Ontario

Communications.

Ontario is richly dowered with numerous lakes and rivers, which have the double value of fresh water fishing grounds and natural avenues of communication. The obstacles on these natural waterways have been largely overcome by the construction of canals. The most important canal system is that connecting the grain ports of Fort William and Port Arthur with Montreal through the chain of great lakes, a total sailing distance by canal and lake of 1,000 miles. The populated areas are well supplied with railways. The province has one f ourth of the total single track mileage of the Dominion, some 10,87o miles. The construction of the railways was at the outset aided by municipal and provincial subsidies, and gradually the various lines were consolidated into the great rail systems of the country. Very important in opening up the mining areas of Northern Ontario has been the publicly owned line, known as the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, which now extends almost to James Bay. Ontario also boasts of some 63,000 miles of roads, which in Southern Ontario radiate in every direc tion, facilitating the movement of more than 400,000 automobiles owned by citizens of the province. As a consequence of the good roads—gravel, macadam, concrete and cement—the traffic of American tourists has become a substantial source of provincial income. No other province has drawn so many tourists and obtained from them so large a revenue.

Champlain was the first European to record anything about the present Ontario. In 1613 he went up the Ottawa in a vain search for the Northern Ocean; and in 1615 he pushed westward and reached the eastern shores of Lake Huron, the first to tell of the Great Lakes with their vast stretches of fresh water.

Missions to the natives were a chief interest of the French pioneers in Canada and within Ontario is found their earliest important effort. Huronia, on the borders of Lake Simcoe and the Georgian bay, the scene of a promising Jesuit mission, was devastated by the Iroquois in 1649 with the martyrdom of Fathers Brebeuf, Lalemant and others, making one of the most tragic stories in Jesuit annals. Meanwhile, the fur trade expanded and, before the British conquest, the French had trading posts at strategic points; Fort Frontenac, where now is Kingston—a de fiance of the Iroquois—on the south side of Lake Ontario; To ronto, on its north shore, near the west end; Niagara; Detroit; Michilimackinac at the entrance to Lake Michigan ; Sault Ste. Marie and on the greatest and farthest lake, Superior, a fort where now stands the city of Fort William.

They did, however, little settlement and, apart from such posts, Ontario was virgin wilderness when in 1763 it became British. In by the Quebec Act, it became a part of the Province of Quebec ruled from Quebec. The American Revolution began in

the next year and for the first time, came serious settlement by exiled loyalists from the United States, bitterly hostile to that country. The Quebec Act entrenched the civil law of France; but the loyalists wished English law and a representative assembly, and in 1792 two Canadas were created; Lower Canada, east of the Ottawa River; Upper Canada, west; each with its own legis lature. At once Upper Canada adopted English law. The first governor, John Graves Simcoe, considered the seat of Govern ment at Niagara was too near the American frontier ; and it was quickly changed to York, the present Toronto.

The mind of Simcoe, a soldier, appointed later commander-in chief in India, was, with justice, alert on problems of defence. When war with the United States broke out in 1812, the Ameri cans captured and burned York, for which later - the British retaliated by burning the Capitol at Washington. Only after peace in 1814 and the fall of Napoleon in 1815 was there adequate opening for development. English, Scots and Irish arrived in con siderable numbers, until, by 1837, there were 350,000 people in Upper Canada. Political differences became acute ; one extreme wing, composed chiefly of the loyalist elements, was reactionary; the other, led in the end by a Scot, William Lyon Mackenzie, was radical. In Lower Canada there was a similar issue with Papineau as the radical leader. Holding the middle ground, on clear-cut principles of constitutional right, was Robert Baldwin. He claimed that in Upper Canada as in England the head of the State must govern through advisers who had the confidence of the people. After abortive rebellion in both provinces in 1837-38 a striking political evolution took place. Upper and Lower Canada were united in 1842 under a parliament in which they had equal repre sentation. Sectionalism as between French and English endured and the solution was found in 1867 in a federal system. (See CANADA : History.) Apart from its few burning issues about self-government, On tario has a quiet history. With a population chiefly British in political traditions, it has played an important part in solving problems of self-government of moment for the whole British empire. When in 1792 Upper Canada was created, the Protestant religion was endowed with public lands. First the Church of England alone benefited. But its members were a minority of the population; other religious bodies protested angrily; and, in the end, the principle of the state endowment of religion was aban doned in Upper Canada. Baldwin's clear cut teaching made also inevitable cabinet government on the model developed in England.