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Further extracts
from the masters diary would not help the story I am telling you,
for it becomes such a record as many farmers keep,—when they sowed
and reaped, what they sold and bought. Having completed the account
of his first year’s experience in the bush for his friend in
Scotland, he ceased noting down his daily happenings, which for him
no longer had the interest of novelty.
The forest had been
sufficiently subdued to enable him to gain a living from the land,
and his life partook more and more of the routine of Canadian
farmers. He was, however, much more successful than the majority of
them, due to his energy and skill. His first decided start was due
to the existence of that swamp whose discovery filled him with
dismay. The forage he got off it enabled him to start keeping stock
long before he otherwise could have done. In the fall of 1826 he
bought a cow and a couple of two-year old heifers, and the following
spring there was enough milk to enable the mistress to make a few
cheese. These gave the farm a reputation which established a steady
demand at a paying price. More cows were got, no grain was sold,
everything was fed, and the master, with the help of the mistress,
led in dairying. In Ayrshire she had the name of making the best
cheese in the parish and her skill stood the family in good stead in
Canada.
That second summer
the entire swamp was brought into cultivation, and it proved to be
the best land on the farm for grass. When other pastures were dried
up, cattle had a bite on the swamp, for so it continued to be called
long after it had lost all the features of a swamp. The clearing of
the forest went on steadily, so that each fall saw a larger yield of
grain and roots. In the fifth year the master was rejoiced to find
many of the stumps could be dragged out by oxen, and a field secured
on which he could use the long-handled plow as in Scotland.
An unlooked for
result of the draining of the swamp and the sweeping away of the
forest in every direction was the gradual drying up of the pond. A
more striking instance was told me by a settler who was led to
choose a lot near lake Simcoe on account of a brook prattling across
it and which reminded him of Scotland. In twenty years the brook was
gone, the plow turning furrows on its bed. The one great drawback to
the progress of the three families was the lack of a road to Yonge-street.
In winter there was little difficulty for then snow made a highway,
but the rest of the year no wheeled vehicle could go over it. At one
of the sessions of the legislature, when the estimates for roads and
bridges was up, the owner of the 1200 acre block of land that was
the cause of our trouble, made a pathetic appeal for a grant to give
an outlet to three of the thriftiest and most deserving families he
had any acquaintance with, and his appeal resulted in a hundred
dollars being voted. Two years later, on being questioned by the
master about the grant, the honorable gentleman (for he had Hon.
before his name) told him he had drawn the money but there was no
condition as to the time he should start the work. In 1830 there set
in an unprecedented influx of immigrants, who wanted land. The
honorable gentleman saw his opportunity and sold every acre of the
1200. Those who bought had to cut out the road, and making it
passable for travel was hard work for years, on account of the size
of the stumps and of many parts having to be corduroyed.
With the coming of these new neighbors, a school became necessary
and in it services were held on Sunday. The master sought the help
of a Presbyterian minister in Toronto. He came once; on finding how
rude everything was, he declined to return. A North of Ireland
family was no more successful with an Anglican minister. He had
newly come out from a cathedral city in the south of England and was
shocked to find the log school had not a robing-room. The end was
that a Methodist circuit-rider took in our settlement in his rounds,
which resulted in a majority of those who attended his services
uniting with the Methodist church. The ministers who came from the
Old Country in those early days were singularly unfit for new
settlements. The Anglican on landing assumed he was the only duly
accredited clergyman, and was offended at his claim being slighted,
while his feelings were jarred by the lack of conditions he
considered essential to the proper conducting of worship. The
Presbyterian ministers were more amenable to the changes, yet their
ideals were of the parishes they had known in Scotland—a church, a
manse, a glebe, tiends, and a titled patron. The effects of State
established churches in the Old Land were thus felt in the
backwoods, which was shown more markedly in the strife to reproduce
State churches in Canada. I look back with distress to the bitter
controversy which went on from year to year over the possession of
the revenue from the clergy reserves. The cause of strife was not
altogether the money, but the proof of superiority the possession of
the fund would give. With many it was a.® much pride as
covetousness. When we recall the energy that characterized the
agitation over the clergy reserves, I think of what the same effort
would have accomplished had it been directed to evangelize the
province.
