Westward with the Prince of Wales Part 10

Another man said to me:

"If you'd told me a month ago that anybody was going to get this sort of a reception I should have smiled and called you an innocent. I would have told you the Canadians aren't built that way. We're a hard-bitten, independent, irreverent breed. We don't go about shouting over anybody.... But now we've gone wild over him. And I can't understand it. He's our sort. He has no side. We like to treat men as men, and that's the way he meets us."

III

The long week-end, so strenuously begun, did, however, give the Prince his opportunity for rest and recreation. He had a quiet time in the home of the Governor-General at the beautiful Rideau Hall, the attractive and s.p.a.cious grounds of which are part of the untrammelled expanses of the lovely Rockhill Park which hangs on a cliff and keeps company with the s.h.i.+ning Ottawa river for miles to the east of the city. Apart from sightseeing, and golfing and dancing at the pretty County Club across the Ottawa on the Hull side, he attempted no program until Monday morning.

Ottawa is not so virile in atmosphere as other of the Canadian cities.

Its artificial heart, the Parliament area, seems to absorb most of its vitality. Its architecture is ma.s.sed very effectively on the hill whose steep cliffs in a spray of shrubs, rise at the knee of the two rivers, the Ottawa and the Rideau, but outside the radius of the Parliament buildings and the few, fine, brisk, lively streets that serve them, the town fades disappointingly eastward, westward and northward into spiritless streets of residences.

The sh.o.r.es of the river are its chiefest attraction. Below the Parliament bluff, there lies to the left a silver white spit in the blue of the stream, that humps itself into a green and habitual ma.s.s on which are a huddle of picturesque houses. These hide the spray of the Chaudiere Falls, which stretch between this island and the Hull side.

Below the Falls is the picturesque ma.s.s of a lumber "boom," that stretches down the river.

To the extreme right beyond the locks of Rideau Ca.n.a.l, is the dramatic lattice-work of a fine bridge, a bridge where railroad tracks, tram-roads, automobile and footways dive under and over each other at the entrances in order to find their different levels for crossing.

Beyond the bridge, and close against it is the jutting cliff that makes the point of Major Hill Park.

Between these two extremes, right and left, one faces a broad plain, wooded and gemmed with painted houses, and ending in a smoke-blue rampart of distant hills--all of it luminant with the curiously clarified light of Canada.

From Major Hill Park the riverside avenue goes east over the Rideau, whose Falls are famous, but now obscured by a lumber mill; past Rideau Hall to Rockhill Park. Rockhill Park is a delight. It has all the joys of the primitive wilderness plus a service of street-cars. Its promenade under the fine and scattered trees follows the lip of the cliff along the Ottawa, and across the blue stream can be seen the fillet of gold beach of the far side, and on the stream are red-sailed boats, canoes, and natty gasolene launches. How far Rockhill Park keeps company with the Ottawa, I do not know. A stroll of nearly two hours brought me to a region of comely country houses, set in broad gardens--but there was still park, and it seemed to go on for ever.

There are two or three Golf Clubs (every town in Canada has a golf course, or two, and sometimes they are munic.i.p.al) over the river on the Hull side--a side that was at the time of our visit a place of pilgrimage from Ottawa proper. For it is in Quebec, where the "dry"

law is not implacable as that of Ottawa and Ontario. Hull is also noted for its match factory and other manufactures that make up a very good go-ahead industrial town, as well as for the fact that in matters of contributions to Victory Loans, and that sort of thing, it can hold its own with any city, though that city be five times its size.

The chief of the Ottawa clubs on the Hull side is the County Club, an idyllic place that has made the very best out of the rather rough plain, and stands looking through the trees to the rapids of the Ottawa river. It is a delightful club, built with the usual Western instinct for apposite design, and, as with most clubs on the American Continent, it is a revelation of comfort. Its dining-room is extraordinarily attractive, for it is actually the s.p.a.cious verandah of the building, screened by trellis work into which is woven the leaves and flowers of climbers. The ceiling is a canopy of flowers and green leaves, and to dine here overlooking the lawns is to know an hour of the greatest charm.

