Diamond Jubilee

". . . Now, therefore, I earnestly request all the citizens to decorate profusely and illuminate if possible their residences and places of business. . . and to leave them so decorated and illuminated so long as these festivals shall last.... I further request them to insure by their presence in large numbers the success of the varied and imposing demonstrations which will succeed one another during these few days, and to do their utmost to make the celebration of this memorable anniversary a magnificent one."

Thus, in sonorous phrase, Mayor Mederic Martin of Montreal called its citizens last week by proclamation to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Canadian Constitution. Throughout Canada virtually all other mayors made similar proclamations, though none exceeded the majestic fervor of the Mayor of Montreal.

"The varied and imposing celebrations" of last week naturally had their focus at Ottawa--that now great and flourishing metropolis the site of which Queen Victoria chose as the Capital of Canada by a most quaint expedient (1858). Her Majesty closed her eyes, gestured with her right hand and brought her extended right forefinger down on a map of Canada. Then, opening har eyes, she remarked: "It is our will that here shall be the Capital of our Dominion of Canada."

The Capital is still where a plump forefinger placed it; and last week His Majesty's Governor General, Viscount Willingdon, fittingly upheld there the dignity of the Crown by presiding over a series of Diamond Jubilee ceremonies lasting, on the principal day, from before noon until after midnight. Most impressive was the maiden ringing of a huge, sweetly toned new carillon from the Tower of the Canadian Parliament. As the bells pealed, their reverberations spread throughout the Dominion upon a network of repeatedly amplified radio waves.

To what extent has Canada progressed since her Constitution became operative 60 years ago? Significant facts: 1) The land which was "our Dominion" to Queen Victoria, in fact as well as phrase, is now a great nation, legally co-equal in political status with Great Britain, and independent within the British Commonwealth. 2) During the Jubilee period the population of Canada has increased from 3,500,000 to 9,500,000; railways from 2,278 miles of track to 40,000; industrial capital from $77,000,000 to $3,000,000,000; and occupied farm lands from 30,000,000 acres to 140,000,000. 3) Canada has gradually turned from Great Britain to the U. S. in commercial buying, so that she now buys $135,000,000 per year more goods from the U. S. than she sells to that nation; and sells $345,000,000 more to Great Britain than she buys from the Mother Country. 4) A conspicuous instance of Canadian talent for steadygoing statesmanship has been the Dominion's handling of the liquor problem. The British North America Act* was so drawn that the Canadian Federal authority has control over liquor manufacture and export, the provincial authorities over sale. Thus a majority of Canadians may not decree that an individual province shall be either Dry or Wet. At one time or another each of the nine Canadian provinces have gone Dry; but the following have resumed liquor sale under restricted government control; Quebec, 1918; British Columbia, 1921; Manitoba, 1923; Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1924; Ontario, 1927.

*Passed 1867, by the British Parliament.