Canada

Self-government exists in the full sense of the term. At the base of the political structure lie those municipal institutions which, for completeness, are not excelled in any other country. It is in the enterprising province of Ontario that the system has attained its greatest development. The machinery of these municipalities is used in Ontario to raise the taxes necessary for the support of public schools, Free libraries can be provided in every municipality whenever the majority of the taxpayers choose. Then we go up higher to the provincial organisations governed by a lieutenant-governor, nominated and removable by the government of the Dominion, and advised by a council responsible to the people's representatives, with a legislature composed, in only two of the provinces, of two houses—a council appointed by the Crown, and an elective assembly; in all the other provinces, there is simply an assembly chosen by the people on a very liberal franchise, manhood suffrage in the majority of cases. The fundamental law, or the British North America Act of 1867, gives jurisdiction to the provincial governments over administration of justice (except in criminal matters), municipal, and all purely local affairs. The North-West Territories are under the Department of the Interior. Yukon Territory is governed by a Gold Commissioner, appointed by the Governor-General in Council, and a Council of three members elected by the people, The central or general government of the Dominion is administered by a governor-general, with the assistance of a ministry responsible to a Parliament, composed of a Senate appointed by the Crown, and a House of Commons elected under an electoral franchise, practically on the very threshold of universal suffrage. This government has jurisdiction over trade and commerce, post-office, militia and defence, navigation and shipping, fisheries, railways and public works of a Dominion character, and all other matters of a general or national import. Education is under the control of the provincial governments, but the rights and privileges of a religious minority with respect to separate or denominational schools are protected by the constitution. The common law of England prevails in all the provinces except in French Canada, where the civil law still exists. The criminal law of England obtains throughout the Dominion. The central government appoints all the judges, who are irremovable except for cause. Although the constitution places in the central government the residue of all powers, not expressly given to the provincial authorities, conflicts of jurisdiction are constantly arising between the general and local governments. Such questions, however, are being gradually settled by the decisions of the courts—the chief security of a written constitution—although at times the rivalry of parties and the antagonisms of distinct nationalities and creeds tend to give special importance to certain educational and other matters which arise in the operation of the constitution. All these are perils inseparable from a federal constitution governing two distinct races.

The relations of Canada with the United States have been increasingly close and cordial as years have gone on. Many old standing causes of friction have been removed; and in other cases, such as the fisheries dispute, and the extremely high duties levied on Canadian goods in the Dingley Tariff, there has been no recent aggravation of the irritation. In 1894 an end was made to the dispute over the right of America to exclude other nations from taking the seals of the Aleutian Islands outside the three-mile limit. Canadian vessels had been seized and confiscated by America, and a state of high tension existed, which was relieved by a reference of the dispute to arbitration. This time the award was in favour of Canada. The exclusive right of pelagic sealing was denied to the United States, and damages amounting to $464,000 were awarded to the Canadian fishermen.

The year 1896 is memorable, not only for the general election which brought Sir Wilfrid Laurier into power, and for the beginning of an uplift in trade which lasted until October, 1907, but also for the discovery of gold in the Yukon and in Alaska. The great rush of adventurers induced by these discoveries continued for the next two years, and Dawson city grew up with mushroom haste as the metropolis of this Arctic region. Gold discoveries in both Canadian and American territory brought to a crisis the long-pending dispute over the international boundary in the far North-west. In 1898 a joint High Commission was created, whose duties were to settle a number of questions which had long caused friction between Canada and the United States. The sessions of this Commission extended over eight months without accomplishing anything. No formal ending was made to the work of the Commission, but it never re-assembled after its adjournment in February, 1899.

It was not until 1903 that an agreement was reached between Great Britain and the United States concerning the Alaskan boundary line. In that year a treaty was concluded by which this long-disputed question was relegated to a Commission of six jurists, three British and three American, who by a majority vote were empowered to determine the boundary line. The British members of the Commission were Lord Alverstone, Chief Justice of England, who was made president, with a casting vote in case of a tie, and two Canadians, Sir Louis Jette and Mr. A. B. Aylesworth, both eminent jurists. The American members were Mr. Henry C. Lodge, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. George Turner. The report of the Commission, which was transmitted to the Governments of the United States and Great Britain in October, 1903, was somewhat disappointing to Canadians, as, on the whole, the Americans gained their contentions. Canada was shut out from water communication with the Yukon as far south as Portland Channel. The treaty in which this report was incorporated, and which was finally ratified in 1905, was, however, beneficial in removing a long-standing cause of irritation between the two nations, and Canada's need for a port was met in some degree by bonding concessions at the American ports on the Alaskan coast. An International Commission to mark out the boundary line was at work in Alaska in the summer of 1908.

