Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 Part 11

On the whole, there have been enough good poems, histories, and essays, written and published in Canada during the last four or five decades, to prove that there has been a steady intellectual growth on the part of the Canadian people, and that it has kept pace at all events with the mental growth in the pulpit, or in the legislative halls, where, of late years, a keen practical debating style has taken the place of the more rhetorical and studied oratory of old times. The intellectual faculties of Canadians only require larger opportunities for their exercise to bring forth rich fruit. The progress in the years to come will be much greater than that Canadians have yet shown, and necessarily so, with the wider distribution of wealth, the dissemination of a higher culture, and a greater confidence in their own mental strength, and in the opportunities that the country offers to pen and pencil. What is now wanted is the cultivation of a good style and artistic workmans.h.i.+p.

Much of the daily literature of Canadians--indeed the chief literary aliment of large numbers--is the newspaper press, which ill.u.s.trates necessarily the haste, pressure and superficiality of writings of that ephemeral cla.s.s. Canadian journals, however, have not yet descended to the degraded sensationalism of New York papers, too many of which circulate in Canada to the public detriment. On the whole, the tone of the most ably conducted journals--the Toronto _Globe_, and the Montreal _Gazette_ notably--is quite on a level with the tone of debate in the legislative bodies of the country.

Now, as in all times of Canada's history, political life claims many strong, keen and cultured intellects, though at the same time it is too manifest that the tendency of democratic conditions and heated party controversy is to prevent the most highly educated and sensitive organisations from venturing on the agitated and unsafe sea of political pa.s.sion and compet.i.tion. The speeches of Sir Wilfrid Laurier--the eloquent French Canadian premier, who in his mastery of the English tongue surpa.s.ses all his versatile compatriots--of Sir Charles Tupper, Mr. Foster and others who might be mentioned, recall the most brilliant period of parliamentary annals (1867--1873), when in the first parliament of the Dominion the most prominent men of the provinces were brought into public life, under the new conditions of federal union. The debating power of the provincial legislative bodies is excellent, and the chief defects are the great length and discursiveness of the speeches on local as well as on national questions. It is also admitted that of late years there has been a tendency to impair the dignity and to lower the tone of discussion.

Many Canadians have devoted themselves to art since 1867, and some Englishmen will recognise the names of L.R. O'Brien, Robert Harris, J.W.L. Forster, Homer Watson, George Reid--the painter of "The Foreclosure of the Mortgage," which won great praise at the World's Fair of Chicago--John Hammond, F.A. Verner, Miss Bell, Miss Muntz, W.

Brymner, all of whom are Canadians by birth and inspiration. The establishment of a Canadian Academy of Art by the Princess Louise, and of other art a.s.sociations, has done a good deal to stimulate a taste for art, though the public encouragement of native artists is still very inadequate, when we consider the excellence already attained under great difficulties in a relatively new country, where the great ma.s.s of people has yet to be educated to a perception of the advantages of high artistic effort.

Sculpture would be hardly known in Canada were it not for the work of the French Canadian Hebert, who is a product of the schools of Paris, and has given to the Dominion several admirable statues and monuments of its public men. While Canadian architecture has. .h.i.therto been generally wanting in originality of conception, the princ.i.p.al edifices of the provinces afford many good ill.u.s.trations of effective adaptation of the best art of Europe. Among these may be mentioned the following:--the parliament and departmental buildings at Ottawa, admirable examples of Italian Gothic; the legislative buildings at Toronto, in the Romanesque style; the English cathedrals in Montreal and Fredericton, correct specimens of early English Gothic; the French parish church of Notre-Dame, in Montreal, attractive for its stately Gothic proportions; the university of Toronto, an admirable conception of Norman architecture; the Canadian Pacific railway station at Montreal and the Frontenac Hotel at Quebec, fine examples of the adaptation of old Norman architecture to modern necessities; the provincial buildings at Victoria, in British Columbia, the general design of which is Renaissance, rendered most effective by pearl-grey stone and several domes; the headquarters of the bank of Montreal, a fine example of the Corinthian order, and notable for the artistic effort to ill.u.s.trate, on the walls of the interior, memorable scenes in Canadian history; the county and civic buildings of Toronto, an ambitious effort to reproduce the modern Romanesque, so much favoured by the eminent American architect, Richardson; Osgoode Hall, the seat of the great law courts of the province of Ontario, which in its general character recalls the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Year by year we see additions to our public and private buildings, interesting from an artistic point of view, and ill.u.s.trating the acc.u.mulating wealth of the country, as well as the growth of culture and taste among the governing cla.s.ses.

