Part 18

The constitution of the Dominion embodies the first attempt made to adapt British principles and methods of government to a federal system. The chief executive authority is vested in the sovereign, as is the supreme command of the military and naval forces. The governor-general represents, and fulfils the functions of, the crown, which appoints him. He holds office for five years, and his powers are strictly limited, as in the case of the sovereign, all executive acts being done on the advice of his cabinet, the members of which hold office only so long as they retain the confidence of the people as expressed by their representatives in parliament. The governor-general has, however, the independent right to withhold his assent to any bill which he considers in conflict with imperial interests. The following governors-general have represented the crown since the federation of the provinces, with the year of their appointment: Viscount Monck, 1867; Sir John Young (afterwards Baron Lisgar), 1868; the earl of Dufferin, 1872; the marquess of Lome (afterwards duke of Argyll), 1878; the marquess of Lansdowne, 1883; Lord Stanley of Preston (afterwards earl of Derby), 1888; the earl of Aberdeen, 1893; the earl of Minto, 1898; Earl Grey, 1904. The upper house, or Senate, is composed of members who hold office for life and are nominated by the governor-general in council. It originally consisted of 72 members, 24 from Quebec, 24 from Ontario, and 24 from the maritime provinces, but this number has been from time to time slightly increased as new provinces have been added. The House of Commons consists of representatives elected directly by the people. The number of members, originally 196, is subject to change after each decennial census. The basis adopted in the British North America Act is that Quebec shall always have 65 representatives, and each of the other provinces such a number as will give the same proportion of members to its population as the number 65 bears to the population of Quebec at each census. In 1908 the number of members was 218.

Members of the Senate and of the House of Commons receive an annual indemnity of $2500, with a travelling allowance. Legislation brought forward in 1906 introduced an innovation in assigning a salary of $7000 to the recognized leader of the Opposition, and pensions amounting to half their official income to ex-cabinet ministers who have occupied their posts for five consecutive years. This pension clause has since been repealed. One principal object of the framers of the Canadian constitution was to establish a strong central government. An opposite plan was therefore adopted to that employed in the system of the United States, where the federal government enjoys only the powers granted to it by the sovereign states. The British North America Act assigns to the different provinces, as to the central parliament, their spheres of control, but all residuary powers are given to the general government. Within these limitations the provincial assemblies have a wide range of legislative power. In Nova Scotia and Quebec the bicameral system of an upper and lower house is retained; in the other provinces legislation is left to a single representative assembly. For purely local matters municipal institutions are organized to cover counties and townships, cities and towns, all based on an exceedingly democratic franchise.

The creation of a supreme court engaged the attention of Sir John Macdonald in the early years after federation, but was only finally accomplished in 1876, during the premiership of Alexander Mackenzie. This court is presided over by a chief justice, with five puisne judges, and has appellate civil and criminal jurisdiction for the Dominion. By an act passed in 1891 the government has power to refer to the supreme court any important question of law affecting the public interest. The right of appeal from the supreme court, thus constituted, to the judicial committee of the privy council marks, in questions judicial, Canada's place as a part of the British empire.

The appointment, first made in 1897, of the chief justice of Canada, along with the chief justices of Cape Colony and South Australia, as colonial members of the judicial committee still further established the position of that body as the final court of appeal for the British people. The grave questions of respective jurisdiction which have from time to time arisen between the federal and provincial governments have for the most part been settled by appeal to one or both of these judicial bodies. Some of these questions have played a considerable part in Canadian politics, but are of too complicated a nature to be dealt with in the present brief sketch. They have generally consisted in the assertion of provincial rights against federal authority. The decision of the courts has always been accepted as authoritative and final.

An excellent bibliography of Canadian history will be found in the volume _Literature of American History_, published by the American Library Association. The annual _Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada_, published by the University of Toronto, gives a critical survey of the works on Canadian topics appearing from year to year. (G. R. P.)