Serious disturbance to a number of Canadian interests, especially those of the lumbermen, was caused by the passing of the Dingley Act, with its high duties on all Canadian exports except some raw materials. To the attack on Canadian lumber Ontario replied by prohibiting the export of saw logs cut on Crown timber limits, a step which led to the transfer of a considerable number of saw mills to the Canadian side of the border line. Another cause of complaint against the United States has been the strict and harsh enforcement of the contract labour laws on the American side of the boundary line.

It is the not unfounded boast of Canadians that as the nineteenth century was the century of growth and development of the United States, so the twentieth is to be the century of Canada; and the outstanding feature of Canadian development in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth is the awakening of her national consciousness. In all her relations with Great Britain this sense of nationality has been continuously manifest. In the Colonial Conferences which have been held at intervals in London since the first Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, Canada has been acknowledgedly first among the self-governing colonies. In 1897, partly as a result of the enthusiasm created by enactment of the preference for Great Britain by the Dominion Parliament, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the foremost figure among the colonial statesmen who were in London for the Diamond Jubilee. Another evidence of loyalty and of the close connection between Canada and Great Britain in the Jubilee year was the institution of two cent postage between Great Britain and Canada. Canada's domestic rate of letter postage from 1868 had been three cents, a rate which was extended to the United States by a postal convention, by which the domestic rate of Canada was made applicable to all letters and papers entering the United States, and that of the United States to all mail matter for Canada. This rate of three cents remained in force until January, 1899, when the two cent rate was made general for Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. In 1907, the rate for newspapers and periodicals between Great Britain and Canada was again lowered, and in August, 1908, a one cent rate for letters within the area of a town or city was adopted by the Canadian Post Office.

When the South African War broke out in 1899, Canada was the first of the colonies to come to the help of the mother country; and the Canadian contingents, the first of which left Canada for South Africa in October, 1899, rendered excellent service in the Boer War, especially in such work as scouting and the guerilla fighting in which the Boers were so adept.

The treaty-making power is still withheld from the Dominion; but since the Alaskan boundary treaty Great Britain has given more and more attention to the demands and needs of Canada when treaties have been in negotiation, and in 1907 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mr. W. S. Fielding, Minister of Finance, and the Hon. Mr. L. P. Brodeur went to Paris to negotiate directly a commercial treaty with the French Government. During the years from 1904 to 1907 the British Government gradually withdrew all the troops and warships which had been stationed in the Dominion. Canada assumed control of the fortifications of Halifax and Esquimalt in July, 1905, and the replacing of British by Canadian soldiers was complete by February, 1906. The naval dockyard at Halifax was handed over to the Canadian Government authorities in January, 1907; and from end to end of the Dominion Canada is now in complete and undivided control of her own territory.

[1] The boundaries of the new provinces were finally settled by an Act of Parliament passed in 1908—an Act which also greatly enlarged the boundaries of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

XXIX.

FRENCH CANADA.

As this story commenced with a survey from the heights of Quebec of the Dominion of Canada from ocean to ocean, so now may it fitly close with a review of the condition of the French Canadian people who still inhabit the valley of the St. Lawrence, and whose history is contemporaneous with that of the ancient city whose picturesque walls and buildings recall the designs of French ambition on this continent.

Though the fortifications of Louisbourg and Ticonderoga, of Niagara, Frontenac, and other historic places of the French régime in America have been razed to the ground, and the French flag is never seen in the valley of the St. Lawrence, except on some holiday in company with other national colours, nevertheless on the continent where she once thought to reign supreme, France has been able to leave a permanent impress. But this impress is not in the valley of the Mississippi. It is true that a number of French still live on the banks of the great river, that many a little village where a French patois is spoken lies hidden in the sequestered bayous of the South, and that no part of the old city of New Orleans possesses so much interest for the European stranger as the French or Creole quarter, with its quaint balconied houses and luxuriant gardens; but despite all this, it is generally admitted that the time is not far distant when the French language will disappear from Louisiana, and few evidences will be found of the days of the French occupancy of that beautiful State of the Union. On the banks of the St. Lawrence, however, France has left behind her what seem likely to be more permanent memorials of her occupation. The picturesque banks of the St. Lawrence, from the Atlantic to the great lakes of the West, are the home of a large and rapidly increasing population whose language and customs are so many memorials of the old régime whose history has taken up so many pages of this story.

