Our National Equipment

Mr. President and Gentlemen,--It is always pleasant to meet with the Empire Club. I am something of an Imperialist myself. I must thank his Lordship for his kind words. It is a rare gift to say pleasant things, and to say them well. It is a privilege, I suppose, which he can naturally claim on account of his nationality and his kindness of heart.

If you were going to establish a great industry, a few considerations would at once present themselves. First, have you the capital to go on? That is a very important consideration. Then, could you find a proper site with sufficient room for the plant and machinery with which to carry on the industry; are you conveniently situated for the raw material which has to be employed in the industry; is skilled labour and unskilled labour, too, easily obtained; could you find a market for your products; and so on. The same general principle mutatis mutandis applies to the founding and equipping of a nation, and if I were asked to choose, from the mighty expanse of this great globe on which we live, a portion on which to found a nation, and to make the site of a great empire, having in view the considerations already given, I would choose the present site bounded by the great oceans that bound our Dominion, and which we are proud to call the Dominion of Canada. (Applause) For situation, for climate, for resources, for accessibility to the trade and commerce of the world, I know of no nation more favourably situated than we are, and with the materials at our disposal, which I propose to discuss somewhat in detail, I hope every one of us will feel that if the nation fails it is because of the failure of our efforts, and our want of national energy.

What are we territorially? We are 3,707,000 square miles in area, three or four hundred thousand square miles larger than the United States, and the Americans have made of their territory a great republic. We are one third of the whole extent of the British Empire. We have elbow room. We are only two persons to the square mile. The United States has thirty; England or Great Britain has 371; France has 190; Germany has 310; Belgium has 589. If we were as populous as the United States, and some day we may be, our population would be now over 100,000,000 of people. The United States began the last century with the same population as we began this century. Will the closing of this century see 'us with the vast population with which they closed the nineteenth century? It depends upon ourselves to realize that result. I said as to climate our position is most favourable, and this is a peculiar circumstance, or perhaps I should not say peculiar, but a circumstance in the history of all great modern nations, that those who occupy the northern zone are the strongest, the most virile, and the most progressive. Mr. Seward, who was Secretary of State in the Lincoln administration, speaking of Canada, made this reference, as far back as 1857

He said, "All southern political stars must set, though many times arise again with diminished splendour, but these which illuminate the Pole remain shining forever, increasing in splendour." Our star illumines the Pole. May we realize all that Seward predicted for the peoples living in the northern zone. (Applause) To be larger than the United States, to occupy an area nearly equal to the whole of the area of Europe, is a vast heritage to begin with, and demands on our part immense energy for its development.

Its natural resources are the second consideration. Have we the raw material out of which to make a country? Our agricultural resources are greater materially than the agricultural resources of any other country in the world. Our wheat fields have no superior. Last year the grain crops of Canada amounted to $565,000,000. Our wheat fields are yet undeveloped. Should we cultivate one half of the area at our disposal we could feed the world, producing as we now do over 250,000,000 bushels of wheat. With our vast prairies under cultivation, who can estimate or who can fully estimate, the productivity of the Dominion of Canada? And the West is not all, for in Ontario and the Eastern Provinces. we have agricultural lands that produce crops equal to the best land in any Continent of the globe. (Hear, hear) Our agricultural resources are, as I say, unlimited. There is no boundary to their productivity except the limits of those who cultivate the soil.

Our forest products also, part of our natural resources, without which we would not be fully equipped, are greater, except perhaps those of the United States and Brazil, than any country known to us. The Department of Forestry at Ottawa say that the standing timber of Canada represents five hundred billion feet of lumber. That will build many a structure, and will assist in constructing homes for the millions yet to be.

Our mineral products are still unknown, but are in process of rapid development. Last year they represented $109,000,000 of money. Our cement, and that is a natural product of great value now, produced $7,571,000. We produced $26,000,000 worth of coal, and from the report of the Geological Department at Ottawa it would appear that no country has larger coal fields than Canada; not speaking of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick merely, but going west a great part of Alberta is a coal field, and so are large portions of British Columbia, and as I said, at the present rate of consumption, our coal would last us at least five thousand years. That is long enough for any of us who are present at this Club. (Laughter)

We produced last year $6,911,000 worth of copper, and my friend to the left, just recently from the Yukon, tells me there is still "corn in Egypt and gold in the Yukon." We produced $10,000,000 of nickel. Canada has the only nickel mines of any consequence yet discovered. We produced $14,452,000 worth of silver, placing Cobalt as the second greatest mining camp in the world. Have we not there abundance of raw material with which to erect a glorious superstructure of Empire, of Dominion, of wealth, of industry, of power? No nation taking stock in what it now owns in any of the lines I have enumerated can show a better balance sheet.