The universities, colleges, academies, and high schools, the public and common schools of the Dominion, ill.u.s.trate the great desire of the governments and the people of the provinces to give the greatest possible facilities for the education of all cla.s.ses at the smallest possible cost to individuals. At the present time there are between 13,000 and 14,000 students attending 62 universities and colleges. The collegiate inst.i.tutes and academies of the provinces also rank with the colleges as respects the advantages they give to young men and women. Science is especially prominent in McGill and Toronto Universities--which are the most largely attended--and the former affords a notable example of the munificence of the wealthy men of Montreal, in establis.h.i.+ng chairs of science and otherwise advancing its educational usefulness. Laval University stands deservedly at the head of the Roman Catholic inst.i.tutions of the continent, on account of its deeply interesting historic a.s.sociations, and the scholarly attainments of its professors, several of whom have won fame in Canadian letters.

Several universities give instructions in medicine and law, and Toronto has also a medical college for women. At the present time, at least one-fifth of the people of the Dominion is in attendance at the universities, colleges, public and private schools. The people of Canada contribute upwards of ten millions of dollars annually to the support of their educational establishments, in the shape of government grants, public taxes, or private fees. Ontario alone, in 1899, raised five millions and a half of dollars for the support of its public school system; and of this amount the people directly contributed ninety-one per cent, in the shape of taxes. On the other hand, the libraries of Canada are not numerous; and it is only in Ontario that there is a law providing for the establishment of such inst.i.tutions by a vote of the taxpayers in the munic.i.p.alities. In this province there are at least 420 libraries, of which the majority are connected with mechanics'

inst.i.tutes, and are made public by statute. The weakness of the public school system--especially in Ontario--is the constant effort to teach a child a little of everything, and to make him a mere machine. The consequences are superficiality--a veneer of knowledge--and the loss of individuality.

CHAPTER X.

CANADA'S RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES AND HER INFLUENCE IN IMPERIAL COUNCILS (1783--1900).

I have deemed it most convenient to reserve for the conclusion of this history a short review of the relations that have existed for more than a century between the provinces of the Dominion and the United States, whose diplomacy and legislation have had, and must always have, a considerable influence on the material and social conditions of the people of Canada.--an influence only subordinate to that exercised by the imperial state. I shall show that during the years when there was no confederation of Canada--when there were to the north and north-east of the United States only a number of isolated provinces, having few common sympathies or interests except their attachment to the crown and empire--the United States had too often its own way in controversial questions affecting the colonies which arose between England and the ambitious federal republic. On the other hand, with the territorial expansion of the provinces under one Dominion, with their political development, which has a.s.sumed even national attributes, with the steady growth of an imperial sentiment in the parent state, the old condition of things that too often made the provinces the shuttlec.o.c.k of skilful American diplomacy has pa.s.sed away. The statesmen of the Canadian federation are now consulted, and exercise almost as much influence as if they were members of the imperial councils in London.

I shall naturally commence this review with a reference to the treaty of 1783, which acknowledged the independence of the United States, fixed the boundaries between that country and British North America, and led to serious international disputes which lasted until the middle of the following century. Three of the ablest men in the United States--Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay--succeeded by their astuteness and persistency in extending their country's limits to the eastern bank of the Mississippi, despite the insidious efforts of Vergennes on the part of France to hem in the new nation between the Atlantic and the Appalachian Range. The comparative value set upon Canada during the preliminary negotiations may be easily deduced from the fact that Oswald, the English plenipotentiary, proposed to give up to the United States the south-western and most valuable part of the present province of Ontario, and to carry the north-eastern boundary up to the River St. John. The commissioners of the United States did not accept this suggestion. Their ultimate object--an object actually attained--was to make the St. Lawrence the common boundary between the two countries by following the centre of the river and the great lakes as far as the head of Lake Superior. The issue of negotiations so stupidly conducted by the British commissioner, was a treaty which gave an extremely vague definition of the boundary in the north-east between Maine and Nova Scotia--which until 1784 included New Brunswick--and displayed at the same time a striking example of geographical ignorance as to the north-west. The treaty specified that the boundary should pa.s.s from the head of Lake Superior through Long Lake to the north-west angle of the Lake of the Woods, and thence to the Mississippi, when, as a matter of fact there was no Long Lake, and the source of the Mississippi was actually a hundred miles or so to the south of the Lake of the Woods. This curious blunder in the north-west was only rectified in 1842, when Lord Ashburton settled the difficulty by conceding to the United States an invaluable corner of British territory in the east (see below, p 299).

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY. AS FINALLY ESTABLISHED IN 1842 AT LAKE OF THE WOODS]

The only practical advantage that the people of the provinces gained from the Treaty of Ghent, which closed the war of 1812--15, was an acknowledgment of the undoubted fishery rights of Great Britain and her dependencies in the territorial waters of British North America. In the treaty of 1783 the people of the United States obtained the "right" to fish on the Grand and other banks of Newfoundland, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at "all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish", but they were to have only "the liberty" of taking fish on the coasts of Newfoundland and also of "all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; and also of drying and curing fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick), Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled." In the one case, it will be seen, there was a recognised right, but in the other only a mere "liberty" or privilege extended to the fishermen of the United States. At the close of the war of 1812 the British government would not consent to renew the merely temporary liberties of 1783, and the United States authorities acknowledged the soundness of the principle that any privileges extended to the republic in British territorial waters could only rest on "conventional stipulation." The convention of 1818 forms the legal basis of the rights, which Canadians have always maintained in the case of disputes between themselves and the United States as to the fisheries on their own coasts, bays, and harbours of Canada. It provides that the inhabitants of the United States shall have for ever the liberty to take, dry, and cure fish on certain parts of the coast of Newfoundland, on the Magdalen Islands and on the southern sh.o.r.es of Labrador, but they "renounce for ever any liberty, heretofore enjoyed" by them to take, dry, and cure fish, "on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays or creeks or harbours of his Britannic Majesty's other dominions in America"; provided, however, that the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays and harbours, for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and "for no other purpose whatever."

