The Canadian Commonwealth | Page 8

for seamen. Will she become a marine
power in the New World? It is one of her dreams. It is also one of
England's dreams. No country subsidizes her merchant liners more
heavily than Canada[8]--in striking contrast with the parsimonious
policy of the United States. It is Canada's policy of ship subsidies that

has established regular merchant liners--all liable to service as
Admiralty ships--to Australia, to China, to Japan and to every harbor
on the Atlantic.
Whether heavy subsidies to large liners will effect as much for a
merchant marine for Canada as numerous small subsidies to small lines
remains to be seen. The development of seamen from her fisheries is
one of the dreams she must work out in her destiny, and that leads one
to the one great disadvantage under which Canada rests as a marine
power. She lacks winter harbors on the Atlantic accessible to her great
western domain, whence comes the bulk of her commerce for export.
True, the maritime provinces afford those harbors--Saint John and
Halifax. A dozen other points, if need were, could be utilized in the
maritime provinces as winter harbors; but take a look at the map! The
maritime provinces are the longest possible spiral distance from the rest
of Canada. They necessitate a rail haul of from two to three thousand
miles from the west. What gives Galveston, New Orleans, Baltimore,
Buffalo preeminence as harbors? Their nearness to the centers of
commerce--their position far inland of the continent, cutting rail haul
by half and quarter from the plains. Montreal has this advantage of
being far inland; but from November to May Montreal is closed; and
Canadian commerce must come out by way of American lines, or pay
the long haul down to the maritime provinces. There can be no doubt
that this disadvantage is one of the factors forcing the West to find
outlet by Hudson Bay--where harbors are also closed by the ice but are
only four hundred miles from the wheat plains. There can also be no
doubt that the opening of Panama will draw much western commerce
to Europe by way of the Pacific.
III
When one comes to consider Quebec under its new boundaries, one is
contemplating an empire three times larger than Germany, supporting a
population not so large as Berlin.[9] It is the seat of the old French
Empire, the land of the idealists who came to propagate the Faith and
succeeded in exploring three-quarters of the continent, with canoes
pointed ever up-stream in quest of beaver. All the characteristics of the

Old Empire are in Quebec to-day. Quebec is French to the core, not in
loyalty to republican France, but in loyalty to the religious ideals which
the founders brought to the banks of the St. Lawrence three centuries
ago. Church spire, convent walls, religious foundations occupy the
most prominent site in every city and town and hamlet of Quebec.
From Tadousac to Montreal, from Labrador to Maine or New
Hampshire, you can follow the thread of every river in Quebec by the
glitter of the church spires round which nestle the hamlets. No matter
how poor the hamlet, no matter how remote the hills which slope
wooded down to some blue lake, there stand the village church with its
cross on the spire, the whitewashed house of the curé, the whitewashed
square dormer-windowed school.
Outside Quebec City and Montreal, Quebec is the most reposeful
region in all America. What matter wars and rumors of wars to these
habitants living under guidance of the curé, as their ancestors lived two
hundred years ago? They pay their tithes. They attend mass. At birth,
marriage and death--the curé is their guide and friend. He teaches them
in their schools. He advises them in their family affairs. He counsels
them in their business. At times he even dictates their politics; but
when you remember that French is the language spoken, that primary
education is of the slimmest, though all doors are open for a promising
pupil to advance, you wonder whether constant tutelage of a benevolent
church may not be a good thing in a chaotic, confused and restless age.
The habitant lives on his little long narrow strip of a farm running back
from the river front. He fishes a little. He works on the river and in the
lumber camps of the Back Country. He raises a little tobacco, hay, a pig,
a cow, a little horse and a family of from ten to twenty. When the
daughters marry--as they are encouraged to do at the earliest possible
age--the farm is subdivided among the sons; and when it will subdivide
no longer, there is a migration to the Back Country, or to a French
settlement in the Northwest, where another curé will shepherd the flock;
and the