The tourist who travels through the province of Quebec sees on all sides the evidence that he is passing through a country of French origin. Here and there in Quebec and Montreal, or in some quiet village sequestered in a valley or elevated on the Laurentian Hills, he sees houses and churches which remind him of many a hamlet or town he has visited in Brittany or Normandy. The language is French from the Saguenay to the Ottawa, and in some remote communities even now English is never spoken, and is understood only by the curé or notary. Nor is the language so impure or degenerated as many persons may naturally suppose. On the contrary, it is spoken by the educated classes with a purity not excelled in France itself. The better class of French Canadians take pride in studying the language of the country of their ancestors, and are rarely guilty of Anglicisms, though these have necessarily crept into the common parlance of mixed communities, where people are forced to speak both French and English. In some rural districts, isolated from large towns, the people retain the language as it was spoken two centuries ago—though without the accent of the old provinces of their origin—and consequently many words and phrases which are rarely now heard in France, still exist among the peasantry of French Canada, just as we find in New England many expressions which are not pure Americanisms but really memorials of old English times. In French Canada the Anglicisms are such as occur under the natural condition of things. The native of old France has no words for "clearing" the forest, making maple sugar, "blazing" a way through the woods or over the ice and snow of the rivers and lakes, and consequently the vocabulary of the French Canadian has been considerably enlarged by local circumstances. In the summer resorts of the lower St. Lawrence the influence of the English visitors, now very numerous, is becoming more evident every year, and French habits are becoming modified and the young folks commence to speak English fairly well. Away from the St. Lawrence, however, and the path of the tourists, the French Canadians remain, relatively speaking, untouched by English customs.

Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois has been the key-note of French Canadian politics for over a century. At the present time the records and statutes of the Dominion are always given in the two languages, and the same is true of all motions put by the Speaker. Though the reports of the debates appear daily in French, English prevails in the House of Commons and in the Senate. The French Canadians are forced to speak the language of the majority, and it is some evidence of the culture of their leading public men, that many among them—notably Sir Wilfrid, the eloquent leader of the Liberals, and first French Canadian premier since 1867—are able to express themselves in English with a freedom and elegance which no English-speaking member can pretend to equal in French. In the legislature of the province of Quebec, French has almost excluded English, though the records are given in the two languages. In the supreme court of the Dominion the arguments may be in French, and the two Quebec judges give their decisions in their own tongue.

The people of French Canada are very devout Roman Catholics. The numerous churches, colleges, and convents of the country attest the power and wealth of the Church, and the desire of the French Canadians to glorify and perpetuate it by every means in their power. The whole land is practically parcelled out among the saints, as far as the nomenclature of the settlements and villages is concerned. The favourite saint appears to be Ste. Anne, whose name appears constantly on the banks of the St. Lawrence. We have Ste. Anne de la Pérade, Ste. Anne de la Pocatière, and many others. We all remember the verse of Moore's boat song:

"Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We 'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn."

This village, situated at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, is generally known as Ste. Anne de Bellevue, and still retains some of the characteristics of a French Canadian village, notwithstanding its close neighbourhood to the English-speaking settlements of Ontario. Jesuits, Sulpicians, and Recollets have done much to mould the thought and control the political destiny of the people under their spiritual care. The universities, colleges, and schools are mainly directed by the religious orders. The priests, as this story has shown, have been very active and conscientious workers from the earliest days of Canadian history.

Canada, too, has her Notre Dame de Lourdes, to whose shrine the faithful flock by thousands. Some twenty miles east of Quebec, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, is the church of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, or, as the Saint is more particularly known, La bonne Ste. Anne, who has won fame in Canada for miraculous cures for two centuries at least.

