Hamilton bids fair to maintain her proud 

 position as Dominion manufacturing grows. 



A Canadian Bookshelf 



By R. J. C. Stead, Ottawa, Ont. 



Canadians have been so busy with the 

 material problems of nationhood that it is not 

 surprising if the deeper and more abstract 

 qualities which go into the making of a great 

 people have received less consideration than is 

 their due. The average Canadian recognizes 

 the empire builder in the railroader, the lumber- 

 man, the prairie pioneer, but he is not so quick 

 to recognize the empire builder in the poet, the 

 novelist, the artist, the musician. Yet without 

 literature and art we can have no enduring 

 nationhood. So far as Canadianism is concerned 

 the time and money spent in building railways, 

 in clearing forests, in developing lands, are 

 wasted unless out of these transient stages in 

 OUT development comes an idealism which shall 

 give us permanency among the nations of the 

 world. Such an idealism can be expressed and 

 perpetuated only by means of a distinctive 

 Canadian literature. 



A National Literature 



Canada's position in her attempt to develop 

 a national literature is a peculiarly difficult one. 

 Her proximity to the United States subjects 

 her not only to an intense commercial rivalry 

 which permeates the book business as much as 

 any other line of trade, but to the more subtle 

 and seductive danger that her successful writers 

 are lured into writing, not for Canadians, but for 

 Americans. The rich financial returns offered 

 for book rights, magazine rights, and motion 

 picture rights by the immense market of the 

 United States, are a very real temptation to the 

 Canadian author. They tempt him to go to 

 the United States, or, if he does not physically 

 leave Canada, to write with American approba- 

 tion in view, which is the same thing so far as the 

 development of a literature which shall express 

 a distinctive Canadian idealism is concerned. 

 Yet without such a literature there cannot, 

 ultimately, be a Canadian nation. 



No Vision without Literature 



I think I am safe in saying that the average 

 Canadian author does not regard money-making 

 as the chief end of man. If he did he would go 

 to the United States. What he does seek is the 

 sympathy, and, so far as he may be able to 

 deserve it, the approbation of the people of 

 Canada. He wants them to understand that 

 he-|-the author is absolutely indispensable to 

 their national development; more indispensable 

 than railways or factories or mines or farms or 

 any material thing whatever, because without 

 a vision the people perish, and without literature 

 there is no vision. 



When the Canadian people realize this 

 fundamental fact they will be wise enough to 

 see to it that Canadian literary talent receives 

 such an appreciation at home as will encourage 

 it to its fullest and finest expression. For the 

 moment the means to this end seem to be an 

 active and intelligent interest in Canadian books 

 and the starting of a Canadian bookshelf in 

 every Canadian home. 



Canadian Pacific Films 



Editorial from the Montreal Gazette 



Those responsible for the management of the Canadian 

 Pacific Steamships, always up-to-date, and ever mindful 

 of the comfort and convenience of their patrons, have just 

 arranged for all their trans-Atlantic steamships to be fitted 

 up with cinematographic outfits, which will add consider- 

 ably to the entertainment of ocean travellers, besides 

 offering educational facilities of a very high order. This 

 new departure is to be equally available to those travelling 

 steerage as in the saloon. 



" The films to be used on Canadian Pacific steamships 

 are of the non-inflammable kind, eliminating any possible 

 danger from fire, without which absolute assurance the new 

 departure would never have been considered. The steam- 

 ships will give three performances, lasting about an hour, 

 on each voyage, on both eastbound and westbound trips. 

 Though the pictures shown at the outset are of the type 

 usually termed ' educational ' and ' scenic ' in their appeal, 

 it is intended later to vary the programme with comic and 

 feature films of other origin, which will compare favorably 

 with those shown in the best theatres." 



All the pictures to be screened will be character- 

 istically and distinctly Canadian. The Canadian Pacific 

 are to be congratulated on such a far-seeing policy which 

 will give immigrants on their way to Canada an opportuni- 

 ty of acquiring a definite knowledge of the country for 

 which they are destined, and tourists and other passengers 

 will find in the films an additional diversion and amusement 

 during the trip. Canadian life will be depicted in a com- 

 prehensive manner through agricultural, scenic, travel 

 and industrial moving pictures, which are the product of 

 one of the newest Canadian industries, manufactured by 

 the Associated Screen News of Canada, of Montreal. 



New Triumphs 



" The movies " have achieved new triumphs in many 

 directions. Pictures at all times before the introduction 

 of the cinema have been a boon and a blessing to men. We 

 learn in this connection that books of pictures for the 

 blind have been invented, whereby those who sit in dark- 

 ness may, with sensitive and trained fingers, get an idea 

 of the proportion and appearance of some of the world's 

 largest buildings and illustrations of that sort. This, in 

 itself, marks an important advantage in bringing comfort 

 and delight to a grievously handicapped victim of the 

 community. Rome linked together the ancient and the 

 modern world; and Virgil, more than any other mind, 

 effected the spiritual part of the liaison. He absorbed all 

 Greek poetry and philosophy and fused them with his 

 own experiences. It is now suggested that Virgil and 

 Dante should be filmed and used as " back to the land " 

 propaganda by the British Government. Certainly Virgil 

 was a figure in literature, compared to a light shining 

 between ancient and modern civilization, and his acces- 

 sion to " the movies " would be a distinct acquisition. 



A newspaper critic in London, after a visit to one of 

 the picture theatres there, is thoroughly satisfied that, 

 after the rehearsal of the experiment put into practice 

 of a wonderful picture-talking machine, reckons that in 

 two short films he was able to maintain perfect time 

 between the " voice " of the gramophone and the " life " 

 movements of the players on the screen. 







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