had delayed granting Oregon self-government, the settlers of the Columbia had set up their own provisional government and turned that region over to the United States. We are surely far enough away from the episodes to state frankly the facts that similar underground intrigue was at work in both Red River and British Columbia, fostered, much of it, by Irish malcontents of the old Fenian raids. Once more Canada's national consciousness roused itself to a bigger problem and wider outlook. Either the far-flung Canadian provinces must be bound together in some sort of national unity or—the Canadian mind did not let itself contemplate that "or." The provinces must be confederated to be held. Hence confederation in 1867 under the British North American Act, which is to Canada what the Constitution is to the United States. It happened that Sir John Macdonald, the future premier of the Dominion, had been in Washington during one period of the Civil War. He noted what he thought was the great defect of the American system, and he attributed the Civil War to that defect—namely, that all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government were supposed to rest with the states. Therefore, when Canada formed her federation of isolated provinces, Sir John and the other famous Fathers of Confederation reversed the American system. All power not specifically delegated to the provinces was supposed to rest with the Dominion. Only strictly local affairs were left with the provinces. Trade, commerce, justice, lands, agriculture, labor, marriage laws, waterways, harbors, railways were specifically put under Dominion control.

IV

Now, stand back and contemplate the situation confronting the new federation:

Canada's population was less than half the present population of the state of New York; not four million. That population was scattered over an area the size of Europe.[1] To render the situation doubly dark and doubtful the United States had just entered on her career of high tariff. That high tariff barred Canadian produce out. There was only one intermittent and unsatisfactory steamer service across the Atlantic. There was none at all across the Pacific. British Columbians trusted to windjammers round the Horn. Of railroads binding East to West there was none. A canal system had been begun from the lakes and the Ottawa to the St. Lawrence, but this was a measure more of national defense than commerce. Crops were abundant, but where could they be sold? I have heard relatives tell how wheat in those days sold down to forty cents, and oats to twenty cents, and potatoes to fifteen cents, and fine cattle to forty dollars, and finest horses to fifty dollars and seventy-five dollars. Fathers of farmers who to-day clear their three thousand dollars and four thousand dollars a year could not clear one hundred dollars a year. Commerce was absolutely stagnant. Canada was a federation, but a federation of what? Poverty-stricken, isolated provinces. Not in bravado, not in flamboyant self-confidence, rebuffed of all chance to trade with the United States, the new Dominion humbly set herself to build the foundations of a nation. She did not know whether she could do what she had set herself to do; but she began with that same dogged idealism and faith in the future which had buoyed up her first settlers; and there were dark days during her long hard task, when the whiff of an adverse wind would have thrown her into national bankruptcy—that winter, for instance, when the Canadian Pacific had no money to go on building and the Canadian government refused to extend aid. Had the Kiel Rebellion of '85 not compelled the Dominion government to extend aid so that the line would be ready for the troops every bank in Canada would have collapsed, and national credit would have been impaired for fifty years.

Meanwhile, a country of less than four million people set itself to link British Columbia with Montreal, and Montreal with Halifax, and Ottawa with Detroit, and the Great Lakes with the sea. The story is too long to be related in detail, but on canals alone Canada has spent a hundred millions. Including stocks, bonds, funded debt and debenture stock, the Dominion railways have a capital of $1,369,992,574; and the country that had not a foot of railroads, when the patriots fought the Family Compact, to-day possesses twenty-nine thousand miles of trackage,[2] three transcontinental systems of railroads and threescore lines touching the boundary.[3] Five times more tonnage passes through the Canadian Soo Canal than is expected for Panama or has passed through Suez; but consider the burden of this development on a people whose farmers were scarcely clearing one hundred dollars a year. It is putting it mildly to say that during these dark days property depreciated two-thirds in value. Land companies that had loaned up to two-thirds the value of farm property found themselves saddled with farms which could not be sold for half they had advanced on the loan.

Three times within the memory of the living generation Canadian delegates sought trade concessions in Washington; and three times they came back rebuffed, with but a grimmer determination to work out Canada's own destiny. Is it any wonder, when the fourth time came and Canada was offered reciprocity that she voted it down?

During the twenty dark years Canada lost to the United States one-fourth her native population.[4] During the last ten years she has drawn back to her home acres not only many of her expatriated native born but almost two million Americans. In ten years her population has almost doubled. Uncle Sam has boasted his four billion yearly foreign trade from Atlantic ports. Canada with a population only one-twelfth Uncle Sam's to-day has a foreign trade of almost a billion.

V

Take another look at Canada's area! All of Germany and Austria spread over Eastern Canada would still leave an area uncovered in the East bigger than the German Empire. England spread out flat would just cover the maritime provinces. Quebec stands a third bigger than Germany, Ontario a third bigger than France; and you still have a western world as large again as the East. Spread the British Isles flat, they would barely cover Manitoba. France and Germany would not equal Saskatchewan and Alberta; and two Germanies would not cover British Columbia—leaving undefined Yukon and MacKenzie River and Peace River and the hinterland of Hudson Bay, an area equal to European Russia. If areas in Canada had the same population as areas in Europe, the Dominion would be supporting four hundred million people.

It would be assuming too much stoicism to say that Canadians are not conscious of a great destiny. For years they stuck so closely to their nation-building that they had no time to stand back and view the size of the edifice of their own structure, but all that is different to-day. When four hundred thousand people a year flock to the Dominion to cast in their lot with Canadians, there is testimony of worth. Canadians know their destiny is upon them, whatever it may be; and they are meeting the challenge half-way with faces to the front. In the words of Sir Wilfred Laurier, they know that "the Twentieth Century is Canada's." What will they do with it? What are their aims and desires as a people? Will the same ideals light the path to the fore as have illumined the long hard way in the past? Will Canada absorb into her national life the people who are coming to her, or will they absorb her?

[1] Canada's area is 3,750,000 square miles. The area of Europe is 3,797,410 square miles.

[2] Canada's railway mileage at the end of 1913 was 29,303.53. The land grants to Canadian railroads, Dominion and provincial, stand 55,256,429 acres. Cash subsidies to railroads in Canada up to June 30, 1913,