Another agitation, less prolonged but fiercer while it lasted, was
that which reached its head in the rebellion year. As was
unavoidable, the rule of the province on its being organized, fell
into the hands of the people who first came. They divided its public
offices among themselves and managed its affairs. In time these
first-comers were outnumbered by immigrants, but there was no
change. the first-comers held to the reins. Had they used their
power in the public interest, that would have been submitted to, but
they did not—they abused their power for their own interests. They
multiplied offices, increased salaries, grabbed the public lands,
and laid the foundation of a national debt by borrowing money. There
were instances of stealing of public funds, with no punishment
following. Farmers became restless under an iniquitous
administration of public lands. The discontent, which was as wide as
the province, was taken advantage of by men who designed Canada
should become a republic, and began an agitation to bring that
about. Men, like the master, who ardently wished reforms, were
repelled when they found the main object of the leaders of the
agitation was the separation of Canada from Britain and would have
nothing to do with them. The first time the master met Mackenzie he
took a dislike to him, perceiving his overweening vanity, his habit
of contradiction, and his lack of judgment. He said he was a
specimen of the unpleasant type of Scot who meddled and denounced to
attract attention and make himself of consequence. When he saw him
shaping a rebellion he declared it would be a ridiculous failure,
that no such whitrick of a creature could lead in the peoples cause.
There were grievous wrongs to be righted, but he held the advocacy
of the changes called for by such men as Mackenzie was a hindrance
instead of a help to their being secured. Brodie’s oldest son was
somewhat conceited, and had come to believe he was born to be
something else than a farmer. I think the isolation of farm life
conduces to develop that notion. The boy brought little in contact
with his fellows, does not have his pretensions rubbed down, and
comes to think he is superior to them. I have seen many such, who
thinking they were business men, or would shine in some public
capacity, or were fitted to adorn a profession, made shipwreck of
their lives in leaving the plow. Hugh was one of those. A good
fellow and a good worker with his father, he began by frequenting
corner stores at night and before long considered himself an
authority in politics and was ready to argue in a long-winded and
dreary fashion with any who disputed his crude assertions. Taken
notice of by leaders in the agitation going on, appointed to
committees and consulted as to plans on foot, he became carried away
and neglected his home duties. When the explosion took place in
December, 1837, he was one of those who met at Montgomery’s tavern.
A decisive blow
could have been struck had the men there gathered marched to Toronto
and seized the guns stored in the city hall. There was no man to
take the lead. Mackenzie vapored and complained of others, formed
plans one hour to change the next, and demonstrated the weakness of
his shallow nature. Seeing this, farmers sincerely desirous of a
change in the rule of the province, left for their homes, and the
handful left were routed without trouble. Hugh was among those made
prisoners and placed in Toronto jail. His father was in great
distress and implored me to help to get him released. My stay in
Toronto had given a knowledge of its officials and I told him if he
was willing to pay it might be done. We went to the home of the
prosecutor for the crown. The father told his tale and, in piteous
terms, begged the return of his son to his distracted mother.
Perceiving what he said had no effect, I took the gentleman aside
and told him the father might give cash bail. ‘How much is he ready
to deposit?’ was asked. I thought he had $5.25 in his pocket. ‘Not
enough' he replied. ‘The lad can be indicted for treason which means
hanging.’ ‘You cannot get evidence against him on that charge. Say
what you want?’ Turning to Brodie he said if he would deposit ten
pounds, and enter into the proper recognizances he would give him an
order to the jailor for his son’s release. Without a word of demur
the father counted out $40 of his painfully gathered savings and the
chancellor scribbled the order. On reaching the prison the jailor
raised objections. It was now dark and after hours and the lad had
been boarded four days and the fees of the constables who had
arrested him had to be paid. I cut him short by asking ‘How much?’
