Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

early days of Confederation has been followed by other Provinces, the indirect support of whose Governments was secured to the party in power at Ottawa by most flagrant violations of the Act of Union.

A

Nor does this system of bribery and intimidation cease at any given point, for we find its ramifications extending throughout all phases of commercial and social, as well as political life. Even criminal jurisprudence is not free from the universal taint, for it is in the power of anyone who reads the daily papers to cite instances where the prerogative of pardon has been exercised to defeat the ends of justice and open prison doors for the escape of convicted malefactors. I may not be permitted, perhaps, to go so far as to say that political influence has done this, but the friends of the condemned have always in such cases taken care to employ counsel notorious for active sympathy with the party that happened to be dominant at the time. In prosecutions for malfeasance of office, there have been some grievous cases of injustice. well known instance will suffice as an illustration. Some time ago two men were guilty of an exactly similar offence; both were clearly indictable for felony as well as for misdemeanor ; but for some occult reason one was sent for trial by the Government on a charge of felony, convicted, and sent to the penitentiary for five years; the other charged simply with misdemeanor, got off with four months in gaol. Of the hush up' system, it is only necessary now to observe that it is the curse of the Civil Service and the worst result of the appointments for political reasons. To those familiar with the Capital, it is scarcely neces sary to point out the every-day appearance on its streets of contractors backed by parliamentarians of pronounced proclivities, long experience, and tried sagacity in departmental manipulation. Again, in the matter of employment, we have all had op

[ocr errors]

portunities of observing how men are chosen for the most responsible positions, not on account of their mental, moral, or professional qualifications, but because they have demonstrated certain usefulness in a party sense of themselves or their connections. Nor are the amenities of social life exempt from the all-prevailing stigma of political reprobation as the insolent assumption of the title 'Party of Gentlemen' sufficiently indicates. Fortunately Canada has no aristocracy. Now every man has an open field to display his merits; but our system is as yet too raw for the growth of sound social homogeneity. Canadians, beyond the immediate circle of their families, have none of that intercourse which constitutes such a charm in the society of some countries. An almost oriental seclusion surrounds every household, and gives an air of awkward superficiality uncomfortably recognizable by all who have had the benefit of foreign travel. This is modified to some extent by church congregations; but the general effect is unhappy and greatly retards the growth of national spirit.

This brings us to the consideration of a matter of the first importance in relation to the development of national character. Our state educational system controlled by the Provincial Governments has been lauded to the skies, especially in Ontario, as a triumph of administration in a very difficult field, and there are certainly good reasons for the praises that have been bestowed upon it. There is, however, one conspicuous neglect, which under a system of state education is little short of marvellous. From primary schools to universities there is not the slightest provision for teaching the duties of citizenship and the principles of political morality. Next to that part of education which relates to the control of the impulses and emotions, should come the inculcation of sound principles concerning the rights, duties, responsibilities of citizenship, and so long as this is lacking, our system of educa

tion is incomplete and faulty in the most important particular. I will not pause here to describe the laws enacted in ancient states for the purpose of training the youth, so that when each generation arrived at maturity, every man was prepared to discharge the functions of a citizen with advantage to the nation and honour to himself.

The geographical position of a country is of commanding importance when we come to consider the possibilities of its future and the probabilities of its maintaining independent national existence. As regards Canada, this portion of our inquiry requires but brief consideration. A glance at the map of North America shows that the Dominion ́extends across the broadest part of the continent, a zigzag shelf of mountain and prairie devoid of natural boundaries from Thunder Bay to a few miles below the mouth of Lake Ontario. It is barricaded on the north by eternal winter and interminable ice, while the conterminous territory on the south is occupied by an unconquerable power determinately hostile to everything British and Canadian. To these disadvantages must be added a climate which closes our ports against commerce for six months in every year; the wonder then is, not that Canada should be in its present backward condition, but that its people ever contrived to wrest from reluctant nature and foreign step-mother government the amount of material prosperity and political freedom which they do enjoy. Circumscribed by climate, hemmed in by artificial boundaries projected in defiance of geographical limitations, with nothing but a fading tradition to separate the inhabitants from a great progressive kindred people, the dream of Canadian nationality,

or

even the perpetuation for any length of time of British supremacy in North America, appears in the light of sober judgment one of the wildest chimeras that ever haunted the political imagination.

