[wrong] fifty years OF CONFEDERATION 65 



tegrity and foresight of our statesmen ? The answer must be, No. 

 To-day the whole west from the Great Lakes to the Pacific coast 

 groans under the evils caused by the reckless, extravagant and some- 

 times corrupt waste of the public domain. British Columbia has 

 alienated a heritage which would form an endowment for one of the 

 great powers of Europe. In the prairie country vast areas of land 

 stand idle and retard settlement, because alienated to those who 

 will not use them for the well-being of the state. Our forests have 

 been given away or depleted through recklessness or neglect and an 

 endowment that should have been rendered permanent is to-day 

 in great peril of exhaustion. Control of our fisheries has been made 

 the sport of party warfare and at this moment their mismanagement 

 on the Pacific coast causes amazement among citizens of the republic 

 towards which we sometimes assume airs of superior political virtue. 



Perhaps we have done better in regard to railways than in regard 

 to the public domain. The Canadian Pacific Railway is a creditable 

 achievement, but chiefly because it has been left free from inter- 

 ference by the state. Our chief railway enterprises, controlled by 

 the state, have been so badly managed that to-day the standing 

 argument against state ownership of railways, heard in the United 

 States and indeed throughout the world, is the experience of Canada. 

 Now after fifty years the problem remains unsettled, and has to be 

 confronted anew. In respect to highways we have done worse than 

 in respect to railways. The public roads of Canada are in the main a 

 disgrace to our civilization. Yet nothing touches the national welfare 

 more vitally than easy means of communication between different 

 localities. We have done well in our building of some canals, but 

 on others we have spent vast sums with no productive result. Our 

 whole achievements in respect to communications are well fitted to 

 cause that searching of heart which should lead to repentance and to 

 reform. 



A young country has the dangers due to youth, but a young 

 country which sprawls across a continent and is scantily peopled has 

 dangers multiplied by the scene of its life. Democracy to work well 

 must be able to appeal to an active and concentrated public opinion. 

 The fact about Canada during the last fifty years is that, while parties 

 have given pledges in the course of elections, public opinion has not 

 been sufficiently stable always to enforce the fulfilment of these 

 pledges. In this failure, distance must be accounted a determining 

 factor. It is hard for the voice of British Columbia or Alberta to 

 penetrate to Ottawa. When the excitement of an election is over, 

 leaders have been allowed to forget their pledges and they have 

 made the excuse that some part of the country did not think with 



Sec. I & II, Sig. 13 