LITERATURE

1. _English-Canadian Literature_ is marked by the weaknesses as well as the merits of colonial life. The struggle for existence, the conquering of the wilderness, has left scant room for broad culture or scholarship, and the very fact that Canada is a colony, however free to control her own affairs, has stood in the way of the creation of anything like a national literature. And yet, while Canada's intellectual product is essentially an offshoot of the parent literature of England, it is not entirely devoid of originality, either in manner or matter. There is in much of it a spirit of freedom and youthful vigour characteristic of the country. It is marked by the wholesomeness of Canadian life and Canadian ideals, and the optimism of a land of limitless potentialities.

The first few decades of the period of British rule were lean years indeed so far as native literature is concerned. This period of unrest gave birth to little beyond a flood of political pamphlets, of no present value save as material for the historian. We may perhaps except the able though thoroughly partisan writings of Sir John Beverley Robinson and Bishop Strachan on the one side, and Robert Fleming Gourlay and William Lyon Mackenzie on the other. In the far West, however, a little group of adventurous fur-traders, of whom Sir Alexander Mackenzie, David Thompson, Alexander Henry and Daniel Williams Harmon may be taken as conspicuous types, were unfolding the vast expanse of the future dominion. They were men of action, not of words, and had no thought of literary fame, but their absorbingly interesting journals are none the less an essential part of the literature of the country.

Barring the work of Francis Parkman, who was not a Canadian, no history of the first rank has yet been written in or of Canada. Canadian historians have not merely lacked so far the genius for really great historical work, but they have lacked the point of view; they have stood too close to their subject to get the true perspective. At the same time they have brought together invaluable material for the great historian of the future. Robert Christie's _History of Lower Canada_ (1848-1854) was the first serious attempt to deal with the period of British rule. William Kingsford's (1819-1898) ambitious work, in ten volumes, comes down like Christie's to the Union of 1841, but goes back to the very beginnings of Canadian history. In the main it is impartial and accurate, but the style is heavy and sometimes slovenly. J.C. Dent's (1841-1888) _Last Forty Years_ (1880) is practically a continuation of Kingsford. Dent also wrote an interesting though one-sided account of the rebellion of 1837. Histories of the maritime provinces have been written by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Beamish Murdoch and James Hannay. Haliburton's is much the best of the three. The brief but stirring history of western Canada has been told by Alexander Begg (1840-1898); and George Bryce (b. 1844) and Beckles Willson (b. 1869) have written the story of the Hudson's Bay Company. Much scholarship and research have been devoted to local and special historical subjects, a notable example of which is Arthur Doughty's exhaustive work on the siege of Quebec. J. McMullen (b. 1820), Charles Roberts (b. 1860) and Sir John Bourinot (1837-1902) have written brief and popular histories, covering the whole field of Canadian history more or less adequately. Alpheus Todd's (1821-1884) _Parliamentary Government in England_ (1867-1869) and _Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies_ (1880) are standard works, as is also Bourinot's _Parliamentary Procedure and Practice_ (1884).

Biography has been devoted mainly to political subjects. The best of these are Joseph Pope's _Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald_ (1894), W.D. le Sueur's _Frontenac_ (1906), Sir John Bourinot's _Lord Elgin_ (1905), Jean McIlwraith's _Sir Frederick Haldimand_ (1904), D.C. Scott's _John Graves Simcoe_ (1905), A.D. de Celles' _Papineau and Cartier_ (1904), Charles Lindsey's _William Lyon Mackenzie_ (1862), J.W. Longley's _Joseph Howe_ (1905) and J.S. Willison's _Sir Wilfrid Laurier_ (1903).

In _belles lettres_ very little has been accomplished, unless we may count Goldwin Smith (q.v.) as a Canadian. As a scholar, a thinker, and a master of pure English he has exerted a marked influence upon Canadian literature and Canadian life.