SO

In addition to these evils and defects which I have endeavoured to point out, we must not forget to note the suicidal mania our general, local, and municipal governments have contracted for borrowing from foreign money-lenders. Nor is this insane system of hypothecating future endeavour confined to those bodies; for the fact is notorious that seven out of every ten farms in the country are mortgaged at rates of interest that double the debt every ten years. Human industry, though ever wisely applied, is incapable of successfully resisting such a drain, and the consequences are to be seen in the fact that the land is gradually falling into the hands of large proprietors, while freeholders in the older settled provinces are becoming fewer every year. The independent farmer is disappearing to make way for the thriftless, shifting tenant. This is, perhaps, of all evils that afflict Canada, the worst, because there seems no way to arrest it. It means poverty of the people, sterility of the soil, and is pregnant with social disaster.

Considering all these things, it is not too much to say that political morality in Canada is at a very low ebb. Nor can we listen to the speeches and observe the conduct of our statesmen in the face of these crying abuses and portentous facts without feeling how wofully unequal they are to cope with the difficulties of their times. Their organs are filled with personal slander, vituperation, and false witness; their utterances the dreariest common-place of professional politics. None of them have the courage to grapple with the evils which are sapping the foundation of national life. Our destiny is, therefore, manifest under the conditions set forth. We may stagger along for awhile, but the combined oppressions of our political system and vast public debt must put an early period to the most foolish and ill-contrived experiment ever attempted in colonial government. The spurious loyalty which

bestowed longevity on the errors of our forefathers, and rooted in Canadian soil some of the worst abuses of an effete European system, will then be impotent to save the people of Canada from becoming a prey to the enlightened rapacity of republican America. Nor can we contemplate that result with unmixed feelings, for undoubtedly our condition would be vastly improved thereby in a material sense;

yet no true Canadian can resign the vision of independent national greatness without a pang. Dispute the point as we may, the whole tendency of our affairs is towards absorption by the United States, and that end will surely be reached much sooner than many people anticipate, if a higher political morality and a more noble public spirit than now obtain are not infused into Canadian institutions.

NEWFANGLE AGAIN.

BY A NON-RESIDENT.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

S our friend, 'A Woman of Newfangle,' comes forward again to break a lance on behalf of the much maligned men whom she' has kindly taken under her powerful protection, a few criticisms on her criticisms may be in order. They shall be as brief as possible, for, since she now so satisfactorily sums up' in favour of the higher education' movement, and so cordially agrees that there can be no reason why women should not be afforded all facility for making the most of their lives and of any talents with which they may be gifted,' it is hardly worth while to waste time in arguing side-issues that are of consequence chiefly in enforcing the need for the promotion of more thorough and systematic female education. Still, a few remarks are, I think, called for in view of the very remarkable character of some of our friend's criticisms.

It is a pity that a mind so ingenious in devising and maintaining hypothetical lines of defence, and in disposing of inconvenient facts, should have been lost to the noble profession of the

[ocr errors]

law, in which 'A Woman of Newfangle' would doubtless have distinguished herself. Her method of proving statistics that the facts brought out through the Working Women's Protection Union of New York,' amount to nothing-reminds one of the way in which a worthy alderman in Dickens' 'Chimes' proves, by the same means, that a poor man has no right to eat tripe-in fact, that it is quite iniquitous in him to do so. Statistics, it has been often said, may be made to prove anything. Everything depends on the way in which they are used. Had A Woman of Newfangle' held a brief on the opposite side, there is no doubt that, with her acuteness and perspicacity, she would have argued somewhat in this way: Six thousand women are a small proportion of the women of New York and its suburbs or outlying cities, but it must be remembered that a very large propor tion of the adult female population are not working women,' i. e., women working for remuneration from employers. Deducting married women,

[ocr errors]

whose work, little or much, is entirely domestic-single women similarly circumstanced-women whose pride is that they toil not, neither do they spin,' and the women too old to work at all-it will be seen that the 'working women' proper cannot constitute even a third of the whole female population. When we can arrive at the real proportion they do constitute, we shall be able to say exactly how large a fraction of that proportion the six thousand five hundred wronged women represent; but we may be tolerably sure that it is by no means a small one. Then there is every reason to believe that the number of cases righted by this Protective Union does not represent anything like the number of the actually existing cases of wrong. We all know that no Society of this kind ever reaches all, or anything like all who might be benefited by it. It is long before even the knowledge of such a Society penetrates through the whole mass of a population so large as New York and its suburbs or outlying cities,'-which latter our friend has assumed to be included in its operations. And of those who were aware of its existence, how many—either through procrastination or dislike to push matters, or fear of offending where it is their interest to please, or feminine shrinking from going to law-would neglect to take advantage even of this Union? So that we may fairly presume that the six thousand five hundred righted cases represent a very much larger number of cases which have not been righted, and this number would bear not by any means a very small proportion to the working female population of New York, with which, alone, it should be compared. This would certainly be a much more tenable, because a much fairer calculation than the remarkable one our friend has made, and it is a pity it did not suit her case' to use it, as she could doubtless have done with so good effect.