The fellow eyed the father as if calculating the extent of his
ability to pay. ‘Ten pound ten.’ he said. ‘Nonsense,’ I replied,
farmers have not that much money to give away; say one pound ten and
I will advance it for him.’ He nodded and I passed the money. Going
upstairs he threw open a door, and we saw in the hall, or rather
corridor, a crowd of men. They were silent with the exception of one
who was denouncing his being held as an outrage, for he was as loyal
as the governor himself. The rest of them were enduring their
condition in sullen silence. Among them were industrious farmers who
had warrants issued against them because they had been known to
threaten officials in the land-office for not getting patents for
the lots they had paid for, farmers arrested on information lodged
by men who owed them, others by officials who expected to share in
their property when confiscated, and barroom politicians who had
expressed their opinions too freely about those in power. A few,
however, were thoughtless young fellows who had been drawn to visit
Montgomery’s tavern from mere curiosity and love of excitement. The
room was lighted dimly by two lamps hung on the walls;, the heat was
stifling, the odor sickening. We looked among the throng for Hugh.
His father pulled my sleeve and pointed to a far corner, where he
was squat on the floor with his face to the wall in the stupor of
despair. The jailer jostled his way to him, and grasped his collar.
Hugh turned his face in agonized apprehension of his fate, for he
told us afterwards he expected to be hanged, and that he was wanted.
Dragging him to where we stood the poor fellow collapsed at sight of
his father and fell on his neck. Hastening downstairs the jailer
opened the wicket and we were on the street. Hugh was dazed when he
saw the jailer did not follow.
Where are we going, fatlher?' ‘Going home.’ ‘Have I not to go back
to prison?’ ‘No, you are free.’ Hugh broke down and cried. ‘We will
have supper and then we will hitch up.’ ‘No, no,’ sobbed Hugh, ‘let
us go home now.’ On shaking hands with them all the horse started, I
saw poor Hugh was thouroly humbled and penitent. It was not for a
brief time, for on going home he proved what his boyhood had
promised, an obedient son and steady worker. 'He never has now a
word of complaint about what is set on the table,’ whispered his
mother to me.
This ridiculous attempt at a revolution had one good and one bad
effect. The good, was a change in the government that made
conditions more tolerable; the bad, was in giving color to fastening
upon Liberals the stigma of disloyalty The leaders in the attempted
rising had declared for separation from Britain, and those of them
who escaped across the frontier became avowed annexationists. W hat
they were the Tories asserted all Liberals were and the. maintenance
of British connection depended upon their being kept out of office.
The many years that have passed have made that pretension
traditional, and whenever there is an election, I hear the charge of
disloyalty imputed to Liberals and the claim to exclusive loyalty
made by their opponents.
The passing years have wrought a marvellous change in the face of
the country. Our drive up Yonge-street in 1825 was like a boat
treeing a narrow channel of the sea. On either hand was a continuous
wall of forest, and where an attempt had been made to push it back
the uncarved bush projected like rocky promontories. The houses
passed at wide intervals were shanties; the clearances in which they
were set cluttered with stumps. How different now. Handsome
residences have replaced the log-shanties, the bush has become a
graceful fringe in the background of smooth, well - tilled fields.
Like the ocean which keeps no trace of the keels that have furrowed
its wastes, these beautiful fields are the speechless bequest of the
men and women who redeemed them from savagery at the cost of painful
privations, of exhausting, never ceasing toil, of premature decay of
strength. They fought and overcame and succeeding generations enjoy
the fruits of their labors—fruits they barely lived to taste. These
were the men and women who made Canada, the founders of its
prosperity, the true Makers of the nation to which it has grown. It
is common for politicians and their newspapers to steal for their
party-idols credit to which they have no claim, by styling them the
Makers of Canada, but no suppression of facts, no titles the crown
is misled to confer, no Windsor uniforms, no strutting in swords and
cocked hats, no declarations and resolutions of parliament, no blare
of party conventions, no lies graven on marble, nor statues of
bronze, can change the truth, that the True Makers of Canada were
those who, in obscurity and poverty, made it with ax and spade, with
plow and scythe, with sweat of face and strength of arm.
I would not imply that being first is necessarily a merit in itself.
There must be a beginning to everything and to magnify the man who
felled the first tree or reared the first shanty is no honor if
unaccompanied by moral worth. I have seen many townships come into
existence and have known the men who first went into them, and my
sorrow is, that so few of them are worthy of remembrance.
Recognizing this, I pay no honor to a man who boasts he was the
first to do this or that, and who, though first, threw away his
opportunity to benefit himself and those who followed. I am tired of
men who posture as pioneers and founders and who have nothing else
to claim. Unless they also had moral worth, strove to give the right
tone to the settlement of which, by accident, they started, they are
not deserving of more than passing notice.