In April, 1817, the governments of Great Britain and the United States came to an important agreement which ensured the neutrality of the great lakes. It was agreed that the naval forces to be maintained upon these inland waters should be confined to the following vessels: on Lakes Champlain and Ontario to one vessel, on the Upper Lakes to two vessels, not exceeding in each case a hundred tons burden and armed with only one small cannon. Either nation had the right to bring the convention to a termination by a previous notice of six months. This agreement is still regarded by Great Britain and the United States to be in existence, since Mr. Secretary Seward formally withdrew the notice which was given for its abrogation in 1864, when the civil war was in progress and the relations between the two nations were considerably strained at times.

The next international complication arose out of the seizure of the steamer _Caroline_, which was engaged in 1837 in carrying munitions of war between the United States and Navy Island, then occupied by a number of persons in the service of Mr. Mackenzie and other Canadian rebels. In 1840 the authorities of New York arrested one Macleod on the charge of having murdered a man who was employed on the _Caroline_. The Was.h.i.+ngton government for some time evaded the whole question by throwing the responsibility on the state authorities and declaring that they could not interfere with a matter which was then within the jurisdiction of the state courts. The matter gave rise to much correspondence between the two governments, but happily for the peace of the two countries the American courts acquitted Macleod, as the evidence was clear that he had had nothing to do with the actual seizing of the _Caroline_; and the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton soon afterwards acknowledged their responsibility in such affairs by pa.s.sing an act directing that subjects of foreign powers, if taken into custody for acts done or committed under the authority of their own government, "the validity or effect whereof depends upon the law of nations, should be discharged." The dissatisfaction that had arisen in the United States on account of the cutting out of the _Caroline_ was removed in 1842, when Sir Robert Peel expressed regret that "some explanation and apology for the occurrence had not been previously made," and declared that it was "the opinion of candid and honourable men that the British officers who executed this transaction, and their government who approved it, intended no insult or disrespect to the sovereign authority of the United States[9]."

[9: Hall's _Treatise on International Law_ (3rd ed.), pp. 311--313]

In the course of time the question of the disputed boundary between Maine and New Brunswick a.s.sumed grave proportions. By the treaty of 1783, the boundary was to be a line drawn from the source of the St.

Croix, directly north to the highlands "which divide the rivers which fall into the Atlantic ocean from those which fall into the river St.

Lawrence;" thence along the said highlands to the north-easternmost head of the Connecticut River; and the point at which the due north line was to cut the highlands was also designated as the north-west angle of Nova Scotia. The whole question was the subject of several commissions, and of one arbitration, from 1783 until 1842, when it was finally settled.

Its history appears to be that of a series of blunders on the part of England from the beginning to the end. The first blunder occurred in 1796 when the commissioners appointed to inquire into the question, declared that the Schoodic was the River St. Croix mentioned in the treaty. Instead, however, of following the main, or western, branch of the Schoodic to its source in the Schoodic Lakes, they went beyond their instructions and chose a northern tributary of the river, the Chiputnaticook, as the boundary, and actually placed a monument at its head as a basis for any future proceeding on the part of the two governments. The British government appear to have been very anxious at this time to settle the question, for they did not take exception to the arrangement made by the commissioners, but in 1798 declared the decision binding on both countries.

Still this mistake might have been rectified had the British government in 1835 been sufficiently alive to British interests in America to have accepted a proposal made to them by President Jackson to ascertain the true north-western angle of Nova Scotia, or the exact position of the highlands, in accordance with certain well-understood rules in practical surveying which have been always considered obligatory in that continent. It was proposed by the United States to discard the due north line, to seek to the west of that line the undisputed highlands that divide the rivers which empty themselves into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to find the point in the 'watershed' of these highlands nearest to the north line, and to trace a direct course from it to the monument already established. "If this principle had been adopted," says Sir Sandford Fleming, the eminent Canadian engineer, "a straight line would have been drawn from the monument at the head of the Chiputnaticook to a point which could have been established with precision in the 'watershed' of the highlands which separate the sources of the Chaudiere from those of the Pen.o.bscot,--this being the most easterly point in the only highlands agreeing beyond dispute with the treaty. The point is found a little to the north and west of the intersection of the 70th meridian west longitude and the 46th parallel of north lat.i.tude." Had this proposal been accepted England would have obtained without further difficulty eleven thousand square miles, or the combined areas of Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY AS ESTABLISHED IN 1842.]