While mediocrity is the prevailing characteristic of most of what passes for poetry in Canada, a few writers have risen to a higher level. The conditions of Canadian life have not been favourable to the birth of great poets, but within the limits of their song such men as Archibald Lampman (1861-1891), William Wilfred Campbell (b. 1861), Charles Roberts, Bliss Carman (b. 1861) and George Frederick Cameron have written lines that are well worth remembering. Lampman's poetry is the most finished and musical. He fell short of being a truly great poet, inasmuch as great poetry must, which his does not, touch life at many points, but his verses are marked by the qualities that belonged to the man--sincerity, purity, seriousness. Campbell's poetry, in spite of a certain lack of compression, is full of dramatic vigour: Roberts has put some of his best work into sonnets and short lyrics, while Carman has been very successful with the ballad, the untrammelled swing and sweep of which he has finely caught; the simplicity and severity of Cameron's style won the commendation of even so exacting a critic as Matthew Arnold. One remarkable drama--Charles Heavysege's (1816-1876) _Saul_ (1857)--belongs to Canadian literature. Though unequal in execution, it contains passages of exceptional beauty and power. The sweetness and maturity of Isabella Valency Crawford's (1851-1887) verse are also very worthy of remembrance. The _habitant_ poems of Dr W.H. Drummond (1854-1907) stand in a class by themselves, between English and French Canadian literature, presenting the simple life of the _habitant_ with unique humour and picturesqueness.

The first distinctively Canadian novel was John Richardson's (1796-1852) _Wacousta_ (1832), a stirring tale of the war of 1812. Richardson afterwards wrote half a dozen other romances, dealing chiefly with incidents in Canadian history. Susanna Moodie (1803-1885) and Katharine Parr Traill (1802-1899), sisters of Agnes Strickland, contributed novels and tales to one of the earliest and best of Canadian magazines, the _Literary Garland_ (1838-1847). _The Golden Dog_, William Kirby's (1817-1906) fascinating romance of old Quebec, appeared in 1877, in a pirated edition. Twenty years later the first authorized edition was published. James de Mille (1833-1880) was the author of some thirty novels, the best of which is _Helena's Household_ (1868), a story of Rome in the 1st century. _The Dodge Club_ (1869), a humorous book of travel, appeared, curiously enough, a few months before _Innocents Abroad_. De Mille's posthumous novel, _A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder_ (1888), describes a singular race whose cardinal doctrine is that poverty is honourable and wealth the reverse. Sir Gilbert Parker (b. 1862) stands first among contemporary Canadian novelists. He has made admirable use in many of his novels of the inexhaustible stores of romantic and dramatic material that lie buried in forgotten pages of Canadian history. Of later Canadian novelists mention may be made of Sara Jeannette Duncan (Mrs Everard Cotes, b. 1862), Ralph Connor (Charles W. Gordon, b. 1866), Agnes C. Laut (b. 1872), W.A. Fraser (b. 1859) and Ernest Thompson Seton (b. 1860). Thomas Chandler Haliburton (q.v.) stands in a class by himself. In many respects his is the most striking figure in Canadian literature. He is best known as a humorist, and as a humorist he ranks with the creators of "My Uncle Toby" and "Pickwick." But there is more than humour in Haliburton's books. He lacked, in fact, but one thing to make him a great novelist: he had no conception of how to construct a plot. But he knew human nature, and knew it intimately in all its phases; he could construct a character and endow it with life; his people talk naturally and to the point; and many of his descriptive passages are admirable. Those who read Haliburton's books only for the sake of the humour will miss much of their value. His inimitable _Clockmaker_ (1837), as well as the later books, _The Old Judge_ (1849), _The Attache_ (1843), _Wise Saws and Modern Instances_ (1853) and _Nature and Human Nature_ (1855), are mirrors of colonial life and character.

