THE REAL CANADA OF 1907. ITS ACTUAL PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 89

THE REAL CANADA OF 1907. ITS ACTUAL PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE.

Br Hugh H. Lusk,

No. VI.— ONTARIO.

The Province of Ontario is the most easterly part of the Dominion that can be looked upon as in any degree coming under the came of Western Canada, and properly speaking only a part of the prctvince has any real claim to the distinction. -Probably Ontario is in some veepeets the most interesting, as it certainly is the most varied both in soil and climate, of all the Canadian provinces. Lying along the coastline of the great lakes it kees many of the continental features that form the leading characteristics of the provinces farther to the w»t. With a climate more varied than that of any of them, it has a country presenting' a greater variety in soil, and even in scenery, than most. Reaching at its southern limit to the latitude of New York in America, or Madrid in Europe, its northern boundary fronts the waters of Hudson's B^^ frozen for seven months in the year. Including some of the richest land in Canada, it embraces also the largest district of barren country as yet known on the continent: a district which in fact divides Canada almost exactly in tine middle by a belt of apparently hopeless land several hundred: mH.ee in width. Bat for this 'there can b» no doubt that Ontario would be the most desirable and the wealthiest province in the Dominion. As matters stand, however, a very large proportion of it» land is valueless for settlement — land, unfortunately, which has of all the Dominion the easiest access to the markets of the outside world. Extending for a thousand miles from east to west, it follows the windings of the great lake shore* from the -western end of Lake Superior to the navigable waters of the St. Lajirrenoa, while no part of it lies mote than 200 miles from tihe shore. It v not to be wonderea at that, finding tbemgelreß confronted b^ ths great barrier

of barren: country, and no longer assisted by the waterway of tbe great lakes Xo pass beyond it, the people of eastern Canada were slow to believe in the possibilities of settlement in the west.

The settlement of Ontario, it need hardily be said, has generally followed, as far as possible, tthe lines oi navigation, and bejgan for the most part in the most southerly, and therefore the meet temperate, climate which the country had to offer. At first it is difficult fox a stranger to the country and its peculiarities of climate to appreciate the full significance of the fact that while Weetiemn Canada has its southern limit at latitude 49, equivalent to the very southernmost point of New Zealand, Ontario ' lies mainly b> t-ween the 49th amd 42nd parallels of latitude — occupying a situation in the northern hemisphere equivalent practically to that of New Zealand's South Mand in tie southern hemisphere. There is, it is true, the dostiixotjon between an ineu?ar and a continenal position to be remembered — and this in winter is a very notable distinction, — but nevertheless tJse difference of an average five degrees of sunshine and heat is a very important one to any country, whatever the advocates of the cold west may say. The older Ontario djstricte, even on a comparison with the more north-western districts, which it ie the fashion to call New Ontario, show this distinction clearly in the nature and extent of the crops raieed! witih success in each.

The older Ontario, which is also tbd more southern part of the province, extending in a curioue tomahawk-like shape from the 46th to the 42nd parallel of latitude, may be said to be the garden of Canada. Eveii here the winter months are cold compared with anything known even in the districts of New Zealand that are farthest south, but when the spring begins, which it does weeks before there are any signs of such a change in the west, the weather grows quickly hot. The crops, dmd even the fruit of comparatively warm, climates, grow and flourish. The peach and the jgrape, which are unknown in the west, or even in the districts of Ontario further to the north, grow readily and wibh success, aa long as choice is made of the hardier varieties of each, in the district of which Toronto is the natural centre. Tbe hammerhead, or tomahawk blade, lying "between Lake Huron on the west and Lakes Erie and Ontario on the south and east, is indeed in many respecte by far the most" attractive and naturally wealthy district of Canada, and. this preeminence" it owes to two things mainly, if not entirely — its superior climate and its acceesability from the ocean, by way ;©I the lakes and the St. Lawrence. It | possesses, indeed, a large extent of rich land, but by no means richer or better, and perhaps not on the whole so easily cultivated in the first instance, than the prairie lands of the west. What it does possess, in tphort, in a greater degree than they is situation, and a climate that" renders it more suitable for really successful occupation by our own people. •• This applies, it must be remembered, only to a part of Ontario, and that the part which has already been for the most part taken up and settled by a very considerable population, including, besides the larger towns, many small towns and village settlements. In these district* the Government has now practically no land for sale that can he considered desirable for settlement. There are, fortunately, no great railway grants of land that might have served as a temptation to the holders to boom the country as a field for settlement, so that the settlement of Eastern and Central Ontario has been left to the time-honoured system of natural selection. The result has been that this part of the pre vince has been, comparatively slowly out very surely, developed into what is at this time probably the most substantially prosperous part of the Dominion.