For several years after this settlement was suggested a most serious conflict went on between New Brunswick and the state of Maine. The authorities of Maine paid no respect whatever to the negotiations that were still in progress between the governments of Great Britain and the United States, but actually took possession of the disputed territory, gave t.i.tles for lands and constructed forts and roads within its limits.

Collisions occurred between the settlers and the intruders, and considerable property was destroyed. The legislature of Maine voted $800,000 for the defence of the state, and the legislature of Nova Scotia amid great enthusiasm made a grant of $100,000 to a.s.sist New Brunswick in support of her rights. Happily the efforts of the United States and British governments prevented the quarrel between the province and the state from a.s.suming international proportions; and in 1842 Mr. Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, was authorised by the ministry of the Earl of Aberdeen to negotiate with Mr. Daniel Webster, then secretary of state in the American cabinet, for the settlement of matters in dispute between the two nations. The result was the Ashburton Treaty, which, in fixing the north-eastern boundary between British North America and the United States, started due north from the monument incorrectly placed at the head of the Chiputnaticook instead of the source of the true St. Croix, and consequently at the very outset gave up a strip of land extending over some two degrees of lat.i.tude, and embracing some 3000 square miles of British territory. By consenting to carry the line due north from the misplaced monument Lord Ashburton ignored the other natural landmark set forth in the treaty: "the line of headlands which divide the waters flowing into the Atlantic from those which flow into the St. Lawrence." A most erratic boundary was established along the St. John, which flows neither into the St.

Lawrence nor the Atlantic, but into the Bay of Fundy, far east of the St. Croix. In later years the historian Sparks found in Paris a map on which Franklin himself had marked in December, 1782, with a heavy red line, what was then considered the true natural boundary between the two countries. Mr. Sparks admitted in sending the map that it conceded more than Great Britain actually claimed, and that "the line from the St.

Croix to the Canadian highlands is intended to exclude [from the territory of the United States] all the waters running into the St.

John." Canadians have always believed with reason that that portion of the present state of Maine, through which the Aroostook and other tributaries of the St. John flow, is actually British territory. If we look at the map of Canada we see that the state of Maine now presses like a huge wedge into the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec as a sequence of the unfortunate mistakes of 1796, 1835, and 1842, on the part of England and her agents. In these later times a "Canadian short line" railway has been forced to go through Maine in order to connect Montreal with St. John, and other places in the maritime provinces. Had the true St. Croix been chosen in 1796, or President Jackson's offer accepted in 1835, this line could go continuously through Canadian territory, and be entirely controlled by Canadian legislation.

Another boundary question was the subject of much heated controversy between England and the United States for more than a quarter of a century, and in 1845 brought the two countries very close to war. In 1819 the United States obtained from Spain a cession of all her rights and claims north of lat.i.tude forty-two, or the southern boundary of the present state of Oregon. By that time the ambition of the United States was not content with the Mississippi valley, of which she had obtained full control by the cession of the Spanish claims and by the Louisiana purchase of 1803, but looked to the Pacific coast, where she made pretensions to a territory stretching from 42 to 54 40' north lat.i.tude, or a territory four times the area of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the present province of Ontario. The claims of the two nations to this vast region rested on very contradictory statements with respect to priority of discovery, and that occupation and settlement which should, within reasonable limits, follow discovery; and as the whole question was one of great perplexity, it should have been settled, as suggested by England, on principles of compromise. But the people of the United States, conscious at last of the importance of the territory, began to bring their influence to bear on the politicians, until by 1845 the Democratic party declared 'for 54 40' or fight,' Mr. Crittenden announced that "war might now be looked upon as almost inevitable."

Happily President Polk and congress came to more pacific conclusions after a good deal of warlike talk; and the result was a treaty (1846) by which England accepted the line 49 degrees to the Pacific coast, and obtained the whole of Vancouver Island, which for a while seemed likely to be divided with the United States. But Vancouver Island was by no means a compensation for what England gave up, for, on the continent, she yielded all she had contended for since 1824, when she first proposed the Columbia River as a basis of division.

But even then the question of boundary was not finally settled by this great victory which had been won for the United States by the persistency of her statesmen. The treaty of 1846 continued the line of boundary westward along "the 49th parallel of north lat.i.tude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's straits to the Pacific Ocean" Anyone reading this clause for the first time, without reference to the contentions that were raised afterwards, would certainly interpret it to mean the whole body of water that separates the continent from Vancouver,--such a channel, in fact, as divides England from France; but it appears there are a number of small channels separating the islands which lie in the great channel in question, and the clever diplomatists at Was.h.i.+ngton immediately claimed the Ca.n.a.l de Haro, the widest and deepest, as the ca.n.a.l of the treaty.

