132 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



through the exercise of the power of taxation. It is, therefore, of the very first 

 consequence that the Government of Canada shall give early and close attention 

 to the Land Question in the West, seek an authoritative decision from the courts 

 as to when these lands become subject to taxation, if there be any doubt, and use 

 to the full the power of Parliament to force the early issue of patents and to re-estab- 

 lish the authority of the people over the wide-stretching areas that we have rashly 

 surrendered to railway corporations. We have here a question of tremendous 

 import to the future of Canada, and we may be sure that as the seeds of irritation 

 germinating at the roots of this problem spring into life and vigor, only by wise, 

 and patriotic handling of the situation will we be able to secure justice for the 

 people without doing injustice to corporations that were deliberately created by 

 the Parliament of Canada and deliberately endowed with these vast estates. But, 

 even in the face of a problem like this, we may hope that this British community 

 will move toward reform and readjustment in the spirit of justice and fair deal- 

 ing, and not in the temper of confiscation and destruction. As yet there is no very 

 serious indictment to lay against our railway corporations. The Grand Trunk, with 

 all its mistakes and all its misfortunes, has done splendid service for the Canadian 

 people, and we can afford to regard with kindly eye and sympathetic mind the 

 labors of the Grand Trunk management to redeem the fortunes and restore the 

 credit of that great pioneer in the carrying business in Canada. And as one passes 

 over the great length of the Canadian Pacific road^ with its thin fringe of popula- 

 tion stretching for thousands of miles through wastes of rock, and wide reaches 

 of sparsely-settled prairie, and great overhanging mountains and pioneer villages 

 and scattered homesteads, he must conclude, despite all the clamor of the press 

 and all the vehement eloquence of the politicians, thaJt it is one of the marvels of 

 this time, even when we take account of its great public subventions, that the road 

 has been established in the financial centres of the world as a revenue-earning and 

 dividend-paying property. 



The Book tells us that there is " a time to get and a time to lose, a time to 

 keep and a time to cast away," and it seems to me that now is the time for Cana- 

 dians to get new inspiration and new courage, to cast away old prejudices, to rise 

 superior to old quarrels and to seek a new and a common dedication to the work 

 of building up in this new land a civilization that will have all the freedom without 

 the license of the earlier western democracies, and that will have the stability of the 

 old British constitutional system without the pomp and circumstance of privileged 

 and governing classes. To my mind, the test of civilization is not in flags, or in 

 fleets, or in armies, is not in dominion over leagues of land or over 

 leagues of sea, but in the average material comfort and moral safety 

 of the masses of the people. The hungry mouth is the great problem 

 of modern civilization, and that country that can feed the multitude 

 and have even twelve basketsful to spare will take the primacy among the 

 nations. We should so direct our policy and so fashion our legislation that great 

 fortunes will be hard of accumulation, that our corporations will be the servants 

 rather than the masters of the people, and that equality of opportunity shall be 

 preserved to all elements of the population. The danger to democracy comes from 

 unequal social conditions, from the bare foot and the empty hand; and we, with 

 all our rich natural heritage and all our wide, unoccupied lands, may still escape 

 many of the evils of the old world and many of the follies of the new; may still 

 make the remnant of the natural wealth of the country the possession of the whole 

 people, reserve some fair percentage of the revenue from natural resources and 

 natural opportunities for public uses and for the public treasury, and establish here 

 in our own rich and spacious domains a freer and ai better civilization than any 

 the world has known. Many of us could, perhaps, do more than we are doing to 

 maintain a sane public opinion in the country. There is nothing easier than to 

 shriek the shibboleth of a mob. It is vastly easier to make an unjust attack on 



