Westward with the Prince of Wales Part 25

Strips of coloured paper and torn letter headings fluttered down, too, and in such ma.s.ses that those who were responsible must have got rid of them by the shovelful. Prince and car were very quickly entangled in fluttering strips and bright streamers, that snapped and fluttered like the multi-tinted tails of comets behind him as he sped.

There was an air of cheery abandon about this whole-hearted friendliness. The crowd was bright and vivacious. There was laughter and gaiety everywhere, and when the Prince turned a corner, it lifted its skirts and with fresh laughter raced across squares and along side streets in order to get another glimpse of this "real feller."

Bands of students, Frenchmen from Laval in velvet berets, and English from McGill, made the sidewalks lively. When they could, they rushed the cars of the procession and rode in thick ma.s.ses on the footboards in order to keep up with the Royal progress. When policemen drove them off footboards, they waited for the next car to come along and got on to the footboards of that.

When the Prince went into the City Hall they tried to take the City Hall by storm, and succeeded, indeed, in clambering on to all those places where human beings should not go, and from there they sang to the vast crowd waiting for the exit of the Prince, choosing any old tune from "Oh, Canada," in French, to "Johnny's in Town," in polyglot.

It was a great reception, a reception with electricity in it. A reception where France added a colour and a charm to Britain and made it irresistible.

II

And it was only a sample, that reception.

Tuesday, October 28th, as a day, was tremendous. For the Prince it began at lunch, but a lunch of great brilliance. At the handsome Place Viger Hotel he was again the centre of crowds. Crowds waited in the streets, in spite of the greyness, the damp and the cold. Crowds filled the lobbies and galleries of the hotel to cheer him as he came.

In the great dining-room was a great crowd, a crowd that seemed to be growing out of a wilderness of flowers. There was an amazing profusion and beauty of flowers all through that room. And not merely were there flowers for decoration, but with a graceful touch the Mayor and the City Fathers, who gave that lunch, had set a perfect carnation at the plate of every guest as a favour for his b.u.t.tonhole.

The gathering was as vivid as its setting. Gallic beards wagged amiably in answer to clean-shaven British lips. The soutane and amethyst cross sat next the Anglican ap.r.o.n and gaiters, and the khaki of two tongues had war experiences on one front translated by an interpreter.

It was an eager gathering that crowded forward from angles of the room or stood up on its seats in order to catch every word the Prince uttered, and it could not cheer warmly enough when he spoke with real feeling of the mutual respect that was the basis of the real understanding between the French-speaking and the English-speaking sections of the Canadian nation.

The reality of that mutual respect was borne out by the throngs that gathered in the streets when the Prince left the hotel. It was through a mere alley in humanity that his car drove to La Fontaine Park, and at the park there was an astonis.h.i.+ng gathering.

In the centre of the gra.s.s were several thousand veteran soldiers who had served in the war. They were of all arms, from Highlanders to Flying Men, and, ranked in battalions behind their laurel-wreathed standards, they made a magnificent showing. Ma.s.ses of wounded soldiers in automobiles filled one side of the great square, humanity of both s.e.xes overflowed the other three sides. Ordinary methods of control were hopeless. The throng of people simply submerged all signs of authority and invaded the parade ground until on half of it it was impossible to distinguish khaki in ranks from men and women and children sightseers in chaos.

In the face of this crowd Montreal had to invent a new method of authority. The mounted men having failed to press the spectators back, tanks were loosed.... Oh, not the grim, steel Tanks of the war zone, but the frail and mobile Tanks of civilization--motor-cycles. The motor-cycle police were sent against the throng. The cycles, with their side-cars, swept down on the ma.s.s, charging cleverly until the speeding wheels seemed about to drive into civilian suitings. Under this novel method of rounding up, the thick wedges of people were broken up; they yielded and were gradually driven back to proper position.

Again the throngs in the park were only hints of what the Prince was to expect in his drive through the town. Leaving the grounds and turning into the long, straight and broad Sherbrooke Street, the bonnet of his automobile immediately lodged in the thickets of crowds. The splendid avenue was not big enough for the throngs it contained, and the people filled the pavements and spread right across the roadway.

Slowly, and only by forcing a way with the bonnet of the automobile, could the police drive a lane through the cheerful ma.s.s. The ride was checked down to a crawl, and as he neared his destination, the Art Gallery, progress became a matter of inches at a time only. It was a mighty crowd. It was not unruly or stubborn; it checked the Prince's progress simply because men and women conform to ordinary laws of s.p.a.ce, and it was physically impossible to squeeze back thirty ranks into a s.p.a.ce that could contain twenty only.