The Prince was the guest here on several occasions, and dances were given in his honour. For this purpose the lawn in front of the verandah was squared off with a high arcadian trellis, and between the pillars of this trellis were hung flowers and flags and lights, and all the trees about had coloured bulbs amid their leaves, so that at night it was an impression of Arcady as a modern Watteau might see it, with the crispness and the beauty of the women and the vivid dresses of the women giving the scene a quality peculiarly and vivaciously Canadian.

IV

The circ.u.mstances of Monday, September 1st, made it an unforgettable day.

The chief ceremonies on the Prince's program were the laying of the corner-stone of the new Parliament Buildings, and the inauguration of the Victory Loan. But something else happened which made it momentous.

It happened to be Labour Day.

It was the day when the whole of Labour in Canada--and indeed in America--gave itself over to demonstrations. Labour held street parades, field sports, and, I daresay, made speeches. It was the day of days for the workers.

There were some who thought that the program of Labour would clash with the program of the Prince. That, to put it at its mildest, Labour on a holiday would ignore the Royal ceremonials and emasculate them as functions. The men who put forward these opinions were Canadians, but they did not know Canada. It was Labour Day, and Labour made the day for the Prince.

When the Prince had learnt that it was the People's day, and that there was to be a big sports meeting and gala in one of the Ottawa parks, he had specially added another item to his full list of events, and made it known that he would visit the park.

Labour promptly returned the courtesy, and of its own free will turned its parade into a guard of honour, which lined the fine Rideau and Wellington streets for his progress between Government House and Parliament Square.

As far as I could gather Labour decided upon and carried this out without consulting anybody. Streets were taken over without any warning, and certainly without any fuss. There seemed to be few police about, and there was no need for them. Labour took command of the show in the interest of its friend the Prince, and would not permit the slightest disorderliness.

It was a remarkable sight. Early in the morning the Labour Parade appeared along Rideau Street, mounting the hill to the Parliament House. The processionists, each group in the costume of its calling, walked in long, thin files on each side of the road, the line broken at intervals by the trade floats. Floats are an essential part of every American parade; they are what British people call "set-pieces,"

tableaux built up on wagons or on automobiles; all of them are ingenious and most of them are beautiful.

These floats represented the various trades, a boiler-maker's shop in full (and noisy) action; a stone-worker's bench in operation; the framework of a wooden house on an auto, to show Ottawa what its carpenters and joiners could do, and so on. With these marched the workers, distinctively clothed, as though the old guilds had never ceased.

When the head of the procession reached the entrance of Parliament Square it halted, and the line, turning left and right, walked towards the curb, pressing back the thousands of sightseers to the pavement in a most effective manner. They lined and kept the route in this fas.h.i.+on until the Prince had pa.s.sed.

It was thus that the Prince drove, not between the ranks of an army of soldiers, but through the ranks of the army of labour. Not khaki, but the many uniforms of labour marked the route. There were firemen in peaked caps, with bright steel grappling-hooks at their waists; butchers in white blouses, white trousers, and white peaked caps; there were tram-conductors, and railway-men, hotel porters, teamsters in overalls, lumbermen in calf-high boots of tan, with their rough socks showing above them on their blue jumper trousers, barbers, drug-store clerks and men of all the trades.

Above this guard of workers were the banners of the Unions, some in English, some proclaiming in French that here was "La Fraternite Unie Charpentiers et Menuisiers," and so on.

It was a real demonstration of democracy. It was the spontaneous and affectionate action of the everyday people, determined to show how personal was its regard for a Prince who knew how to be one with the everyday people. As a demonstration it was immensely more significant than the most august item of a formal program.

As the Prince rode through those hearty and friendly ranks in a State carriage, and behind mounted troopers, the troopers and the trappings seemed to matter very little indeed. The crowd that cheered and waved flags--and sometimes spanners and kitchen pans--and the youth who waved his gloves back and forth with all their own freedom from ceremony, were the things that mattered.

