one of internal organization, of trade policy, of the occupation of land hitherto almost unpeopled, of the opening up of communication and the building of railways and canals, of the working of political institutions, of the disputes of the central government in its relations with the provincial governments and of the clear definition of their respective powers. In one sense it is not a dramatic tale; it has little of the glitter and ceremonial of old-world movements. But, none the less, it is a profoundly romantic story of the birth of a nation and of its passing from neglected obscurity into a conspicuous place. The Canadian statesmen of 1867, with one of their chief problems that of contriving, somehow, to build a railway from Quebec to Halifax, might well be staggered before Canada's problem of to-day as to how she can best discharge her duty in respect to world politics.

Two figures stand most conspicuous in this later history of Canada; they are Sir John Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Since 1854 one or other of these leaders has been in the forefront of the political battle. During this time Sir John Macdonald was, in effect, if not always in name, prime minister for nearly thirty years, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier for half that period.

To hold the divergent elements in Canada together in one state, and to enlarge this state so as to include the whole of British North America, was the chief task which Macdonald faced as prime minister in 1867. He was well qualified for the work by his amazing skill and dexterity in managing men. He was aided too by the times. The federated colonies had just seen their mighty neighbour, the United States, fight through a bloody civil war on the question of national unity, and they had seen the forces of unity triumph. The lesson was not lost on them. Skilful leadership had brought them together, and the same skilful leadership now set to work to forge them into one people.

In the first instance, at least, it was to be actual links of steel that held the union together. A railway was soon built to bind the Maritime Provinces to the older Canada, and a greater railway was to stretch westward to link the far Pacific with the Atlantic, across Canadian territory. There were

fewer than fifty thousand people, other than native Indians, west of Ontario, when Canada undertook to build a railway for thousands of miles across far-spreading plains and through towering mountains. No wonder many said that the thing could not be done; no wonder that governments rose and fell on this issue. But the thing was done, and the Canadian Pacific Railway stands to-day as the first great achieved material task of the new Canada.

To run these two parallel lines of steel from ocean to ocean may seem but a small thing for a people to achieve. It meant, however, things greater than itself. In the older Canada, the story of settlement is one of hewing step by step a painful path inland from river and lake, of laborious warfare with the enveloping forest, of a lifetime spent in winning green fields from this forest's encroaching strength. The rough wagon road was then the symbol of advance; the ox and the horse were the motive power by which the advance was achieved. In the newer Canada, the Canadian Pacific Railway led to a different tale. The straight-driven line of steel, the long, swiftly moving train, the mysterious, the almost incalculable, power of steam are the symbols of its advance. It was long before the new meaning of these agencies for settlement was felt in Canada. The West grew but slowly, even after the Canadian Pacific Railway had been built. But the pause was only to gather strength for a greater effort. The line from the East to the West had been completed by 1885, and ten or twelve years later the movement westward was strong; in twenty years, that is by 1905, it had begun to attract world-wide attention, and soon it became one of the wonders of the world. With unprecedented rapidity towns and cities spring up in the new West. Not one, but three lines of railway are reaching out from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and a great population will soon dwell in the once empty region which Canada acquired after Confederation.

The commercial system under which the development should be regulated has from the first been the subject of acute controversy in Canada. Twelve years after Confederation was achieved, Canada turned its back definitely upon the policy of a tariff for revenue only and adopted that of a

protective tariff. It was Sir John Macdonald who led in this policy, and it remains that of the conservative party. The liberal party, while not definitely committed to free trade, has aimed at preserving a low tariff. In pursuance of this aim, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who came into power in 1896 and remained prime minister until 1911, took two steps towards freer trade. He gave a reduction of one-third of the tariff to British manufactures, and he agreed to a limited reciprocity in trade with the United States. The conservative party opposed both measures and drove the liberals from power in 1911 on the reciprocity issue. Thus one striking phase of the development of Canada since Confederation is represented by protection. The older Canada had a low tariff; the new Canada has a high tariff.