This historic place rests under the shelter of a lofty mountain of the Laurentides, on a little plateau which has given it the name of the "beautiful meadow." The village itself consists of a straggling street of wooden houses, with steep roofs and projecting eaves, nearly all devoted to the entertainment of the large assemblage that annually resorts to this Canadian Mecca, probably some sixty thousand in the course of the summer. Here you will see on the fete of Ste. Anne, and at other fixed times, a mass of people in every variety of costume, Micmacs, Hurons, and Iroquois—representatives of the old Indian tribes of Canada—French Canadians, men, women, and children, from the valleys of the Ottawa, and the St. Maurice, and all parts of Quebec, as well as tourists from the United States. The handsome grey stone church—now dignified as a "basilica"—which has been built of late years, attests the faith of many thousands who have offered their supplications at the shrine of La bonne Ste. Anne for centuries.[1] Piles of crutches of every description, of oak, of ash, of pine, are deposited in every available corner as so many votive offerings from the countless cripples that claim to have been cured or relieved. The relic through which all the wonderful cures are said to be effected, consists of a part of the finger bone of Ste. Anne, which was sent in 1668 by the Chapter of Carcassonne to Monseigneur de Laval. The church also possesses several pictures of merit, one of them by Le Brun, presented by the Viceroy Tracy in 1666. The situation of many of the French Canadian villages is exceedingly picturesque, when they nestle in some quiet nook by the side of a river or bay, or overlook from some prominent hill a noble panorama of land and water. The spire of the stone church rises generally from the midst of the houses, and the priest's residence or presbytère is always the most comfortable in size and appearance. The houses are for the most part built of wood. The roofs are frequently curved, with projecting eaves, which afford a sort of verandah under which the family sit in summer evenings. Some of the most pretentious structures, especially the inns, have balconies running directly across the upper story. Many of the barns and outhouses have thatched roofs, which are never seen in any other part of Canada. The interiors are very plainly furnished, in many cases with chairs and tables of native manufacture. A high iron stove is the most important feature of every dwelling in a country where the cold of winter is so extreme. Whitewash is freely used inside and outside, and there is on the whole an air of cleanliness and comfort in the humblest cottage.

The loom is still kept busy in some villages, and a coarse, warm homespun is even yet made for everyday use. The habitant also wears in winter moccasins and a tuque bleue, or woollen cap, in which he is always depicted by the painter of Canadian scenes. But with the growth of towns and the development of the railway system a steady change is occurring year by year in the dress of the inhabitants, and it is only in the very remote settlements that we can find the homely stuffs of former times. Old dresses and old customs are gradually disappearing with the old-fashioned caleche, in which tourists once struggled to admire French Canadian scenes. As a rule, however, the people live very economically, and extravagance in dress is rather the exception. On gala days the young wear many ribbons and colours, though arranged with little of the taste characteristic of the French people. Both old and young are very sociable in their habits, and love music and dancing. The violin is constantly played in the smallest village, and the young people dance old-fashioned cotillons or danses rondos. The priests, however, do not encourage reckless gaieties or extravagance in dress. Now and then the bishop issues a Pastoral in which the waltz and other fast dances, and certain fashionable modes of dress, are expressly forbidden, and though his mandates are no doubt soon forgotten in the cities and towns, they are, on the whole, religiously observed in the rural communities. The feasts of the Church are kept with great zeal,—especially the fêtes d'obligation—and consequently the French Canadian has holidays without number.

No class of the population of Canada is more orderly or less disposed to crime than the French Canadians. The standard of the morality of the people is high. Early marriages have been always encouraged by the priests, and large families—fifteen children being very common—are the rule in the villages. The habitant is naturally litigious, and the amount in dispute is, in his opinion, trifling compared with the honour of having a case in court, which demands the attendance of the whole village. The temperate habits of the French Canadian make them necessarily valuable employés in mills and manufactories of all kinds. Indeed, they prefer this life to that of the farm, and until very recently there was a steady exodus of this class to the manufacturing towns of Lowell, Holyoke, and other places in New England. A large proportion of the men employed in the lumbering industry of Canada is drawn from the province of Quebec. As their forefathers were coureurs de bois in the days of the French régime, and hunted the beaver in the wilderness, even venturing into the illimitable Northwest region, so in these modern times the French Canadians seek the vast pine woods which, despite axe and fire, still stretch over a large area watered by the Ottawa and other rivers.

In commercial and financial enterprise, the French Canadians cannot compete with their fellow-citizens of British origin, who practically control the great commercial undertakings and banking institutions of Lower Canada, especially in Montreal. Generally speaking, the French Canadians cannot compare with the English population as agriculturists, Their province is less favoured than Ontario with respect to climate and soil. The French system of sub-dividing farms among the members of a family has tended to cut up the land unprofitably, and it is a curious sight to see the number of extremely narrow lots throughout the French settlements. It must be admitted, too, that the French population has less enterprise, and less disposition to adopt new machines and improved agricultural implements, than the people of the other provinces.