Instead of at once taking the ground that the whole body of water was really in question, the English government claimed another channel, Rosario Strait, inferior in some respects, but the one most generally, and indeed only, used at the time by their vessels. The importance of this difference of opinion lay chiefly in the fact, that the Haro gave San Juan and other small islands, valuable for defensive purposes, to the United States, while the Rosario left them to England. Then, after much correspondence, the British government, as a compromise, offered the middle channel, or Douglas, which would still retain San Juan. If they had always adhered to the Douglas--which appears to answer the conditions of the treaty, since it lies practically in the middle of the great channel--their position would have been much stronger than it was when they came back to the Rosario. The British representatives at the Was.h.i.+ngton conference of 1871 suggested the reference of the question to arbitration, but the United States' commissioners, aware of their vantage ground, would consent to no other arrangement than to leave to the decision of the Emperor of Germany the question whether the Haro or the Rosario channel best accorded with the treaty; and the Emperor decided in favour of the United States. However, with the possession of Vancouver in its entirety, Canada can still be grateful; and San Juan is now only remembered as an episode of skilful American diplomacy. The same may be said of another acquisition of the republic--insignificant from the point of view of territorial area, but still ill.u.s.trative of the methods which have won all the great districts we have named --Rouse's Point at the outlet of Lake Champlain, "of which an exact survey would have deprived" the United States, according to Mr. Schouler in his excellent history.

During this period the fishery question again a.s.sumed considerable importance. The government at Was.h.i.+ngton raised the contention that the three miles' limit, to which their fishermen could be confined by the convention of 1818, should follow the sinuosities of the coasts, including the bays, the object being to obtain access to the valuable mackerel fisheries of the Bay of Chaleurs and other waters claimed to be exclusively within the territorial jurisdiction of the maritime provinces. The imperial government sustained the contention of the provinces--a contention practically supported by American authorities in the case of the Delaware, Chesapeake, and other bays on the coast of the United States--that the three miles' limit should be measured from a line drawn from headlands of all bays, harbours and creeks. In the case of the Bay of Fundy, however, the imperial government allowed a departure from this general principle, when it was urged by the Was.h.i.+ngton government that one of its headlands was in the territory of the United States, and that it was an arm of the sea rather than a bay.

The result was that foreign fis.h.i.+ng vessels were only shut out from the bays on the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick within the Bay of Fundy. All these questions were, however, placed in abeyance by the reciprocity treaty of 1854 (see p. 96), which lasted until 1866, when it was repealed by the action of the United States, in accordance with the provision bringing it to a conclusion after one year's notice from one of the parties interested.

The causes which led in 1866 to the repeal of a treaty so advantageous to the United States have been long well understood. The commercial cla.s.ses in the eastern and western states were, on the whole, favourable to an enlargement of the treaty; but the real cause of its repeal was the prejudice in the northern states against Canada on account of its supposed sympathy for the confederate states during the Secession war. A large body of men in the north believed that the repeal of the treaty would sooner or later force Canada to join the republic; and a bill was actually introduced in the house of representatives providing for her admission--a mere political straw, it is true, but showing the current of opinion in some quarters in those days. When we review the history of those times, and consider the difficult position in which Canada was placed, it is remarkable how honourably her government discharged its duties of a neutral between the belligerents. In the case of the raid of some confederate refugees in Canada on the St. Alban's bank in Vermont, the Canadian authorities brought the culprits to trial and even paid a large sum of money in acknowledgment of an alleged responsibility when some of the stolen notes were returned to the robbers on their release on technical grounds by a Montreal magistrate. It is well, too, to remember how large a number of Canadians fought in the union armies--twenty against one who served in the south. No doubt the position of Canada was made more difficult at that critical time by the fact that she was a colony of Great Britain, against whom both north and south entertained bitter feelings by the close of the war; the former mainly on account of the escape of confederate cruisers from English ports, and the latter because she did not receive active support from England. The north had also been much excited by the promptness with which Lord Palmerston had sent troops to Canada when Mason and Slidell were seized on an English packet on the high seas, and by the bold tone held by some Canadian papers when it was doubtful if the prisoners would be released.

Before and since the union, the government of Canada has made repeated efforts to renew a commercial treaty with the government at Was.h.i.+ngton.

In 1865 and 1866, Canadian delegates were prepared to make large concessions, but were reluctantly brought to the conclusion that the committee of ways and means in congress "no longer desired trade between the two countries to be carried on upon the principle of reciprocity."

In 1866 Sir John Rose, while minister of finance, made an effort in the same direction, but he was met by the obstinate refusal of the republican party, then as always, highly protective.

