CANADA 



1127 



CANADA 



goods they could not sell at home. The opposi- 

 tion, seizing their chance, began to cry for a 

 protective tariff, and "Canada for the Cana- 

 dians." This became Sir John Macdonald's 

 "national policy," on which he fought the elec- 

 tions of 1878 and was returned to power. 



Thirteen Years of Conservative Government. 

 From 1878 until his death in 1891 Macdonald 

 was at the helm. A protective tariff was estab- 

 lished, and the Canadian Pacific Railway was 

 completed. Macdonald rejected Mackenzie's 

 plan of piecemeal construction, and awarded 

 the contract for the entire job to a new 

 Canadian Pacific Railway Company, of which 

 Lord Mount Stephen (then George Stephen) 

 and Lord Strathcona (then Donald A. Smith) 

 were prominent members. The work of con- 

 struction was pushed so rapidly that the last 

 spike was driven in November, 1885, five years 

 before the date fixed in the contract. 



The construction of the railway caused a 

 second rebellion of the half-breeds led by Louis 

 Riel. After the Red River Rebellion each of 

 the half-breeds or Metis had been given 240 

 acres of land, but as the white settlers began 

 to appear they gave up their lands and settled 

 farther west, on the banks of the Saskatchewan. 

 The coming of the railway, with the possibility 

 that they would again be forced to move, 

 led the half-breeds into open rebellion which 

 was quickly suppressed. The rebellion left its 

 mark on the whole Dominion rather than on 

 the Northwest alone, for every province was 

 interested in ending it. Common dangers 

 "strengthened in the hearts of Canadians the 

 union which Confederation had brought about." 



While Macdonald lived he held his party 

 together, and at succeeding elections was re- 

 turned to power; the Liberals' attempts to 

 make capital out of the tariff issue met with 

 little success. Macdonald's successor as Pre- 

 mier was Sir John J. C. Abbott, who was fol- 

 lowed in turn by Sir John Thompson and Sir 

 Mackenzie Bowell. During Thompson's tenure 

 of office the Bering Sea controversy was settled, 

 but the succeeding Ministries were noteworthy 

 chiefly for the dissensions among the Conserva- 

 tives. In 1896 Sir Charles Tupper assumed 

 office and reorganized the Ministry, but the 

 country had lost confidence in the Conserva- 

 tives and at the following elections returned 

 the Liberals to power. 



The Laurier Ministry. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 

 the new Premier, was the first French-Canadian 

 to hold that office. During his administration 

 of fifteen years, from 1896 to 1911, Canada 



showed a remarkable economic development, 

 and correspondingly, a development of na- 

 tional self-confidence and national unity. But 

 this growth of national unity and individuality 

 was no more marked than the strengthening of 

 the ties which bind Canada to the Empire. 

 The power of these ties has been illustrated in 

 many ways. The outbreak of the war in South 

 Africa in 1899 gave the Dominion an op- 

 portunity to show its loyalty by sending three 

 contingents of troops. The laying of the 

 Pacific cable from Canada to Australia, the 

 establishment of penny postage throughout the 

 Empire, the granting of preferential tariffs to 

 British goods imported into the Dominion, and 

 the celebration of the Quebec Tercentenary 

 are merely examples of the workings of this 

 national spirit. In 1905 the British garrison in 

 Halifax was replaced by Canadian troops, and 

 Esquimalt, the naval station in British Colum- 

 bia, was placed under Dominion control. Can- 

 ada is now solely responsible for the defense 

 of the Dominion, and it has also become 

 bound, at least in a measure, to make the 

 British Empire as self-sustaining in defense as 

 in commerce and industry. 



Internal Development. The great economic 

 development of the Dominion during the last 

 years of the nineteenth century and the first 

 decade of the twentieth is conspicuous. This 

 has been in part the result of a moderate tariff 

 which provided low duties on manufactured 

 goods and certain food products and raw mate- 

 rials used by the Dominion, but at the same 

 time provided some protection to Canadian in- 

 dustries. The discovery of gold in the Yukon 

 and the organization of Alberta and Saskatche- 

 wan as provinces led thousands of settlers 

 westward. It was nothing but a stroke of 

 genius which led the government to advertise 

 the rich lands of the west, and much of the 

 credit for the growth of the prairie belongs to 

 Sir Clifford Sifton, Laurier's Minister of the 

 Interior, who conceived the plan. The con- 

 struction of two new transcontinental railways 

 the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian 

 Northern, in addition to the Canadian Pacific 

 opened up a vast territory to settlement and 

 stimulated national pride. The west is being 

 steadily developed with an eye to its future 

 possibilities, not merely being exploited for 

 temporary gain. 



Foreign Relations. From time to time new 

 disputes have arisen between the Dominion 

 and the United States, or old ones have been 

 revived. Laurier proposed to settle all dis- 