For general treatment of English-Canadian literature, reference may be made to Sir John Bourinot's _Intellectual Development of the Canadian People_ (1881); G. Mercer Adam's _Outline History of Canadian Literature_ (1887); "Native Thought and Literature," in J.E. Collins's _Life of Sir John A. Macdonald_ (1883); "Canadian Literature," by J.M. Oxley, in the _Encyclopaedia Americana_, vol. ix. (1904); A. MacMurchy's _Handbook of Canadian Literature_ (1906); and articles by J. Castell Hopkins, John Reade, A.B. de Mille and Thomas O'Hagan, in vol. v. of _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the Country_ (1898-1900); also to Henry J. Morgan's _Bibliotheca Canadensis_ (1867) and _Canadian Men and Women of the Time_ (1898); W.D. Lighthall, _Songs of the Great Dominion_; Theodore Rand's _Treasury of Canadian Verse_ (1900); C.C. James's _Bibliography of Canadian Verse_ (1898); L.E. Horning's and L.J. Burpee's _Bibliography of Canadian Fiction_ (1904); S.E. Dawson's _Prose Writers of Canada_ (1901); "Canadian Poetry," by J.A. Cooper, in _The National_, 29, p. 364; "Recent Canadian Fiction," by L.J. Burpee, in _The Forum_, August 1899. For individual authors, see Haliburton's _A Centenary Chaplet_ (1897), with a bibliography; "Haliburton," by F. Blake Crofton, in _Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the Country_; C.H. Farnham's _Life of Francis Parkman_ and H.D. Sedgwick's _Francis Parkman_ (1901); and articles on "Parkman," by E.L. Godkin, in _The Nation_, 71, p. 441; by Justin Winsor in _The Atlantic_, 73, p. 660; by W.D. Howells, _The Atlantic_, 34, p. 602; by John Fiske, _The Atlantic_, 73, p. 664; by J.B. Gilder in _The Critic_, 23, p. 322; "Goldwin Smith as a Critic," by H. Spencer, _Contemp. Review_, 41, p. 519; "Goldwin Smith's Historical Works," by C.E. Norton, _North American Review_, 99, p. 523; "Poetry of Charles Heavysege," by Bayard Taylor, _Atlantic_, 16, p. 412; "Charles Heavysege," by L.J. Burpee, in _Trans. Royal Society of Canada_, 1901; "Archibald Lampman," by W.D. Howells, _Literature_ (N.Y.), 4, p. 217; "Archibald Lampman," by L.J. Burpee, in _North American Notes and Queries_ (Quebec), August and September 1900; "Poetry of Bliss Carman," by J.P. Mowbray, _Critic_, 41, p. 308; "Isabella Valency Crawford," in _Poet-Lore_ (Boston), xiii. No. 4; _Roberts and the Influences of his Time_ (1906), by James Cappon; "William Wilfred Campbell," _Sewanee Review_, October 1900; "Kingsford's History of Canada," by G.M. Wrong, _N.A. Review_, I p. 550; "Books of Gilbert Parker," by C.A. Pratt, _Critic_, 33, p. 271. (L. J. B.)

2. _French-Canadian Literature_ at the opening of the 20th century might be described as entirely the work of two generations, and it was separated from the old regime by three more generations whose racial sentiment only found expression in the traditional songs and tales which their forefathers of the 17th century had brought over from the _mere patrie_. Folk-lore has always been the most essentially French of all imaginative influences in Canadian life; and the songs are the quintessence of the lore. Not that the folk-songs have no local variants. Indian words, like _moccasin_ and _toboggan_, are often introduced. French forms are freely turned into pure Canadianisms, like _cageux_, raftsman, _boucane_, brushwood smoke, _portage_, &c. New characters, which appeal more directly to the local audience, sometimes supplant old ones, like the _quatre vieux sauvages_ who have ousted the time-honoured _quatre-z-officiers_ from the Canadian version of _Malbrouk_. There are even a few entire songs of transatlantic origin. But all these variants together are mere stray curios among the crowding souvenirs of the old home over sea. No other bridge can rival _le Pont d'Avignon_. "_Ici_" in _C'est le ban vin qui danse ici_ can be nowhere else but in old France--_le ban vin_ alone proves this. And the Canadian folk-singer, though in a land of myriad springs, still goes _a la claire fontaine_ of his ancestral fancy; while the lullabies his mother sang him, like the love-songs with which he serenades his _blonde_, were nearly all sung throughout the Normandy of _le Grand Monarque_. The _habitant_ was separated from old-world changes two centuries ago by difference of place and circumstances, while he has hitherto been safeguarded from many new-world changes by the segregative influences of race, religion, language and custom; and so his folk-lore still remains the intimate _alter et idem_ of what it was in the days of the great pioneers. It is no longer a living spirit among the people at large; but in secluded villages and "back concessions" one can still hear some charming melodies as old and pure as the verses to which they are sung, and even a few quaint survivals of Gregorian tunes. The best collection, more particularly from the musical point of view, is _Les Chansons populaires du Canada_, started by Ernest Gagnon (1st ed. 1865).