Scores of times I
have been struck by the differences in settlements, how one is
thrifty, and its neighbor shiftless; one sending into the world
young men and women of intelligence and high aspiration; the other
coarse people who gravitate downward. If a first settler is of
sterling character he moulds the community that gathers around him
and he deserves honor, but the first settler of gross habits it is
welt to forget. The government that tries to make a selection among
those who seek its land acts wisely in the interest of coming
generations. To give land to all who ask it, regardless of what they
are, will indeed fill the country, but will be of no benefit in the
long run. I know of townships where laziness, ignorance, prejudice,
and gross habits prevail to such a degree that it would have been
better had the land remained in bush. The bullet strikes as the
rifle is pointed, and Canada has never aimed to secure the best
people as settlers. We need population, has been the cry, get it and
never mind of what quality it is. What is more blamable, our
legislature does not even try to secure settlers who will
assimilate. Business called me to a township one summer where few of
the settlers knew a word of English. Is that the way to build up
Canada as British?
Nature has designed Canada as an agricultural country and such it
must remain. It will prosper as its farmers prosper, and languish
when they are not doing well. It follows their welfare should be the
first consideration, and a mistake will be made if the fact is not
recognized when they work under unfavorable conditions.
The farmer in the Old Country can plow every month in the year and
his flocks and herds only need supplementary rations to keep them in
condition. How different it is here, where winter locks the soil in
iron bonds half the year and animals must be fed from October to
May. What our farmers raise in six months is consumed in the other
six, so that their labor half the year is to store up food for the
other half. The result is, that the earnings of our farmers are less
than half of what they would be had we England’s climate. The public
man who argues that because the Old Country farmer can pay heavy
rent to his landlord, bear the burden of severe taxation, and yet
make a living, the Canadian farmer should be able to do likewise,
shuts his eyes to the kind of winter he has to fight against. That
winter cuts his earnings more than half, for, during the months the
land is frozen he is unable to do any kind of profitable farm work,
indeed has spells of enforced idleness. The Old Country farmer can
keep hired help the year round, for he has employment for them; the
Canadian farmer needs extra hands only during summer. The result is
that his margin of profits is so narrow that he can never pay such
taxes as are collected from the agricultural class in England. When
public burdens draw on his income to the extent that he is not left
a living profit, the Anglo-Saxon will leave the land to be occupied
by an unenterprising class of people who are content to vegetate,
not to live The pre-eminent essential in Canada’s policy is to make
farming profitable and keep it so.
While the statement, that agriculture is the foundation of Canada’s
life, is so often repeated that it has become a commonplace remark,
is it not extraordinary that none of its public men since Simcoe’s
day have acted upon it? With the words on their lips, Canada rests
upon the farmer, it would be expected the welfare of the farmer
would be their solicitous concern. In the first element of
agricultural prosperity, the settlement of the land, they have kept
back the progress of the country by bestowing it, not on the men
ready and anxious to cultivate it, but upon individuals and
companies who expect to make a profit by reselling to the actual
settler. By making the land a commodity to buy political support,
the settlement of the country has been kept back. The rule, that the
land be given only to those who will live upon it and crop itr would
have saved heartbreak to thousands of willing men who came to our
shores asking liberty to till its soil, and would have placed an
occupant on every lot fit to yield a living. The individuals and
companies who have been given grants of blocks of land under the
pretence that they would settle them, have been blights on the
progress of the country.
As to the danger of taxation increasing to a degree that will make
the working of the land unattractive to the intelligent and
enterprising, that menace comes from two classes—the projectors of
public works who agitate for them from self-interest, and from those
who have raised a clamor to encourage manufacturers by giving them
bonuses in the form of protective duties. Should a levy ever be made
on the earnings of the farmer to help a favored class, there will be
a leaving of the land for other countries and for better-paying
occupations.
My desire is, to see Canada a land where every man who wishes may
own a part of God’s footstool and, by industry, secure a decent
living. Surely it is a patriotic duty to make Canada a nation where
toil and thrift fetch the reward of independence, a nation without
beggars or of men willing to work and cannot get it, a nation of
happy homes where there is neither wealth nor luxury but enough of
the world’s means to ensure comfort and to develop in its men and
women what is best in human nature. |