Who are we then that are the shareholders in this vast estate? Each one of us is a shareholder. We may appoint directors to manage the estate, and we do, but on the shareholders in the last analysis lies the responsibility of developing this great estate.

We are composed of different races, and the mere mention of these races will be in itself suggestive of what can be accomplished. If these races in other lands and under circumstances less favourable have acquired, some of them, the sovereignty of the world, and others have reached the rank of first class nations, why should not races of a similar origin do in Canada what they have done in Europe, in Asia, and in the Dark Continent? Who are we? We are 7,204,000 men, women, and children. Of that population 4,671,000 are Canadian born,--a good country to be born in (applause); four sevenths of them bred under our own flag, educated in our own schools, nurtured in our own homes, with a character which Canada home life, I am happy to say, gives to all her sons. Nationally we consist of two great strains, the French and the Saxon, with a considerable infusion of the German. Of the French we have 1,649,371, to be accurate. These French are the children, the descendants, of the 85,000 who remained in Canada when the French flag was lowered on Quebec, and our old Union Jack substituted for it in 1759. That they are a virile race is shown from the fact that from those 85,000 n fifty years we have now over a million and a half. I shall not speak of the characteristics of the French race. If the French race in Canada but exhibit the chivalry, the courtesy, the refinement, the love of home, and at the same time the fondness for everything pertaining to their national institutions, then we have in that French population an element which must contribute largely to the development and prosperity of Canada. (Applause)

The next section of British origin we have about twice as many as the French, namely, 3,063,195; Saxon English, 1,260,899--a noble strain. Who that looks back over the history of England from the days of King Alfred, the first great Englishman, shall I say, down to our present time, and -who watches the development of the English constitution from the foundation laid in the Magna Charta in 1215 down to the concession of Responsible Government by Act of Settlement in 1688, but will say that the Saxon mind is particularly qualified for self-government, that the Saxon character is heroic-perhaps stubborn, perhaps self-willed, but ordinarily just, guided by the principle of fair play, by equal rights, by independence of character, by heroic fortitude in difficulties, and by a determination, no matter what intervenes, to maintain its superiority in the face of all opposition. (Applause) Will our 1,260,000 English do for Canada what the early English Saxon race did for England? Will they stand four square against every wind that blows? Will they be invincible where justice ought to triumph? Will they be courageous where danger meets them? Will they be adventurous and bold where there are new worlds to conquer? Will they wield the sceptre of justice over the nations they rule with equal rights to all and special favours to none? If so we will say, Thank God, for one million two hundred and sixty thousand Englishmen in Canada.

Next in enumeration we have 988,721 of Irish origin, another grievance for Ireland! Englishmen again on top! but here we are, and we have to put up with it, and we do it with feelings of pride and pleasure. No position, I am happy to say, is closed against a man because of his origin, and no man who shows himself qualified for the highest position in the gift of his fellow-men or the Crown is debarred because of his nationality. In Ireland, of course, there has been a great deal of trouble, but we are happy to say that the Irishman who comes to Canada leaves the most of his troubles at home, where they ought to remain. What is patriotism in Canada I am sorry to say is Patriotism in Ireland. (Laughter) We all love the love and the warmth of an Irishman's devotion, even when in the excitement of his devotion he knocks us down. We all love his enthusiasm for liberty, whether he wins it with a shillelagh or obtains it peacefully from his fellow-men. An Irishman must be free if he has to fight for it, and if he fights he is very apt to win-a very useful, affectionate, and loyal element is that Irish element. Will they do for Canada as they have done in their own land, and in other lands?

Next in order we have 800,154 of Scotch origin. We go to the hills of Scotland for men, for fighting men, (hear, hear) for men who are as fearless as the skirling bag-pipes on the slopes of Bannockburn. They are men who never falter in battle. They are men who save their money, who keep the Sabbath, and everything else they can lay their hands on. (Laughter) God bless the Scotchman, even in his infirmities. If they have not done their duty yet they can do it now, and let them begin to lay in Canada the same foundation of truth, of courage, of religious devotion, and of energy which has characterized them in the Old Land.