All this while the fishery question was a.s.suming year by year a form increasingly irritating to the two countries. The headland question was the princ.i.p.al difficulty, and the British government, in order to conciliate the United States at a time when the Alabama question was a subject of anxiety, induced the Canadian government to agree, very reluctantly it must be admitted, to shut out foreign fis.h.i.+ng vessels only from bays less than six miles in width at their entrances. In this, however, as in all other matters, the Canadian authorities acknowledged their duty to yield to the considerations of imperial interests, and acceded to the wishes of the imperial government in almost every respect, except actually surrendering their territorial rights in the fisheries. They issued licenses to fish, at low rates, for several years, only to find eventually that American fishermen did not think it worth while to buy these permits when they could evade the regulations with little difficulty. The correspondence went on for several years, and eventually led to the Was.h.i.+ngton conference or commission of 1871, which was primarily intended to settle the fishery question, but which actually gave the precedence to the Alabama difficulty--then of most concern in the opinion of the London and Was.h.i.+ngton governments. The representatives of the United States would not consider a proposition for another reciprocity treaty on the basis of that of 1854. The questions arising out of the convention of 1818 were not settled by the commission, but were practically laid aside for ten years by an arrangement providing for the free admission of salt-water fish to the United States, on the condition of allowing the fis.h.i.+ng vessels of that country free access to the Canadian fisheries. The free navigation of the St. Lawrence was conceded to the United States in return for the free use of Lake Michigan and of certain rivers in Alaska. The question of giving to the vessels of the Canadian provinces the privilege of trading on the coast of the United States--a privilege persistently demanded for years by Nova Scotia--was not considered; and while the ca.n.a.ls of Canada were opened up to the United States on the most liberal terms, the Was.h.i.+ngton government contented itself with a barren promise in the treaty to use its influence with the authorities of the states to open up their artificial waterways to Canadians. The Fenian claims were abruptly laid aside, although, if the principle of "due diligence,"

which was laid down in the new rules for the settlement of the Alabama difficulty had been applied to this question, the government of the United States would have been mulcted in heavy damages. In this case it would be difficult to find a more typical instance of responsibility a.s.sumed by a state through the permission of open and notorious acts, and by way of complicity after the acts; however, as in many other negotiations with the United States, Canada felt she must make sacrifices for the empire, whose government wished all causes of irritation between England and the United States removed as far as possible by the treaty. One important feature of this commission was the presence, for the first time in the history of treaties, of a Canadian statesman. The astute prime minister of the Dominion, Sir John Macdonald, was chosen as one of the English high commissioners: and though he was necessarily tied down by the instructions of the imperial state, his knowledge of Canadian questions was of great service to Canada during the conference. If the treaty finally proved more favourable to the Dominion than it at first appeared to be, it was owing largely to the clause which provided for a reference to a later commission of the question, whether the United States would not have to pay the Canadians a sum of money, as the value of their fisheries over and above any concessions made them in the treaty. The result of this commission was a payment of five millions and a half of dollars to Canada and Newfoundland, to the infinite disappointment of the politicians of the United States, who had been long accustomed to have the best in all the bargains with their neighbours. Nothing shows more clearly the measure of the local self-government at last won by Canada and the importance of her position in the empire, than the fact that the English government recognised the right of the Dominion government to name the commissioner who represented Canada on an arbitration which decided a question of such deep importance to her interests.

The clauses of the Was.h.i.+ngton treaty relating to the fisheries and to trade with Canada lasted for fourteen years, and then were repealed by the action of the United States government. In the year 1874 the Mackenzie ministry attempted, through Mr. George Brown, to negotiate a new reciprocity treaty, but met with a persistent hostility from leading men in congress. The relations between Canada and the United States again a.s.sumed a phase of great uncertainty. Canada from 1885 adhered to the letter of the convention of 1818, and allowed no fis.h.i.+ng vessels to fish within the three miles limit, to transs.h.i.+p cargoes of fish in her ports, or to enter them for any purpose except for shelter, wood, water, and repairs. For the infractions of the treaty several vessels were seized, and more than one of them condemned. A clamour was raised in the United States on the ground that the Canadians were wanting in that spirit of friendly intercourse which should characterise the relations of neighbouring peoples. The fact is, the Canadians were bound to adhere to their legal rights--rights which had always been maintained before 1854; which had remained in abeyance between 1854 and 1866; which naturally revived after the repeal of the reciprocity treaty of 1854; which again remained in abeyance between 1871 and 1885; and were revived when the United States themselves chose to go back to the terms of the convention of 1818.

In 1887 President Cleveland and Mr. Secretary Bayard, acting in a statesmanlike spirit, obtained the consent of England to a special commission to consider the fishery question. Sir Sackville West, Mr.

Joseph Chamberlain, and Sir Charles Tupper represented England; Mr.

Bayard, then secretary of state, Mr. Putnam of Maine, and Mr. Angell of Michigan University, represented the United States. Sir Charles Tupper could not induce the American commissioners to consider a mutual arrangement providing for greater freedom of commercial intercourse between Canada and the United States. Eventually the commission agreed unanimously to a treaty which was essentially a compromise. Foreign fishermen were to be at liberty to go into any waters where the bay was more than ten miles wide at the mouth, but certain bays, including the Bay of Chaleurs, were expressly excepted in the interests of Canada from the operation of this provision. The United States did not attempt to acquire the right to fish on the insh.o.r.e fis.h.i.+ng-grounds of Canada--that is, within three miles of the coasts--but these fisheries were to be left for the exclusive use of the Canadian fishermen. More satisfactory arrangements were made for vessels obliged to resort to the Canadian ports in distress; and a provision was made for allowing American fis.h.i.+ng-vessels to obtain supplies and other privileges in the harbours of the Dominion whenever congress allowed the fish of that country to enter free into the market of the United States, President Cleveland in his message, submitting the treaty to the senate, acknowledged that it "supplied a satisfactory, practical and final adjustment, upon a basis honourable and just to both parties, of the difficult and vexed questions to which it relates." The republican party, however, at that important juncture--just before a presidential election--had a majority in the senate, and the result was the failure in that body of a measure, which, although by no means too favourable to Canadian interests, was framed in a spirit of judicious statesmans.h.i.+p.