I suppose I should have written physically uncomfortable, for actually a narrow strip, the width of a car only, was driven through the throng.

The people were jammed so tightly back that when the line of cars stopped, as it frequently had to, the people clambered on to the footboards for relief.

In front of the cla.s.sic portico of the Art Gallery the scene was amazing. The broad street was a sea of heads. Before this wedge of people the Prince's car was stopped dead. Here the point of impossibility appeared to have been reached, for though he was to alight, there was no place for alighting, and even very little s.p.a.ce for opening the door of the car. It was only by fighting that the police got him on to the pavement and up the steps of the gallery, and though the crowd was extraordinarily good-tempered, the scuffling was not altogether painless, for in that heaving ma.s.s clothes were torn and s.h.i.+ns were barked in the struggle.

The Prince was to stand at the top of the steps of the Art Gallery to take the salute of the soldiers he had reviewed in La Fontaine Park, as they swung past in a Victory March. He stood there for over an hour waiting for them. The head of the column had started immediately after he had, but it found the difficulties of progress even more apparent than the Prince. The long column, with the trophies of captured guns and machines of war, could only press forward by fits and starts. At one time it seemed impossible that the veterans would ever get through the pack of citizens, and word was given that the march had been postponed. But by slow degrees the column forced a way to the Art Gallery, and gave the Prince the salute amid enthusiasm that must remain memorable even in Montreal's long history of splendid memories.

III

Montreal had set to excel itself as a host, and every moment of the Prince's days was brilliantly filled. There were vivid receptions and splendid dances at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the big and comfortable Hotel Windsor. Montreal is the centre of most things in Canada; in it are the head offices of the great railways and the great newspapers and the leading financial and commercial concerns. The big men who control these industries are hospitable with a large gesture. In the hands of these men, not only the Prince, but the members of his entourage had a royal time.

Personally, though I found Montreal a delightful city, a city of vividness and vivacity, I was, in one sense, not sorry to leave it, for I felt myself rapidly disintegrating under the kindnesses showered upon us.

This kindness had its valuable experience: it brought us into contact with many of the men who are helping to mould the future of Canada. We met such capable minds as those who are responsible for the organization of such great companies as the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk Railways. We met many of the great and brilliant newspaper men, such as Senator White, of the _Montreal Gazette_, who with his exceedingly able right-hand man, Major John Ba.s.sett, was our good friend always and our host many times. All these men are undoubtedly forces in the future of Canada. We were able to get from them a juster estimate of Canada, her prospects and her potentialities, than we could have obtained by our unaided observation. And, more, we got from contact with such men as these an appreciation of the splendid qualities that make the Canadian citizen so definite a force in the present and future of the world.

IV

During his stay in Montreal the Prince was brought in contact with every phase of civic life. On Wednesday, October 29th, he went by train through the outlying towns.h.i.+ps on Montreal Island, calling at the quaint and beautifully decorated villages of the habitants, that usually bear the names of old French saints. The inhabitants of these places, though said to be taciturn and undemonstrative, met the train in crowds, and in crowds jostled to get at the Prince and shake his hand, and they showed particular delight when he addressed them in their own tongue.

On Thursday, October 30th, the Prince drove about Montreal itself, going to the docks where ocean-going s.h.i.+ps lie at deep-water quays under the towering elevators and the giant loading gear. Amid college yells, French and English, he toured through the great universities of Laval and McGill--famous for learning and Stephen Leac.o.c.k. He also toured the districts where the working man lives, holding informal receptions there.

He opened athletic clubs and went to dances. At the b.a.l.l.s he was at once the friend of everybody by his zest for dancing and his delightfully human habit of playing truant in order to sit out on the stairs with bright partners.

As ever his thoughtfulness and tact created legends. I was told, and I believe it to be true, that after one dinner he was to drive straight to a big dance; but, hearing that a great number of people had collected along the route to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where he was staying, under the impression that he was to return there, he gave orders that his car was to go to the hotel before going to the dance.

It was an unpleasant night, and the drive took him considerably out of his way; but, rather than disappoint the people who had gathered waiting, he took the roundabout journey--and he took it standing in his car so that the people could see him in the light of the lamps.

It was at Montreal, too, that the Prince went to his first theatrical performance in Canada. A great and bright gala performance on music-hall lines had been arranged at one of the princ.i.p.al theatres, and this the Prince attended. The audience with some restraint watched him as he sat in his box, wondering what their att.i.tude should be. But a joke sent him off in a tremendous laugh, and all, realizing that he was there to enjoy himself, joined with him in that enjoyment. He declared as he left the theatre that it was "A scrumptious show."