We have 310,501 of German origin. No better farmer, no more industrious man, no more loyal citizen, no better conducted homes, than the German homes of Canada, and the German homes of the old land (Hear, hear). Although now and again we have a German scare it is not because of the natural hostility of the Germans to Britain or British institutions. It is, I think, sometimes a little in our own minds because we know the power and force of that tremendous empire with its 64,000,000, should it be aroused to a war-like attitude. Let us not fear at least our own German population, for they are daily adding to the wealth of Canada.

With such material can we fail? Can we fail-a three-fold strand is not easily broken. If you had your pick of the nations of the world, what better choice could you have made than to select the elements to which I have referred? If we should fail, then we are recreant to the race from which we are sprung, and the blood which runs in our veins has become degenerate, and our hearts have weakened and our souls are shameless in the presence of such tremendous opportunities! (Applause) But there is more than blood. There is that foundation of moral purpose without which you cannot make a nation. The greatest force in the world, greater than armaments, than floating Leviathans armed with thunder, than tented fields, than hundreds of thousands of soldiers armed from head to heel, is the great silent force of Christianity which reaches to the hearts and souls of men (applause) because that force is working here--if the different names under which it is called do not belie themselves. By the last census we have 2,229,600 Roman Catholics in Canada; we have 2,731,035 professing Christianity under three or four of its leading denominations, and mixed through you have the fallibility and infallibility which ought to preserve reasonably well the equilibrium of our faith. We have of Methodists, 916,000, of Presbyterians, 842,000, of Anglicans, 690,000, of Baptists 316,ooo. Take these four denominations and mix them as you choose, or take them up one by one, and endeavour to understand their purposes, study their principles, survey the work they have done, consider what they are doing now, how they bring before the mind of our Canadian people the one great fact that life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal, how they emphasize, and accentuate every duty in life, in business, in public and in private, by the supreme authority of one great God who loves and rules us all, no escape from the consequences of sin, public or private, but all acts of life and all its functions accentuated by that responsibility, will that not make a nation? Can injustice prevail if Christianity rises to the full altitude of its power? Can there be poverty in the land when He who fills our barns with plenty says he who labours in the sweat of his brow can enjoy the substance, the substantial things of life? Can there be meanness in the face of the great standard of self-sacrifice and service which the Bible presents to us? Can there be laggards in the face of the great duty imposed upon every one to fulfill the full purpose for which he was created and be a man no matter what position he occupies? That leavening influence of Christianity gives us a moral purpose which nothing, in my judgment, can restrain.

Then we have our educational resources-our Colleges, our schools of all shades and grades by which every child can be educated. No place for illiterates, no place for ignorance; a press that reaches to almost every home and watches as from a watch tower the weaknesses and failings of frail man and then publishes in heroic language the judgment of our fellow-citizens. That is in itself a great educator. But I must pass over these things quickly.

I have spoken of our racial origin, of the moral foundation on which we stand. What are we doing to show that we have the energy to develop these resources and to possess these lands? Are we timid like those who wandered in the desert for forty years, and do we hesitate to possess the goodly land which is open to us? What do our energies produce? We are engaged in industrial pursuits, and as a proof of our energy in industrial life suffice it to say that last year the products of our factories realized the enormous sum of $1,164,000,000 of money. That was produced by 514,281 artisans and workingmen. Marvellous results! Raw material taken into the factory and produced ready for common use by the busy hand of the toiler--God bless him. Do we realize his usefulness who from early morn till late at eve makes this Canada a great hive of industry, and fills what might be destitute homes with peace and plenty? The force and energy of seven millions producing these results is in itself a guarantee of achievements yet to come. And not only do we produce that for that is practically only our own consumption, but we have money enough to buy from abroad. We did buy last year $472,000,000 worth of imported goods, of which $327,000,000 worth were manufactured in more or less degree of completion. We can feed and clothe ourselves sumptuously with certain articles which we can produce, and having done so we can go to the corners of the world and supplement what we produce ourselves with that large amount of foreign supply. This fact also shows the extent to which the commerce and trade of Canada has grown. Let me give you one fact. In 1868 when we began Confederation we were able to export $57,000,000 worth of goods. That would be about eighteen dollars per head. Last year we exported $297,000,000 worth of goods. We increased our productivity six and a half fold in forty-five years. Of course we about doubled our population in that time, but assuming that we did double our population we increased our exports five and a half fold. We were able in 1868 to buy $73,000,000 worth of goods. Money was scarce at that time, and we were poor. Last year we bought $472,000,000 worth of foreign goods, or six and a half times as much as we were able to buy forty-five years ago. That shows a large increase in wealth. Our imports and exports can be placed alongside of the greatest commercial country in the world. Britain, for imports, for trade, has no rival, shall I say, except Canada. The trade of Great Britain represents $125 per head. The trade of Canada today, by last year's returns as far as reported, represents just exactly the same amount. (Applause) The trade of the United States represents thirty-six dollars per head. The United States exports more manufactures than we do, but imports less than we do. They import nine dollars' worth of manufactured goods per head, and we import forty-seven dollars' worth, thus showing the immense space yet to be filled by the home industries of Canada. We have reached that high point of advancement; but when you consider the height to which the Americans have reached compared with us, you will see what great room there is yet for the expansion of our Canadian industries. Let me give a fact or two. We imported, for instance, of cottons and manufactures $19,000,000 worth. Of course a good deal of that was raw cotton. We imported hats, caps, and bonnets, $3,500,000. Of course these may be fashionable things that we may not be expected to produce, but we imported them. Iron and steel $86,000,000 worth. Wool manufactures $24,000,000 worth, and if you look over the table of imports you will see an immense variety of things which I shall hope yet to see produced at home giving employment to our own people and encouraging the development of our own industries. (Applause) I do not object to foreign produce, but I believe that goods made at home by Canadians in Canadian factories bring more wealth to Canada than goods made in a foreign factory by people who are adding to the wealth and increasing the population of a foreign country.

