We have an excess of them. They are flowing into the other Provinces. And although there are twice as many teachers leaving the profession every year now as compared with 19 years ago, due to industrial activity within and without the Province, we have three or four times as many coming up and passing our High School examinations. But the wage is kept so low, even by farmers who charge so much for their produce, that it may be a reflection on the ability of a young man or woman to teach in our rural schools. In addition to their other disabilities some of these small and weak Sections resist, even with violence, any enlargement to give them more wealth to support a useful school. A great deal of harm has been done by the unwise suggestion that the Government should do more to help these schools. For the parental and patriotic intelligence of many of the inhabitants of the vacant school sections is of an order lower than those to whom we send missionaries. As to the Colleges the new Nova Scotia Technical College had 11 graduates in 1910-11 with a large number of students. Dalhousie University purchased the property and equipment of Halifax Medical College and arranged a future Medical Faculty, courses and degrees; the graduation class of the University was 47 with, also, 24 Bachelors of Law from the Law School; a property was acquired for new University buildings and Dr. John Forrest, President since 1885, retired and received various demonstrations of affection and respect while Prof. A. S. Mackenzie, B.A., Ph.D., was appointed his successor; a movement for $350,000 increased endowment was under way at the close of the year with a fair sum already raised. King's College, the oldest of British Colonial Universities, had 13 graduates in 1911, the proposed special Endowment Fund of $125,000 was considerably advanced and Canon T. W. Powell, the new President, did good work in forwarding the interests of his institution. Acadia University (Baptist) had a graduating class of 35 and an Endowment Fund of $200,000, including $50,000 from J. D. Rockefeller, $20,000 from Freeman Davidson of Boston and $5,000 from Sir F. W. Borden, was obtained. Mount Allison University appointed Dr. B. C. Borden President and started an Endowment Fund of $200,000. The University of St. Francois Xavier had 500 students in attendance with 12 degrees conferred in May. The Provincial Agricultural College at Truro, under Dr. Cumming, continued to progress with 62 in its regular course of 1910 or a 44-per cent. increase over the previous year. The Nova During this year the Legislature came to an end Scotia Gen- by process of time and the Murray Government-a eral Elections continuation of Liberal Administrations which dated back to 1882-appealed to the people for the 4th time. The writs were issued on May 15th with nominations on June 7th and the Elections a week later. Mr. Murray's majority was very large and his position was considered very strong while the Opposition had only about four members in the Legislature where the Leader of some years had recently died. The fighting force in the party-Charles E. Tanner-had retired in 1908 when he sought election to Ottawa. The Murray Government had, also, the co-operation of the Federal Government and, on the verge of the contest, was able to announce that appropriations had been made at Ottawa of $3,186,300 for Provincial purposes which included construction of the long-desired Eastern Railway running from Halifax to Musquodoboit. As the Halifax Chronicle (May 10) put it: "Mr. Fielding is relieving the Provincial treasury of an expenditure of more than a million dollars, and at the same time is placing isolated districts in direct touch with the Intercolonial Railway, and eventually, we hope, with the great transcontinental systems of the Dominion." The Liberals, in their platform and policy, urged the record of the past 29 years and claimed honest, courageous and progressive government to have been the product. No Manifesto was issued by the Premier but from the speeches of the campaign the following points may be summarized: 1. No wrong-doing had been alleged or proven against any member of the successive Liberal Governments. 2. Depleted revenues had been re-constructed and raised from $541,000 to $1,592,000. Wooden bridges had been replaced by permanent iron and stone structures. A refund of $671,000 of Provincial money invested in the Eastern Extension Railway was obtained from the Dominion Government and the annual Dominion subsidy was increased by $177,000. 3. The Dominion Coal Co. was organized and encouraged by the Government with the result that thousands of men had been added to the list of workmen, hundreds of thousands of additional dollars paid out in annual wages, the output of coal multiplied seven times with cities around each mine. The Dominion Iron and Steel Co. sprang into existence and a city of 20,000 people had grown about the works in ten years. 4. An Agricultural College had been founded in Truro and Experimental Farms put in operation in different localities. 5. The expenditure on Education had grown from $213,000 twenty years ago to $357,282 at the present time. A Pension Fund had been established in Halifax and Technical classes in every town in the Province. Engineering schools had been organized in every mining district. 6. Temperance legislation had been kept abreast of public opinion, manual training and domestic science introduced into the schools, and the Workmen's Compensation Act and other Labour legislation passed. A Provincial Auditor was appointed. 7. The Liberal Party covered the Province from end to end with splendid lines of railways and was now crowning its achievements by an arrangement for the construction of branch lines of the Intercolonial which would give long-desired communication to the Counties of Halifax, Pictou, Guysboro' and Victoria. 8. The Government had relieved the municipalities of the burden of building and maintaining both the great and small bridges of the Province. It spanned the streams of Nova Scotia with a magnificent system of bridges good for a century with proper care. It completed most of the smaller bridges and was rapidly bringing to an end this most important and beneficial work. 9. It had reformed the administration of the road service of the Province and dealt as effectively as possible with the highways. It was now embarking on a great forward scheme which meant permanent road improvement and betterment for Nova Scotia. 