IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



harm. They had little to learn in manners 

 or morals; perhaps those who came had 

 little to teach. In point of cleanliness, 

 sanitation, respect for private property, 

 something may have been laid to heart, but 

 the new influences have made for extrava- 

 gance, laziness, greed, discontent. It is 

 unfortunate that a community should have 

 to depend upon casual gleanings, and be 

 forced to garner the last blade; with the 

 spectacle ever before it of money lavishly 

 spent, and (as it may seem) easily come by. 

 Is it very sure that the virtues which apper- 

 tain to another station, to wider oppor- 

 tunity; the evidences of gentle breeding, ela- 

 borate instruction, are always conspicuous? 

 Country villages lying beyond reach of the 

 stranger and his wealth show a people 

 more self-respecting, independent, and 

 hard-working; pursuing in happier fashion 

 their slow evolution. May it long 

 be so, for Quebec is the steadying ballast 

 of a Federation that carries a deal of top- 

 hamper. A sane conservatism guards it 

 from hysterias which run devastatingly 

 through the other Provinces, and this con- 

 servatism has sound root in the heart of the 

 countryman. Belief and practice are here 

 in agreement that an enduring democracy, 

 62 



