E. Loyalists, can find their almost exact
counterpart in Athabasca to-day. For what that Province was
then, viz., a wilderness, Athabasca is now; and it is safe to
predict that what Ontario is to-day Athabasca will become in
time. Indeed, Northern Canada is the analogue of Eastern Canada
in more likenesses than one.
That the country is great and possessed of almost unique resources
is beyond doubt; but that it has serious drawbacks, particularly
in its lack of railway connection with the outer world, is also
true. And one thing must be borne in mind, namely, that, when
the limited areas of prairie within its borders are taken up, the
settler must face the forest with the axe.
Perhaps he will be none the worse for this. It bred in the pioneers
of our old provinces some of the highest qualities: courage, iron
endurance, self-denial, homely and upright life, and, above all,
for it includes all, true and ennobling patriotism. The survival
of such qualities has been manifest in multitudes of their sons,
who, remembering the record, have borne themselves manfully wherever
they have gone.
But modern conditions are breeding methods new and strange, and
keen observers profess to discern in our swift development the
decay of certain things essential to our welfare. We seem, they
think, to be borrowing from others--for they are not ours by
inheritance--their boastful spirit, extravagance, and love
of luxury, fatal to any State through the consequent decline of
morality.
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