As a rule, the habitant lives contentedly on very little. Give him a pipe of native tobacco, a chance of discussing politics, a gossip with his fellows at the church door after service, a visit now and then to the county town, and he will be happy. It does not take much to amuse him, while he is quite satisfied that his spiritual safety is secured as long as he is within sound of the church bells, goes regularly to confession, and observes all the fêtes d'obligation. If he or one of his family can only get a little office in the municipality, or in the "government," then his happiness is nearly perfect. Indeed, if he were not a bureaucrat, he would very much belie his French origin. Take him all in all, however, Jean-Baptiste, as he is familiarly known, from the patron saint of French Canada, has many excellent qualities. He is naturally polite, steady in his habits, and conservative in his instincts. He is excitable and troublesome only when his political passions are thoroughly aroused, or his religious principles are at stake; and then it is impossible to say to what extreme he will go. Like the people from whom he is descended—many of whose characteristics he has never lost since his residence of centuries on the American continent—he is greatly influenced by matters of feeling and sentiment, and the skilful master of rhetoric has it constantly in his power to sway him to an extent which is not possible in the case of the stronger, less impulsive Saxon race, with whom reason and argument prevail to a large degree.

In the present, as in the past, the Church makes every effort to supervise with a zealous care the mental food that is offered for the nourishment of the people in the rural districts, where it exercises the greatest influence. Agnosticism is a word practically unknown in the vocabulary of the French Canadian habitant, who is quite ready to adhere without wavering to the old belief which his forefathers professed. Whilst the French Canadians doubtless lose little by refusing to listen to the teachings which would destroy all old-established and venerable institutions, and lead them into an unknown country of useless speculation, they do not, as a rule, allow their minds sufficient scope and expansion. It is true that a new generation is growing up with a larger desire for philosophic inquiry and speculation. But whilst the priests continue to control the public school system of the province, they have a powerful means of maintaining the current of popular thought in that conservative and too often narrow groove, in which they have always laboured to keep it since the days of Laval.

In the days of the French régime there was necessarily no native literature, and little general culture except in small select circles at Quebec and Montreal. But during the past half century, with the increase of wealth, the dissemination of liberal education, and the development of self-government, the French Canadians have created for themselves a literature which shows that they inherit much of the spirituality and brilliancy of their race. Their histories and poems have attracted much attention in literary circles in France, and one poet, Mr. Louis Fréchette, has won the highest prize of the French Institute for the best poem of the year. In history we have the names of Garneau, Ferland, Sulte, Tassé, Casgrain; in poetry, Crémazie, Chauveau, Fréchette, Poisson, Lemay; in science, Hamel, Laflamme, De Foville; besides many others famed as savants and littérateurs. In art some progress has been made, and several young men go to the Paris schools from time to time. The only sculptor of original merit that Canada has yet produced is Hébert, a French Canadian, whose monuments of eminent Canadians stand in several public places. Science has not made so much progress as belles-lettres and history, though Laval University—the principal educational institution of the highest class—has among its professors men who show some creditable work in mathematics, geology, and physics. In romance, however, very little has been done.

The French Canadians have a natural love for poetry and music. Indeed it is a French Canadian by birth and early education—Madame Albani—who not long ago won a high distinction on the operatic stage. No writer of this nationality, however, has yet produced an opera or a drama which has won fame for its author. The priesthood, indeed, has been a persistent enemy of the theatre, which consequently has never attained a successful foothold in French Canada. Sacred music, so essential a feature of a Roman Catholic service, has been always cultivated with success.

The chansons populaires, which have been so long in vogue among the people of all classes in the province of Quebec are the same in spirit, and very frequently in words, as those which their ancestors brought over with them from Brittany, Normandy, Saintonge, and Franche-Comté. Some have been adapted to Canadian scenery and associations, but most of them are essentially European in allusion and spirit. The Canadian lumberer among the pines of the Ottawa and its tributaries, the Métis or half-breeds of what was once the great Lone Land, still sing snatches of the songs which the coureurs de bois, who followed Duluth and other French explorers, were wont to sing as they paddled over the rivers of the West or camped beneath the pines and the maples of the great forests. It is impossible to set the words of all of them to the music of the drawing-room, where they seem tame and meaningless; but when they mingle with "the solemn sough of the forest," or with the roar of rushing waters, the air seems imbued with the spirit of the surroundings. It has been well observed by M. Gagnon, a French Canadian, that "many of them have no beauty except on the lips of the peasantry." There is "something sad and soft in the voices that imparts a peculiar charm to these monotonous airs, in which their whole existence seems to be reflected."