What has long been known aa the barren tract of Canada lies in the western part of the Province of Ontario. It is a broad belt of country, variously estimated at from 300 to 500 miles in width, according to the optimistic tendencies or the reverse of the observers. The belt runs from noFth to south, and, it is said, extends' from the waters of Lake Superior to those of Hudson's Bay. It is not wholly barren, indeed, for on most of it there is some growth of forest, except where it is too rocky,- but the timber is generally stunted, and not worth the trouble of taking to market. It is fair to say that considerable exceptions to this state of things are said to exist ; and it is now said that there are valleys towards the north of good land, the chief objections to which are the difficulty of access and the greater severity of the climate. These valleys, and the better class of timber land in the north-west of the province, form part of what is now called New Ontario, which is just at present being made the subject of a small boom by the Canadian Lands Department. It most be admitted, however, that the effort is a mild one when compared with the loud-sounding flourishes of the trumpets of the railway landowners and other great land speculators in the West.

New Ontario has some advantages— mainly those of its position, — which will become more apparent when railway enterprise opens up the country by new lines of railway. There are already several of these, both in the northern and more southerly partß of what is called the new com ry, but a» the land is broken, and the parts really available for profitable settlement are almost entirely contained, in valleys canning far back into the country, and difficult of access from one another, it- is evident that a much greater expenditure of capital in supplying communication must be incurred than in Manitoba, or the plain country farther west, where .lines can. be laid with a minimum of labour and expense. It appears at least doubtful whether— for years to come, at anyrate— this wiE be done in N.ew Ontario. In the long run no dotrbt ii% wil). be so, and then, it may be, the advantages of a l«£s severe climate than that jirevailisii ia, fcha 3Ketfc jrill maka

itself felt. This, however, will not apply to the country towards the boundary of the Keewatin district, which is to Manitoba and Ontario what the Macknezie Country ie to Alberta and Saskatchewan. — a never-never land of desolation and ice, — nor, it may safely be predicted, to most of the country whose watershed slopes towards Hudson's Bay. In short, it is probably 6afe to say that not more than two-thirds of the area of the Province of Ontario will ever hold out any very attractive prospect to the settler of our own race ; while the reverse is certainly true of the remaining third, which is now, and is likely always to be, the home of a prosSBrous agricultural population. The xxew ntario, and .even parts of the province which at present are never included in üb-e tennj -vrill no doubt be settled bj--and-bye. If Canada is willing to accept, and S.ve a home to, the peoples of Northern ussia and Finland, or even "to the oppressed people of Poland and , Northern Central Kussia, there is no reason, either on. the score of land or climate, why they should not be as comfortable and more prosperous even on the shores of Hudson's Bay as they could ever hope to be in their own land. It is possible— looking at Canada as "it is, without either the glamour of a patriotic enthusiasm to mislead me, or the consideration of an overpowering self-interest to make me ready to mislead others — that this may be the natural destiny of the country : the one for which it is really best fitted. I am quite certain, however, from what I J *ave seen elsewhere that it is not a destiny which onr own people should wisn to share.

Toronto, the chief city and capital of the province, is a finely-situated and very attractive city. Without the old historic associations of Quebec, leas romantic in situation than Montreal certainly leas thoroughly ap to date and complete in its design than Winnipeg, it has in some respects the advantage of them all. As a great centre of commerce it may never have the commanding position of Winnipeg, should the great expectations that make of the western plains the future granary of the world ever be fulfilled ; but of this there is as yet no real evidence. As- a great port for foreign shipping it cannot, in the meantime, compete with Montreal; but the time- is probably not distant when most of the foreign trade will pasa Montreal, to find a centre in the lake region, nearer to the lands and markets of. Central and Western Canada-, and such a natural centre will be found at Toronto. The city, situated as it is on the shore of the most easterly of the great lakes, is a beautiful and atti active one. Unlike both Quebec and Montreal, it is a city of our own people, where the English language is spoken, and the people'-s way of looking at things is British too. Unlike Ottawa, it is a city that has grown, and will continue io grow, naturally after the fashion which ii? f always been that of our own nation. It may loae in this way much of the architectural adornment which has made Washington remarkable among cities, and will very likely make of Ottawa a northern rival to Washington ; it will gain all the advantages that go with what is natural instead of artificial, and it will avoid' the evils that seem to he inseparable from the position of a city which w the centre of the political corruption of a great federation of provinces. With Ontario we finish onr survey of the new Canada. The provinces still farther to the east are now so tar from new that, though their lands are very far indeed from fully settled, and their resources are in no sense developed, it is comparatively easy to predict their future. Quebec, with its mixed population and iti vast tracts of cold and inhospitable lands, offers little field for anticipation : and the little group of foggy Atlantic provinces are too small to affect very greatly the future of the Dominion. They have little land to offer a new population of immigrants, and less that could be made altractive. I have something still to say, however, of the land system in force en the great new lands of the West and of the outlook of the country affected by them.

When the Komata came into th*> stream at- Wellington .(eay« the -New Zealand Times) somebody on board began to signal the shore with one of the signalling lamps which the Board of Trade has recently decided shall be carried by all steamers. The signals were noticed by Mr C. W. Palmer from his residence at Goldie's Brae, and he tried to attract the attention of the ship with a signalling lamp which he has made acooiding to his own design. He was not long: in doing to, and having ascertained the name of the steamer, wh able to transmit some messages by telephone to friend* of the officers on shore. The usefulness of such a bobby, both in peace and war, cannot bo over-estimated. When all ships carry these lamps, conversation by night at eea will be a comparatively easy matter.