As a sequel of the acquisition of British Columbia, the Canadian government was called upon in 1886 to urge the interests of the Dominion in an international question that had arisen in Bering Sea. A United States cutter seized in the open sea, at a distance of more than sixty miles from the nearest land, certain Canadian schooners, fitted out in British Columbia, and lawfully engaged in the capture of seals in the North Pacific Ocean, adjacent to Vancouver Island, Queen Charlotte Islands, and Alaska--a portion of the territory of the United States acquired in 1867 from Russia. These vessels were taken into a port of Alaska, where they were subjected to forfeiture, and the masters and mates fined and imprisoned. Great Britain at once resisted the claim of the United States to the sole sovereignty of that part of Bering Sea lying beyond the westerly boundary of Alaska--a stretch of sea extending in its widest part some 600 or 700 miles beyond the mainland of Alaska, and clearly under the law of nations a part of the great sea and open to all nations. Lord Salisbury's government, from the beginning to the end of the controversy, sustained the rights of Canada as a portion of the British empire. After very protracted and troublesome negotiations it was agreed to refer the international question in dispute to a court of arbitration, in which Sir John Thompson, prime minister of Canada, was one of the British arbitrators. The arbitrators decided in favour of the British contention that the United States had no jurisdiction in Bering Sea outside of the three miles limit, and at the same time made certain regulations to restrict the wholesale slaughter of fur-bearing seals in the North Pacific Ocean. In 1897 two commissioners, appointed by the governments of the United States and Canada, awarded the sum of $463,454 as compensation to Canada for the damages sustained by the fishermen of British Columbia, while engaged in the lawful prosecution of their industry on that portion of the Bering Sea declared to be open to all nations. This sum was paid in the summer of 1898 by the United States.

In 1897 the Canadian government succeeded in obtaining the consent of the governments of Great Britain and the United States to the appointment of a joint high commission to settle various questions in dispute between Canada and the United States. Canada was represented on this commission by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Sir Louis Davies, and Mr. John Charlton, M.P., Newfoundland by Sir James Winter; the United States by Messieurs C.W. Fairbanks, George Gray, J.W.

Foster, Nelson Dingley Jr., J.A. Ka.s.son, and T. Jefferson Coolidge. The eminent jurist, Baron Hersch.e.l.l, who had been lord chancellor in the last Gladstone ministry, was chosen chairman of this commission, which met in the historic city of Quebec on several occasions from the 23rd August until the 10th October, 1898, and subsequently at Was.h.i.+ngton from November until the 20th February, 1899, when it adjourned. Mr. Dingley died in January and was replaced by Mr. Payne, and Lord Hersch.e.l.l also unhappily succ.u.mbed to the effects of an accident soon after the close of the sittings of the commission. In an eulogy of this eminent man in the Canadian house of commons, the Canadian prime minister stated that during the sittings of the commission "he fought for Canada not only with enthusiasm, but with conviction and devotion." England happily in these modern times has felt the necessity of giving to the consideration of Canadian interests the services of her most astute and learned statesmen and diplomatists.

This commission was called upon to consider a number of international questions--the Atlantic and inland fisheries, the Alaska boundary, the alien labour law, the bonding privilege, the seal fishery in the Bering Sea, reciprocity of trade in certain products of the two countries, and other minor issues. For the reasons given in a previous part of this chapter (page 269), when referring to the commercial policy of the Laurier government, reciprocity was no longer the all-important question to be discussed, though the commissioners were desirous of making fiscal arrangements with respect to lumber, coal, and some other Canadian products for which there is an increasing demand in the markets of the United States. The long and earnest discussions of the commission on the various questions before them were, however, abruptly terminated by the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory conclusion with respect to the best means of adjusting the vexed question of the Alaska boundary, which had become of great international import in consequence of the discovery of gold in the territory of Alaska and the district of Yukon in Canada.

The dispute between Great Britain and the United States has arisen as to the interpretation to be given to the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825, which was made forty-two years before Russia sold her territorial rights in Alaska to the United States, that sale being subject of course to the conditions of the treaty in question. Under the third article of this treaty[10]--the governing clause of the contract between England and Russia--boundary line between Canada and Alaska commences at the south end of Prince of Wales Island, thence runs north through Portland Channel to the fifty-sixth degree of north lat.i.tude, thence follows the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast of the continent, to one hundred and forty-one west longitude and thence to the frozen ocean. That part of the line between fifty-six north lat.i.tude and one hundred and forty-one west longitude is where the main dispute arises.