I give below the most popular and poetical of all the Canadian ballads, and at the same time a translation by a Canadian writer:[2]

À la Claire Fontaine has been claimed for Franche-Comté, Brittany, and Normandy, but the best authorities have come to the conclusion, from a comparison of the different versions, that it is Norman. In Malbrouck s'en va-t-en-guerre, we have a song which was sung in the time of the Grand Monarque. Of its popularity with the French Canadians, we have an example in General Strange's reply to the 65th, a French Canadian regiment, during the second Northwest rebellion. One morning, after weeks of tedious and toilsome marching, just as the men were about to fall in, the General overhead the remark—"Ah! when will we get home?" "Ah, mes garçons," laughed the General—

"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre
Mais quand reviendra-t-il?"

"Malbrouck has gone a-fighting,
But when will he return?"

and with their characteristic light-heartedness the men caught up the famous old air and the march was resumed without a murmur.

These chansons populaires of French Canada afford some evidence of the tenacity with which the people cling to the customs, traditions, and associations of the land of their origin. Indeed, a love for Old France lies still deep in the hearts of the people, and both young and old study her best literature, and find their greatest pride in her recognition of their poets and writers. But while there exists among the more influential and cultured class a sentimental attachment to Old France, there is a still deeper feeling, strengthened by the political freedom and material progress of the past forty years, that the connection with the British Empire gives the best guaranty for the preservation of their liberties and rights. This feeling has found frequent expression in the forcible utterances of Sir Wilfrid, the late Premier of the Dominion. No doubt the influence of the Roman Catholic priesthood has had much to do with perpetuating the connexion with England. They feel that it is not by a connexion with France or the United States that their religious and civil institutions can be best conserved.

All classes now agree as to the necessity of preserving the federal system in its entirety, since it ensures better than any other system of government the rights and interests of the French Canadian population in all those matters most deeply affecting a people speaking a language, professing a religion, and retaining certain institutions different from those of the majority of the people of the Dominion.

No French Canadian writer or politician of weight in the country now urges so impossible or suicidal a scheme as the foundation of an independent French nationality on the banks of the St. Lawrence. The history of the fifty years that have elapsed since the dark days of Canada, when Papineau wished to establish a "Nation Canadienne," goes to show that the governing classes of the English and French nationalities have ceased to feel towards each other that intense spirit of jealousy which was likely at one time to develop itself into a dangerous hatred. The spirit of conciliation and justice, which has happily influenced the action of leading English and French Canadian statesmen in the administration of public affairs, has been so far successful in repressing the spirit of passion and demagogism which has exhibited itself at certain political crises, and in bringing the two nationalities into harmony with each other. As long as the same wise counsels continue to prevail in Canada that have heretofore governed her, and carried her successfully through critical periods, the integrity of the confederation is assured, and the two races will ever work harmoniously together, united by the ties of a common interest,—always the strongest bond of union—and a common allegiance to the Empire to whose fostering care they already owe so much.

[1] The illustration represents the ancient church which was built in 1658, but was taken down a few years ago on account of its dangerous condition, and rebuilt on the old site near the basilica, in exactly the original form with the same materials.

[2] Songs of Old Canada. Translated by W. McLennan.

XXX

RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF CANADA.

In the ordinary course of events this history of the Dominion should have closed with an account of the old French Province of Quebec, its people, their characteristics and their progress. But so much has happened in the second decade of the twentieth century that the impress of France is slowly being obliterated by a Canadianism which is peculiar to itself. Of course this does not mean that the French language is disappearing or that all the customs of the old régime are giving way to new. But autres temps, autres moeurs. For this the Great War has been largely responsible. Previous to it, the average French Canadian had been too prone to dwell on the ties which bound him to La Belle France. But a part in the world-conflict convinced him that in the hundred and fifty years he had been disassociated from the country of his birthright, he had worked out his destiny along lines essentially Canadian. This view is likewise affecting and influencing the standpoint of those who have settled in the Great Northwest. The result is a stronger feeling of Canadian nationality in that association of nations which we are pleased to term the British Empire.

When the outbreak of the Boers startled Canada and roused in her the dormant desire to respond to the call of the Motherland, it was Sir Wilfrid Laurier who took up the challenge of non-intervention or neutrality.