V

On Sunday, November 3rd, Montreal, after winding up the tour with a mighty week, gave the Prince a mighty send-off. Officially the tour in Canada was ended, though there were two or three extraordinary functions to be filled at Toronto and Ottawa. The chief of these was at Toronto on Tuesday, November 4th, when the Prince made the most impressive speech of the whole tour at Ma.s.sey Hall.

This hall was packed with one of the keenest audiences the Prince had faced in Canada. It was made up of members of the Canadian and Empire Clubs, and every man there was a leader in business. It was both a critical gathering and an acute one. It would take nothing on trust, yet it could appreciate every good point. This audience the Prince won completely.

It was the longest speech the Prince had made, yet he never spoke better; he had both mastered his nervousness and his need for notes.

Decrying his abilities as an orator, he yet won his hearing by his very lack of oratorical affectation.

He spoke very earnestly of the wonderful reception he had had throughout the breadth of Canada, from every type of Canadian--a reception, he said, which he was not conceited enough to imagine was given to himself personally, but to him as heir to the British throne and to the ideal which that throne stood for. The throne, he pointed out, consolidated the democratic tradition of the Empire, because it was a focus for all men and races, for it was outside parties and politics; it was a bond which held all men together. The Empire of which the throne was the focal point was different from other and ancient Empires. The Empires of Greece and Rome were composed of many states owing allegiance to the mother state. That ideal was now obsolete. The British Empire was a single state composed of many nations which give allegiance not so much to the mother country, but to the great common system of life and government. That is, the Dominions were no longer Colonies but sister nations of the British Empire.

Every point of this telling speech was acutely realized and immediately applauded, though perhaps the warmest applause came after the Prince's definition of the Empire, and after his declaration that, in visiting the United States of America, he regarded himself not only as an Englishman but as a Canadian and a representative of the whole Empire.

In a neat and concise speech the Chairman of the meeting had already summed up the meaning and effect of the Prince's visit to Canada. The Prince, he said, had pa.s.sed through Canada on a wave of enthusiasm that had swept throughout and had dominated the country. That enthusiasm could have but one effect, that of deepening and enriching Canadian loyalty to the Crown, and giving a new sense of solidarity among the people of Canada. "Our Indian compatriots," he concluded, "with picturesque aptness have acclaimed the Prince as Chief Morning Star.

That name is well and prophetically chosen. His visit will usher in for Canada a new day full of wide-flung influence and high achievements."

This summary is the best comment on the reason and effect of the tour.

VI

The last phase of this truly remarkable tour through Canada was staged in Ottawa. As far as ceremonial went, it was entirely quiet, though the Prince made this an occasion for receiving and thanking those Canadians whose work had helped to make his visit a success. Apart from this, the Prince spent restful and recreative days at Government House, in preparation for the strenuous time he was to have across the American border.

But before he reached Ottawa there was just one small ceremony that, on the personal side, fittingly brought the long travel through Canada to an end. At a siding near Colburn on the Ottawa road the train was stopped, and the Prince personally thanked the whole staff of "this wonderful train" for the splendid service they had rendered throughout the trip. It was, he said, a record of magnificent team work, in which every individual had worked with untiring and unfailing efficiency.

He made his thanks not only general but also individual, for he shook hands with every member of the train team; chefs in white overalls, conductors in uniform, photographers, the engineers in jeans and peaked caps, waiters, clerks, negro porters and every man who had helped to make that journey so marked an achievement, pa.s.sed before him to receive his thanks.

And when this was accomplished the Prince himself took over the train for a spell. He became the engine-driver.

He mounted into the cab and drove the engine for eighteen miles, donning the leather gauntlets (which every man in Canada who does dirty work wears), and manipulating the levers. Starting gingerly at first, he soon had the train bowling along merrily at a speed that would have done credit to an old professional.

At Flavelle the usual little crowd had gathered ready to surround the rear carriage. To their astonishment, they found the Prince in the cab, waving his hat out of the window at them, enjoying both their surprise and his own achievement.

On Wednesday, November 5th, the journey ended at Ottawa, and the train was broken up to our intense regret. For us it had been a train-load of good friends, and though many were to accompany us to America, many were not, and we felt the parting. Among those who came South with us was our good friend "Chief" Chamberlain, who had been in control of the C.P.R. police responsible for the Prince's safety throughout the trip.

He was one of the most genial cosmopolitans of the world, with the real Canadian genius for friends.h.i.+p--indeed so many friends had he, that the Prince of Wales expressed the opinion that Canada was populated by seven million people, mainly friends of "the Chief."