Great Britain on behalf of Canada contends that, by following the summits of the mountains between these two points, the true boundary would cross Lynn Ca.n.a.l, about half way between the headlands and tide-water at the head of the ca.n.a.l, and leave both Skagway and Dyea--towns built up chiefly by United States citizens--within British territory. The contention of Great Britain always has been that the boundary should follow the general contour of the coast line and not the inlets to their head waters. On the other hand the United States contend that the whole of Lynn Ca.n.a.l up to the very top, to the extent of tide-water, is a part of the ocean, and that the territory of the United States goes back for ten leagues from the head of the ca.n.a.l and consequently includes Skagway and Dyea. In other words the United States claim that the boundary should not follow the coast line but pa.s.s around the head of this important inlet, which controls access to the interior of the gold-bearing region.

[10: The following is the article in full: "The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties upon the coast of the continent and the islands of America to the north-west, shall be drawn in the following manner: commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of fifty-four degrees forty minutes north lat.i.tude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degree of west longitude, the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north lat.i.tude. From this last-mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same meridian), and finally from the said point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree in its prolongation as far as the frozen ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions, on the continent of America to the north-west"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND YUKON DISTRICT SHOWING DISPUTED BOUNDARY BETWEEN]

The Canadian commissioners first offered as a compromise to leave Dyea and Skagway in the possession of the United States if the commissioners of that country would agree that Canada should retain Pyramid Harbour, which would give to Canadians a highway into the Yukon district. The acceptance of this compromise would have made a common water of the Lynn Ca.n.a.l, and at the same time left to the United States the greater portion of the territory in dispute. When the commissioners of the United States refused this fair compromise, the Canadians offered to refer the whole question to arbitration in order to ascertain the true boundary under the Anglo-Russian treaty. They proposed that the arbitrators should be three jurists of repute: one chosen for Great Britain by the judicial committee of the privy council, one appointed by the president of the United States, and the third a high international authority to act as an umpire. The commissioners of the United States positively refused to agree to this proposition and suggested the appointment of six jurists, three to be appointed by Great Britain, and the others by the United States. The Canadian representatives were unable to agree to the amendment suggested by their American colleagues, on the ground that it did not "provide a tribunal which would necessarily, and in the possible event of differences of opinion, finally dispose of the question," They also refused to agree to other propositions of the United States as "a marked and important departure from the rules of the Venezuelan boundary reference." The commissioners of the United States were not only unwilling to agree to the selection of an impartial European umpire, but were desirous of the appointment of an American umpire--from the South American Republics--over whom the United States would have more or less influence. Under these circ.u.mstances the Canadian commissioners were unwilling to proceed to the determination of other questions (on which a conclusion had been nearly reached) "until the boundary question had been disposed of either by agreement or reference to arbitration." The commission adjourned until August in the same year, but the negotiations that took place in the interval between the governments of Great Britain and the United States on the question at issue were not sufficiently advanced to enable a meeting at the proposed date. In these circ.u.mstances a _modus vivendi_ was arranged between the United States and Canada, whose interests have been carefully guarded throughout the controversy by the government of the imperial state.

This review of Canada's relations with the United States and England for more than a century ill.u.s.trates at once her weakness and her strength--her weakness in the days of provincial isolation and imperial indifference; her strength under the inspiring influences of federal union and of an imperial spirit which gives her due recognition in the councils of the empire. It may now be said that, in a limited sense, there is already a loose system of federation between Great Britain and her dependencies. The central government of Great Britain, as the guardian of the welfare of the whole empire, cooperates with the several governments of her colonial dependencies, and, by common consultation and arrangement, endeavours to come to such a determination as will be to the advantage of all the interests at stake. In other words, the conditions of the relations between Great Britain and Canada are such as to insure unity of policy so long as each government considers the interests of Great Britain and the dependency as identical, and keeps in view the obligations, welfare, and unity of the empire at large. Full consultation in all negotiations affecting Canada, representation in every arbitration and commission that may be the result of such negotiations, are the principles which, of late years, have been admitted by Great Britain in acknowledgement of the development of Canada and of her present position in the empire; and any departure from so sound a doctrine would be a serious injury to the imperial connection, and an insult to the ability of Canadians to take a part in the great councils of the world. The same mysterious Providence that has already divided the continent of North America, as far as Mexico, between Canada and the United States, and that in the past prevented their political fortunes from becoming one, still forces the Canadian communities with an irresistible power to press onward until they realise those high conceptions which some statesmen already imagine for them in a not very distant future. These conceptions are of a still closer union with the parent state, which shall increase their national responsibilities, and at the same time give the Dominion a recognised position in the central councils of the empire.

APPENDIX A.

COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE CONSt.i.tUTIONS OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA AND THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH.