon emphasizing the value of the line across the State of Maine to connect with St. John and Halifax; upon the fact that its western terminus is in regular steamer communication with Hong-Kong via Yokohama; that the company is building new and swift steamers for this line, to which the British Government has granted an annual subsidy of £60,000, and the Dominion one of $15,000; that a line will run from Vancouver to Australia; and that a part of this round-the-world route is to be a line of fast steamers between Halifax and England. The Canadian Pacific is England’s shortest route to her Pacific colonies, and to Japan and China; and in case of a blockade in the Suez Canal it would become of the first importance for Australia and India. It is noted as significant by an enthusiast of the line that the first loaded train that passed over its entire length carried British naval stores transferred from Quebec to Vancouver, and that the first car of merchandise was a cargo of Jamaica sugar refined at Halifax and sent to British Columbia.

II.

We left Montreal, attached to the regular train, on the evening of September 22d. The company runs six through trains a week, omitting the despatch of a train on Sunday from each terminus. The time is six days and rive nights. We travelled in the private ear of Mr. T. G. Shaughnessy, the manager, who was on a tour of inspection, and took it leisurely, stopping at points of interest on the way. The weather was bad, rainy and cold, in eastern Canada, as it was all over New England, and as it continued to be through September and October. During our absence there was snow both in Montreal and Quebec. We passed out of the rain into lovely weather north of Lake Superior; encountered rain again at Winnipeg; but a hundred miles west of there, on the prairie, we were blessed with as delightful weather as the globe can furnish, which continued all through the remainder of the trip until our return to Montreal, October 12th. The climate just east of the Rocky Mountains was a little warmer than was needed for comfort (at the time Ontario and Quebec had snow), but the air was always pure and exhilarating; and all through the mountains we had the perfection of lovely days. On the Pacific it was still the dry season, though the autumn rains, which continue all winter, with scarcely any snow, were not far off. For mere physical pleasure of living and breathing, I know no atmosphere superior to that we encountered on the rolling lands east of the Rockies.

Between Ottawa and Winnipeg (from midnight of the 22d till the morning of the 25th) there is not much to interest the tourist, unless he is engaged in lumbering or mining. What we saw was mainly a monotonous wilderness of rocks and small poplars, though the country has agricultural capacities after leaving Rat Portage (north of Lake of the Woods), just before coming upon the Manitoba prairies. There were more new villages and greater crowds of people at the stations than I expected. From Sudbury the company runs a line to the Sault Sainte Marie to connect with lines it controls to Duluth and St. Paul. At Port Arthur and Fort William is evidence of great transportation activity, and all along the Lake Superior Division there are signs that the expectations of profitable business in lumber and minerals will be realized. At Port Arthur we strike the Western Division. On the Western, Mountain, and Pacific divisions the company has adopted the 24-hour system, by which a.m. and P.M. are abolished, and the hours from noon till midnight are counted as from 12 to 24 o’clock. For instance, the train reaches Eagle River at 24.55, Winnipeg at 9.30, and Brandon at 16.10.