Then, as to the average amount re

covered for each, respecting which 'A Woman of Newfangle' is so scornful, let me remind her that there are very many working-women with families in far more needy circumstances than servant girls, since they have to board and lodge themselves, and often halfa-dozen hungry little ones as well, and that, to such, the loss of so small a sum as even one dollar will often cause no little suffering. 'A Woman of Newfangle' may hardly believe it, but I can assure her that I have known women of mature age to weep over the loss of a few sorely-needed shillings because to them it made all the difference between getting what they needed and going without. Many a poor school-teacher, working hard to support a widowed mother and younger brothers and sisters, would find the loss of even $3.26 make a sorely felt hole in her slender purse; and as for factory-girls, the amount paid them, when board and lodging are deducted, is usually barely sufficient for their daily needs, in which circumstances a very small loss may entail much privation. The appreciation shown by a 'Woman of Newfangle' of the circumstances and needs of her struggling and suffering sisters, reminds one of that shown by the naïve question of Marie Antoinette, who, when informed that the poor were suffering for lack of bread, enquired, why do they not eat cake?'

As I am not, and have not been, discussing the relative moral excellence of the sexes, we shall pass over that alarming story of Baron Huddlestone, and also the delicate ethical question whether a 'more logical lie' is more heinous than a less logical. To me it seems that the gravamen of a lie rests in the intent to deceive,' independently of the way in which the intent is executed, which may be more or less clumsy or skilful, according to the intellectual not moral calibre of the deceiver. As to the question to what extent women might cheat men, had they the same opportunities, we need

not enter upon that either. No one will for a moment pretend, that, as the world goes at present, women have anything like the opportunities of cheating, or wronging men, that men have of cheating or wronging women, who, from their comparative ignorance of business, are so much in the power of men. Even to the limited extent that they are employers, they would find it difficult to be guilty of much injustice. If a lady were to try to underpay, or refuse to pay at all, her coachman or her gardener, she would soon be glad, for the sake of peace, if not of honesty, to give him his due. However, the question does not concern us-how women might treat men if they had the power, since 'ifs' defy proof-but how men do actually treat women? How often do we hear the sad story of helpless and inexperienced women entrusting their whole property to men in whom they placed implicit confidence, and finding themselves suddenly left penniless, destitute of the little provision they had saved for old age or sickness!

How

often do we hear of female wards finding that their inheritance has, somehow or other, melted away under the manipulation of its supposed guardians? No one, with the most moderate knowledge of the world, will deny that such cases, with others that could be cited ad infinitum are only too numerous. How often, when such cases of suffering occur, do we hear the half impatient, half pitying remark Women know so little of business?' Well, since this ignorance and confidence work such mischief, would it not be well that they should be educated to know a little more of it? It were absurd, as well as wicked, to attempt to establish an antagonism between the sexes, which, it has been repeatedly pointed out, are meant to be the help and complement, each of the other. But there is no attempt to do this in simply calling attention to the existence of a real evil, and to its simplest remedy that women should be better

fitted by education for taking care of themselves, and that they should be disabused of the idea that in the serious affairs of life, the conventional courtesy of society will at all make up for the helpless ignorance which they are too often encouraged to cultivate as an additional charm.

She is further as a matter of course -sceptical as to the flagrancy of the cases which I said I would give from my own personal knowledge, for I certainly happen to know more than she apparently does-of the circumstances and trials of poor women. The pages of a magazine are obviously not the place in which to give a detailed list of circumstances which have come to one's knowledge in the free intercourse of private life. Were it suitable to give even a few of the cases I can readily recall within the compass of my limited experience, most readers would think them flagrant enough; but I am not sanguine enough to hope that it would convince our Newfangle friend. She would, doubtless, act on one of the time-honoured privileges of the sex to which she ostensibly belongs, 'and what she will-she will-you may depend on't;' and if the facts went against her, would aver, 'so much the worse for the facts!' wrongs are to be looked at through the small end of the telescope, where women are the sufferers. Yet I cannot but think, that if she had come in contact with some of the cases of bitter hardship which I happen to know; had her indignation been as often and as justly stirred as mine has been, by almost incredible meanness and injustice on the part of men towards women, and often by men, who were regarded by those about them, as at least

All

average men,' who could hardly regard as extreme, 'the opinion' which, doubtless, on behalf of the men of Newfangle, has so excited her ire.

It is, certainly, very kind of her to take up so warmly the cause of the average man,' though one cannot help thinking that she might have allowed

« VorigeDoorgaan »