'Remember we haven't the sea all round
us - and the postal rates to England have only just been lowered.
It will
all come right.'
Surely it will; but meantime one hates to think of these splendid people
using second-class words to express first-class emotions.
And so naturally from Journalism to Democracy. Every country is entitled
to her reservations, and pretences, but the more 'democratic' a land
is, the more make-believes must the stranger respect. Some of the Tribal
Heralds were very good to me in this matter, and, as it were, nudged me
when it was time to duck in the House of Rimmon. During their office
hours they professed an unflinching belief in the blessed word
'Democracy,' which means any crowd on the move - that is to say, the
helpless thing which breaks through floors and falls into cellars;
overturns pleasure-boats by rushing from port to starboard; stamps men
into pulp because it thinks it has lost sixpence, and jams and grills in
the doorways of blazing theatres. Out of office, like every one else,
they relaxed. Many winked, a few were flippant, but they all agreed that
the only drawback to Democracy was Demos - a jealous God of primitive
tastes and despotic tendencies. I received a faithful portrait of him
from a politician who had worshipped him all his life. It was
practically the Epistle of Jeremy - the sixth chapter of Baruch - done
into unquotable English.
But Canada is not yet an ideal Democracy. For one thing she has had to
work hard among rough-edged surroundings which carry inevitable
consequences. For another, the law in Canada exists and is administered,
not as a surprise, a joke, a favour, a bribe, or a Wrestling Turk
exhibition, but as an integral part of the national character - no more
to be forgotten or talked about than one's trousers. If you kill, you
hang. If you steal, you go to jail. This has worked toward peace,
self-respect, and, I think, the innate dignity of the people. On the
other hand - which is where the trouble will begin - railways and steamers
make it possible nowadays to bring in persons who need never lose touch
of hot and cold water-taps, spread tables, and crockery till they are
turned out, much surprised, into the wilderness. They clean miss the
long weeks of salt-water and the slow passage across the plains which
pickled and tanned the early emigrants. They arrive with soft bodies and
unaired souls. I had this vividly brought home to me by a man on a train
among the Selkirks. He stood on the safely railed rear-platform, looked
at the gigantic pine-furred shoulder round which men at their lives'
risk had led every yard of the track, and chirruped: 'I say, why can't
all this be nationalised?' There was nothing under heaven except the
snows and the steep to prevent him from dropping off the cars and
hunting a mine for himself.
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