on camps indirectly afterward fell on the
Canadian people; for the embarrassed transcontinentals had to come to
the Dominion government for aid; and the Dominion government is, after
all, the people.

"I pray God," said a Cabinet Minister in Ottawa to me at the time,
"that Imperial Federation may never come; if it adds to our woes
another 'twilight zone' as to Dominion and Imperial powers."

III

It seems almost ungracious in this connection to say that Canada's
far-famed Arbitration Act has been overrated. That it has accomplished
some good and settled many controversies no reasonable person will
deny, but it is not a panacea for all ills.

Here is the difficulty as to arbitration. It is not unlike the
situation of Belgium regarding Germany in the great war. Arbitration
depends on "a scrap of paper." What if some one tears up "the scrap of
paper"? What if one side says there is nothing to arbitrate? Twenty
years ago--yes--wages, hours, conditions of labor--could have been
arbitrated; but to-day the contest in the industrial world is often not
for wages and hours of labor.

"Demand three dollars a day for an eight-hour day, to-day," I heard an
Industrial Worker of the World shout in a Vancouver strike. "Demand
four dollars a day to-morrow, till you secure four dollars a day for a
four-hour day--till your ascending wages expropriate capital--take over
capital and all industry to be operated for labor."

In the great struggle between the railroads and the I. W. W.'s in
British Columbia, Canada's Arbitration Act fell down hopelessly simply
because there was nothing to arbitrate. Labor said: We shall paralyze
all industry, or operate all industry for labor's profit solely.
Capital said--you shall not. There the two tied in deadlock for
months, and there all arbitration acts must often tie in deadlock in
industrial warfare. That is why I hope industrial warfare will never
become a part of Canada's national life. That is why I hope and pray
every Canadian settler will become a vested righter by owning and
operating his own acres till Death lays him in God's Acre.

IV

In a country where the public debt is only $350,000,000 or forty-five
dollars per head, and the national income is $1,500,000,000 from farm,
factory, forest and mine--or two hundred dollars per head and that
fairly well distributed--for the present there is little to fear of
social revolution. It is not the social revolution that I fear