When, at the laying of the corner-stone a few minutes later, Sir Robert Borden declared that, in repeating the act of his grandfather, who laid the original corner-stone of Canada's Parliament buildings, as Prince of Wales, in 1860, His Royal Highness was inaugurating a new era, the happenings of just now seemed to lend conviction that indeed a new phase of history had come into being. It was a phase in which throne and people had been woven into a strong and sane democracy, begot of the intimate personal sympathy, understanding and reliance the war had brought about between rulers and people.

The new buildings replace the old Parliament Houses burnt down in the beginning of the war. The fire was attended by sad loss of life, and one of those killed was a lady, who, having got out of the burning building in safety, was suddenly overcome by a feminine desire to save her furs. She re-entered the blazing building and was lost.

The new building follows the design of the old, rather rigid structure, though it has not the campanile. The porch where the stone was laid was draped in huge hangings descending in grave folds from a sheaf of flags; this with the facade of the grey stone building made a superb backing to the great stage of terrace upon which the ceremony was enacted. It had all the dignity, colour and braveness of a Durbar.

The Victory Loan was inaugurated by the unfurling of a flag by the Prince. He promised to give to each of the cities and villages (by the way, I don't think the villages are villages in Canada; they are all towns) who subscribed a certain percentage a replica of this special flag. There was keen compet.i.tion throughout the Dominion for these flags, Canadians responding to the pictures on the h.o.a.rdings with a good will, in order to win a "Prince of Wales' Flag."

Although the Prince was down to visit Hull at a specific time that afternoon, he set aside an hour in order to pay his promised visit to the Labour fete in Lansdowne Park. There was only time for him to drive through the park, but the warm reception given to him made it an action really worth while.

Hull, which is inclined to sprawl as a town, was transformed by sun, flags and people into a place of great attraction when the Prince arrived. And if there was not any high pomp about the visit, there was certainly prettiness. The pretty girls of Hull had transformed themselves into representatives of all the races of the Entente, and as the Prince stood on the scarlet steps of a das outside the Town Hall, each one of these came forward and made him a curtsy.

Following them were four tiny girls, each holding a large bouquet, each bouquet being linked to the others by broad red ribbons. They were the jolliest little girls, but nervous, and after negotiating the terrors of the scarlet stairs with discretion, the broad desert of the das undid them--or rather it didn't. At the moment of presentation, four little girls, as well as four bouquets, were linked together by broad red ribbons, until it was difficult to tell which was little girl and which was bouquet. There were many untanglers present, but the chief of them was the Prince of Wales himself.

The Hull ceremonials were certainly as happy as any could be. The little girls gave a homely touch, so did the people--match-factory girls, brown-habited Franciscan friars, and the rest--who joined in the public reception, but the crowning touch of this atmosphere was the review of the war veterans.

There were so many war veterans that Hull had no open s.p.a.ce large enough to parade them. Hull, therefore, had the happy idea of reviewing them in the main street. Thus the everyday street was packed with everyday men who had fought for the very homes about them. That seemed to bring out the real purpose of the great war more than any effort in propaganda could.

It was in the main street, too, after receiving a loving cup from the Great War Veterans, that the Prince spoke to these comrades of the war.

He stood up in his car and addressed them simply and directly, thanking them and wis.h.i.+ng them good luck, and there was something infinitely suggestive in his standing up there so simply amid that pack of men, and women wedged tightly between the houses of that homely street.

Wedged is a.s.suredly the right term, for it was with difficulty, and only by infinite care, that the car was driven through the crowd and away.

CHAPTER X

MONTREAL: QUEBEC

I

Montreal was not actually in the schedule. In the program of the Prince's tour it was put down as the last place he should visit. This, in a sense, was fitting. It was proper that the greatest city in Canada should wind up the visit in a befitting week.

All the same, as the Prince himself said, he could not possibly start for the West without making at least a call on Montreal, so he rounded off his travels among the big cities of the Canadian East by spending the inside of a day there.

I wonder whether there was ever an inside of a day so crowded? I was present when Manchester rushed President Wilson through a headlong morning of events, and the Manchester effort was pedestrian beside Montreal's. Even the Prince, who himself can put any amount of vigour into life, must have found nothing in his experience to equal a non-stop series of ceremonies carried on, at times, at a pace of forty-miles an hour.