The Canadian Commonwealth | Page 9

habitant, blessed at his birth and blessed at his marriage, is
usually blessed at his death at the ripe age of ninety or a hundred. It is a
simple and on the whole a very happy, if not progressive, life. Some
years ago, when hard times prevailed in Canada and the manufacturing
cities of New England offered what seemed big wages to habitants,

who considered themselves rich on one hundred dollars a year--a great
migration took place across the border; but it was not a happy move for
these simple children of the soil. They missed the shepherding of their
beloved curé, and the movement has almost stopped. Also you find
Jean Ba'tiste in the redwoods of California as lumber-jack, or plying a
canoe on MacKenzie River. The best fur-traders of the North to-day are
half-breeds with a strain of French Canadian blood.
If you take a look at the map of Quebec under its new boundaries up
into Labrador--it seems absurd to call a region three times the area of
Germany "a province"--you will see that only the fringe of the river
fronts has been peopled. This is owing to the old system of parceling
out the land in mile strips back from the river--a system that antedated
the railroads, when every man's train was a paddle and the waterfront.
Beyond, back up from the rivers, lies literally a no-man's-land of furs
plentiful as of old, of timber of which only the edge has been slashed,
of water power unestimated and of mineral resources only guessed. It
seems incredible at this late date that you can count on one hand the
number of men who have ascended the rivers of Quebec and descended
the rivers of Labrador to Hudson Bay. The forest area is estimated at
one hundred and twenty million acres; but that is only a guess. The area
of pulp wood is boundless.
Along the St. Lawrence, south of the St. Lawrence and around the great
cities come touches of the modern--elaborate stock farms, great
factories, magnificent orchards, huge sawmills. The progress of
Montreal and the City of Quebec is so intimately involved with the
navigation of the St. Lawrence route and the development of railroads
that it must be dealt with separately; but it may be said here that nearly
all the old seigneurial tenures--Crown grants of estates to the nobility
of New France--have passed to alien hands. The system itself, the last
relic of feudal tenure in Canada, was abolished by Canadian law. What,
then, is the aim of Quebec as a factor in Canada's destiny? It may be
said perfectly frankly that with the exception of such enlightened men
as Laurier, Quebec does not concern herself with Canada's destiny. In a
war with France, yes, she would give of her sons and her blood; in a
war against France, not so sure. "Why are you loyal?" I asked a

splendid scholarly churchman of the old régime--a man whose works
have been quoted by Parkman. "Because," he answered slowly,
"because--you--English--leave us--alone to work out our hopes." "What
are those hopes?" I asked. He waved his hand toward the
window--church spires and yet more spires far as we could see down
the St. Lawrence--another New France conserving the religious ideals
that had been crushed by the republicanism of the old land. Let it be
stated without a shadow of doubt--Quebec never has had and never will
have the faintest idea of secession. Her religious freedom is too well
guaranteed under the present régime for her to risk change under an
untried order of independence or annexation. The church wants Quebec
exactly as she is--to work out her destiny of a new and regenerate
France on the banks of the St. Lawrence.
A certain section of the French oppose Canada embroiling herself in
European wars. They do this conscientiously and not as a political trick
to attract the votes of the ultramontane French. One of the most
brilliant supporters Sir Wilfred Laurier ever had flung his chances of a
Cabinet place to the winds in opposing Canada's participation in the
Boer War. He not only flung his chances to the winds, but he ruined
himself financially and was read out of the party. The motive behind
this opposition to Canada's participations in the Imperial wars is,
perhaps, three-fold. French Canada has never forgotten that she was
conquered. True, she is better off, enjoys greater religious liberty,
greater material prosperity, greater political freedom than under the old
régime; but she remembers that French prestige fell before English
prestige on the Plains of Abraham. The second motive is an
unconscious feeling of detachment from British Imperial affairs. Why
should French Canada embroil herself and give of her blood and means
for a race alien to herself in speech and religion? The