The federation of the Canadian provinces involved the working of a new and as yet untried system. An essential feature of federal government is the division of power between the central federal authority and the local authority in each province. The avowed aim of Sir John Macdonald was to make the provincial governments subordinate to the federal government at Ottawa. To carry out this policy he thought, while still prime minister, of becoming a member of the Ontario legislature at Toronto in order to keep the province in line with the policy of his administration. The liberals took strong ground on their policy of provincial rights, and claimed that the provinces, within their assigned spheres, were sovereign communities, in the same sense in which the federal government was sovereign. Keen disputes followed. The tribunal to which the ultimate appeal went was the Judicial Committee of the sovereign's Privy Council in London, and after Confederation this body was frequently called upon to interpret the meaning of the British North America Act. The ordinary reader of history cannot be expected to take a keen interest in the niceties of the constitutional points involved. Yet the history of Canada since Confederation is largely occupied with them. They are, too, of vital moment. To the people of each province the degree of authority which their legislature should have was of profound concern. Did their legislature or did the federal govern

ment control the liquor traffic? What were the rights of a province like Ontario to the natural resources, the minerals and timber, within its borders? What control might the provinces exert over fisheries? More important than all this perhaps was the question whether the provinces had complete control of education.

This last problem has proved disturbing in Canadian politics from the date of Confederation. Owing to certain factors in its being, Canada is the land of compromise in politics. Nearly two-fifths of its people adhere to the Roman Catholic faith, and more than one-half of these Roman Catholics are French in origin and speech. The Province of Quebec, the oldest and the most coherently organized of the provinces, is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic in faith and French in speech and race. Its neighbour Ontario, the most populous of the provinces, is overwhelmingly Protestant in faith and English in speech and race. The key to much of the history of Canada is to be found in the natural antagonism between these provinces, and in the appeals to religious and racial passions, which were made easy by their contrasts. In each province the minority had certain educational rights guaranteed under the constitution; the Roman Catholics of Ontario had the right to employ the taxes paid by them for education in the support of their own separate schools; the Protestants in Quebec had similar rights. Naturally the Roman Catholic minority wished for such rights in the other provinces. Under the terms of federation education was left in the control of the provincial legislatures; but, at the instance of the Roman Catholics, a clause was inserted in the bill giving the Dominion parliament the power under certain conditions to protect the educational rights of minorities and to pass legislation that might override provincial action. In 1890 the legislature of Manitoba abolished the Roman Catholic separate schools. At once an agitation began to force the Dominion government to intervene. Since the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Manitoba were chiefly French Canadians, their allies in the Province of Quebec took up their cause. Protestant Ontario ranged itself on the opposite side, and once again

a question was raised which appealed to the old antagonism between the two chief provinces.

The question broke the long tenure of power by the conservatives. In 1891, while the dispute was still unsettled, Sir John Macdonald died, and the Manitoba School Question proved a deadly heritage to his successors. At last Sir Charles Tupper, the conservative leader, undertook to enact legislation which should re-establish separate schools in Manitoba. The liberal party united to oppose this overriding of the authority of the province in respect to education. It was the old liberal cry of provincial rights. The conservative government fell on the issue. Wilfrid Laurier (afterwards Sir Wilfrid) came into power and held office continuously for fifteen years. He fell when he advocated greater freedom of trade with the United States. It was destined that while he held power new issues should arise in Canadian politics, issues that mark the greater sense of independence and responsibility, and the broader outlook, of a growing nation.

Any one who surveys the history of the older Canada will find traces everywhere of what may be called the colonial habit of mind. The younger states of the British Empire grew up with a sense of dependence on the mother country. She had occupied or conquered the territory which they held; she retained final authority in their affairs, and it was her duty, they said, to protect them from danger; they were children in the arms of the strong mother. As late as 1861, when the Civil War broke out in the United States, this attitude was much in evidence in Canada. The Trent affair led to the possibility of war between Great Britain and the United States, and it was certain that if war broke out the chief aim of the United States would be to conquer Canada. In Britain there was acute concern and alarm over this prospect, and prompt steps were taken to throw a military force across the sea. It was striking that, at the same time, there was singular apathy in Canada at the prospect of war ; the Canadians appeared to think that it was for Britain to look after them, and they concerned themselves but slightly over the affair. They had the colonial habit of mind.

A new outlook was bound to come in time, and it came