But I must pass over some of these things which are very interesting in some respects. Now, I have shown, as I have already indicated, what we are producing. We are not an idle people. We could not be idle when our commerce has grown as it has. We could not be idle with our factories producing as much as they do. Have we kept up with the demands of this development in the way of transportation? There is no good producing an article unless you can send it to the market. You cannot produce material unless you have the facilities for bringing the raw material to your factory. In railway development Canada's position stands very high. For our population we have more miles of railway than the United States. In 1836, "when you and I were young, Maggie, a long time ago," we just had sixteen miles of railway. In 1866, at the time of Confederation, we had 2,978 miles. That was thirty years' progress. In 1896, thirty years more, we had 16,270 miles, and now we have 25,400 miles and three Trans-continentals,--one completed and two on the eve of completion. We with a population of seven millions have three Trans-continentals, and the United States with a population of ninety millions have seven Trans-continentals. Very well for Canada! We have invested in railways between stocks and subsidies and cash and guarantees $1,879,204,812, nearly two billion dollars of capital, mostly borrowed, but we have the credit, and I suppose we ought to use it in the development of this country. Now, what does that signify? That we a young people, seven millions only, could be so bold and so adventurous as to open up millions of acres which we possess as far as we have done by the construction of such an extensive system of railways, and we are only on the way--there is much yet to be done although much has been done--can you show any other people with the same courage and enterprise? And never as far as I can remember at this moment has any of our railways failed or been put into the hands of a receiver. A different story comes to us from the other side. Then we have developed at an expenditure of $130,000,000 of money the largest canal system in the world, reaching from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where necessary, up to the western end of Lake Superior. That gives us communication along one half of our southern frontier. I point out these advantages in transportation to you for two reasons. First of all they show the indomitable energy in dealing with difficulties. Secondly, they show commendable and, shall I say, heroic enterprise in undertaking what appeared early in our history to be an undertaking to overcome insurmountable difficulties. Who would have thought we would have scaled the Rocky Mountains just about seventeen years after the Americans sent their first train from Washington to California? The Union Pacific crossed in '69, and we crossed in '86, and we were a small folk then compared with the United States. I mention this for another reason, to show that these transportation facilities afford the basis of future development. They may not be in the future on so large a scale, but they are on a scale at least large enough to meet our present necessities. That is the result of our natural energy.

Then the working capital of Canada, whether it keeps pace with the demands of industry is for you business men to $ay, but let me say it is considerable. I am speaking first of our banking system. We have $113,000,000 of stock in our banks paid up yielding a dividend of from six to eighteen per cent. I hope you all hold some of the eighteen percent stock. We have reserves of $104,000,000. We have deposits of loose money of $1,096,859,979. Where the banks got that money from I don't know. I do not trouble them with much of it. $1,000,000,000 of money not required for actual business by those who deposit it, but afterwards given out by the banks to the extent of between $800,000,000 and $900,000,000 for business discount. We have in our Government Savings Banks $14,000,000. We have in our Post-office Savings Banks $58,000,000. You are getting rich. I fear you are looking now as if you are getting richer. Our insurance companies distribute $55,000,000. That is their income. Our loan companies distribute $53,000,000. We have deposited in our loan companies about $50,000,000. You have in all $1,500,000,000 of money circulated through the businesses of this country in wages, in industries, in foreign exchange, in keeping the pot boiling at home, in paying street car fares and railway fares, and in giving dividends to everybody who supplies anything required. Whether that circulation is equal to our wants or not it shows an enormous amount of accumulated funds-accumulated by the people of Canada largely in the last forty or fifty years.