Race-patriotism is the distinguishing characteristic of French-Canadian literature, which is so deeply rooted in national politics that L.J. Papineau, the most insistent demagogue of 1837, must certainly be named among the founders, for the sake of speeches which came before written works both in point of time and popular esteem. Only 360 volumes had been published during 80 years, when, in 1845, the first famous book appeared--Francois Xavier Garneau's (1809-1866) _Histoire du Canada_. It had immense success in Canada, was favourably noticed in France, and has influenced all succeeding men of letters. Unfortunately, the imperfect data on which it is based, and the too exclusively patriotic spirit in which it is written, prevent it from being an authoritative history: the author himself declares "_Vous verrez si la defaite de nos ancetres ne vaut pas toutes las victoires_." But it is of far-reaching importance as the first great literary stimulus to racial self-respect. "_Le Canada francais avait perdu ses Ictlres de noblesse; Garneau les lui a rendues_." F.X. Garneau is also remembered for his poems, and he was followed by his son Alfred Garneau (1836-1904).

A. Gerin-Lajoie was a mere lad when the exile of some compatriots inspired _Le Canadien errant_, which immediately became a universal folk-song. Many years later he wrote discriminatingly about those _Dix ans au Canada_ (1888) that saw the establishment of responsible government. But his fame rests on _Jean Rivard_ (1874), the prose bucolic of the _habitant_. The hero, left at the head of a fatherless family of twelve when nearly through college, turns from the glut of graduates swarming round the prospects of professional city-bred careers, steadfastly wrests a home from the wilderness, helps his brothers and sisters, marries a _habitante_ fit for the wife of a pioneer, brings up a large family, and founds a settlement which grows into several parishes and finally becomes the centre of the electoral district of "Rivardville," which returns him to parliament. These simple and earnest _Scenes de la vie reelle_ are an appealing revelation of that eternal secret of the soil which every people wishing to have a country of its own must early lay to heart; and _Jean Rivard, le defricheur_, will always remain the eponym of the new _colons_ of the 19th century.

Philippe de Gaspe's historical novel, _Les Anciens Canadiens_ (1863), is the complement of Garneau and Gerin-Lajoie. Everything about the author's life helped him to write this book. Born in 1784, and brought up among reminiscent eye-witnesses of the old regime, he was an eager listener, with a wonderful memory and whole-hearted pride in the glories of his race and family, a kindly _seigneur_, who loved and was loved by all his _censitaires_, a keen observer of many changing systems, down to the final Confederation of 1867, and a man who had felt both extremes of fortune (_Memoires_, 1866). The story rambles rather far from its well-worn plot. But these very digressions give the book its intimate and abiding charm; for they keep the reader in close personal touch with every side of Canadian life, with songs and tales and homely forms of speech, with the best features of seigniorial times and the strong guidance of an ardent church, with _voyageurs, coureurs de bois_, Indians, soldiers, sailors and all the strenuous adventurers of a wild, new, giant world. The poet of this little band of authors was Octave Cremazie, a Quebec bookseller, who failed in business and spent his last years as a penniless exile in France. He is usually rather too derivative, he lacks the saving grace of style, and even his best Canadian poems hardly rise above fervent occasional verse. Yet he became a national poet, because he was the first to celebrate occasions of deeply felt popular emotion in acceptable rhyme, and he will always remain one because each occasion touched some lasting aspiration of his race. He sings what Garneau recounts--the love of mother country, mother church and Canada. The _Guerre de Crimee, Guerre d'ltalie_, even _Castel-fidardo_, are duly chronicled. An ode on _Mgr. de Montmorency-Laval_, first bishop of Quebec, brings him nearer to his proper themes, which are found in full perfection in the _Chant du vieux soldat canadien_, composed in 1856 to honour the first French man-of-war that visited British Quebec, and _Le Drapeau de Carillon_ (1858), a centennial paean for Montcalm's Canadians at Ticonderoga. Much of the mature work of this first generation, and of the juvenilia of the second, appeared in _Les Soirees canadiennes_ and _Le Foyer canadien_, founded in 1862 and 1863 respectively. The abbe Ferland was an enthusiastic editor and historian, and Etienne Parent should be remembered as the first Canadian philosopher.