There is just one, seamy side of this picture to which I refer, and that is the tremendous loss of life on our railway systems. I will just read one quotation which I made from the Monetary Times the other day which summarizes in brief: "In four years there were killed in industrial accidents 5,296-a terrible toll to pay in our efforts to get rich. There were injured, 10,444. The total killed and injured on railways and by industrial accidents, and by fires in four years, amounted to 45,42$, killed, injured, and maimed for life, or at the rate of 11,357 per annum." The Monetary Times says in other words, "Every day during the last four years six persons have been killed and nineteen injured, or about one killed or injured every hour of the day." It is for you engaged in industrial pursuits to see if some check cannot be put upon this terrible loss of life.

Summing up let me ask: For what are we responsible as a new nation? You have seen what we are, and you have learned what our people are capable of doing. What are our responsibilities? I will give you a few that I jotted down line by line. First, shall I say, for the conservation of our natural resources. Let us not be spendthrifts. The prodigal in the far country was content to feed on the husks which the swine did eat but no one gave to him. Let us not play the part of the prodigal! Let us save our forests! Let us save our farms by improved agriculture! Let us preserve our mineral resources by the best means known to science! We are responsible for the defence of this great country. (Applause) We are responsible to see that our homes are secure against internal foes if any should arise, though there do not seem to be such foes in Canada for we are obedient to law and order, and against foreign foes, should any assail by land or by sea. It is our duty to realize that we are no mean people, and to realize, too, the magnitude of our necessities, and see that that defence is adequate and complete. (Applause)

We are responsible for the education of two millions of children. Let us not forget the fireside, the little lads from five to fifteen who go to our public schools whose minds are being formed, and who will be good Canadians, if we help to make them good, and if we fill them with the love of country. Old Hamilcar, it is said, took his young son Hannibal to the temple of his god and placed him upon his knees before the supreme idol of Courage, and bade him swear eternal hatred to the Romans. Let us do better by bringing our sons to the fireside, and to their mother's and their father's knee, and bid them swear eternal loyalty to Canada and to good Government. (Applause)

We are responsible for the training of our industrial forces. No cheap goods in Canada; no unskilled workmen where better workmen can be obtained, no shoddy for the market, no discreditable goods placed upon the foreign market, but everything of the best and illustrative of the highest Canadian skill.

We are responsible for the health and comfort of five hundred thousand artisans in our factories. Let us respect the toil by which they earn their living and the comfort which that toil brings to us. You enter your homes and you tread upon lovely carpets made amid the buzz of machinery, and you say, "Oh, how nice," and you sit down in an easy chair and loll before a pleasant fire, and you say, "How lovely." Do you think that that coal is the product of the deep mine, and that easy chair is the product of a factory where men toil late and early? "Lest we forget," says Kipling, but let us not forget. You sit under a handsome gasalier or electrolier and you read your evening paper, and you forget the toil that produced the paper or the industry that led to that pleasant light which you so much enjoy. Let us reach out the hands of sympathy. And I do not say it in a pathetic sense, for the workingman needs no more sympathy than anybody else, but let us extend the hand of honest help where help is required and see that he labours under the best conditions.

We are responsible for the moral character, and shall I say, for the political character, for that is a most difficult thing to guard, of one million four hundred thousand electors who come up to the polls as often as they are asked, or who do not come up--and the more shame to those who stay at home and do not vote-sometimes from an easy conscience, and sometimes according to the pressure brought to bear upon them, but wherever they vote let them vote for the benefit of their country.

Shall we, too, who are educated in the constitutional history of Canada and in its prospects, and its expectations, be responsible for religious toleration? No intolerant bigoted brand should ever be held in the hands of a single Canadian man or woman. There is no birthright equal to that of liberty of conscience and liberty of thought, and we are responsible for the liberty of thought and a free press, and for liberty of conscience, and we are responsible for a deeper and more intelligent Canadian feeling, and for deeper loyalty to Empire. These things it is the object of this Club to aid and to advance. We are responsible for playing the game of nation-building with courage, with energy, and so my last word shall be, "Play up, play up, and play the game."