10. It had given every possible assistance to the fishermen and special encouragement to their boat-building. It had by a policy of public aid not only doubled the earnings of the mine-workers but had established special schools for their benefit and given assistance to their organizations and relief funds. 11. It had imported the best available live-stock for the benefit of stock-raisers and the improvement of domestic breeds, increased the public grants to Farmers' Associations four-fold, and had practically done all that the leading farmers, speaking officially through their organizations, deemed necessary in the public interest. It had established a Provincial College of Agriculture, which was doing splendid work and had founded a School of Horticulture and set out model orchards in every county inside the fruit belt. The Conservatives denied the progressive conditions and pointed to the vacant farms of the Province and the decreasing population; alleged that stagnation was the better term to use and that such industrial development as had occurred was caused by Federal bounties and individual enterprise; declared that it was time for a change and that no party should anywhere be in power for more than three decades without change or a serious check; denounced the Government boldly, in many parts of the Province, for its support of Reciprocity and appealed to the fish exporters who were hostile to the Agreement and to the fishermen who were told that it would mean the abolition of their Federal bounties. The Government was described as allowing rich Crown lands or forests to pass into the hands of private speculators and lumbermen; and as permitting fishing rights in the inland waters to become the property of rich sportsmen to the exclusion of the people who had hitherto used the rod and line where they chose. It was denounced for an alleged unfair treatment of international unionism and for the lack of a broad policy of improvement in the public highways which were in a notoriously bad condition. The policy and charges of the Conservative Convention Resolution of June 29, 1909, were also reviewed and urged.* A few things stood out clearly in the contest. The Government did not follow up its Attorney-General's 1910 announcement of large expenditures on highways but promised inquiry first and action afterwards and nothing new was really proposed. Much was, at first, expected from a supposed Reciprocity sentiment in the Province; later there were signs of modification and, at Pictou on Apl. 18, the Premier denounced Reciprocity in coal, stated that the Agreement would not affect local industries in that respect, and added: "The entire Agreement means much for the people of Nova Scotia and while it is not an issue which should affect our judgment on Provincial affairs, yet, at the same time, wherever it is used for local effect by our opponents, no Liberal in this Province need be afraid to defend it in its entirety. In the hearts and minds of people who study the subject, however, there must be an appreciation of the immense value of Reciprocity." Both the opposing party journals in Halifax supported John T. Joy, a Labour candidate, though the parties nominated regular candidates in the usual way. The Conservatives had no regularly selected Provincial Leader. Practically, Mr. C. E. *NOTE. THE CANADIAN ANNUAL REVIEW for 1909. Tanner was in that position while J. M. Baillie was the head of the small band in the Legislature and the Liberal press, of course, made the most of the situation. The great difficulty and one impossible to adequately meet at this time was the popular belief that the Government would be returned to power; though even with that condition the Opposition hoped to better their five members and claimed 18 seats. The Premier only made a few speeches during the campaign and his Pictou address (Apl. 18) was the chief. It was in the main an historical review of what has been already summarized with, however, this attack on the Opposition: "It would furnish reflection if our intelligent electors should ask what contribution our opponents have made to our splendid mining legislation, to our agricultural education, to our technical educational system, to our road and bridge policy, to our efforts to supplement the Provincial revenues by royalties and increased subsidies. Can any person in Nova Scotia point to, any contribution which our opponents have made in respect to any of these matters of supreme importance?" He was at Sydney on June 8 and Glace Bay on the 9th. Much capital was made of the inclusion by Mr. Fielding, Minister of Finance, in the Federal estimates on May 8th of $2,000,000 for Intercolonial branch railways in Eastern Nova Scotia and $200,000 for a line in Cape Breton. As Mr. Murray had said to the press on May 9th: It is the most important decision given in recent years in so far as the development of Nova Scotia transportation is concerned. The general decision to assist non-railway portions of the Province will at present mean the construction of about 170 miles of railway, costing, I assume, in the neighbourhood of $4,000,000. But this large expenditure is not the most important part. I regard the policy of connecting certain portions of our Province with the Intercolonial Railway, thus giving connection with the general railway system, having a uniform freight and passenger rate to all parts of the country, as meaning much more than any result which could be accomplished by a purely corporation-built road. John T. Joy put up a vigorous Labour fight in Halifax where The Chronicle opposed R. E. Finn, a Liberal candidate, and The Herald opposed J. C. O'Mullin, one of the Conservative candidates; while both papers supported Mr. Joy. His platform was general in terms with vague denunciations of rapacious corporate interests and capitalistic influence. Direct representation of Labour by a workingman was the chief plank. Other incidents of the Election were the Conservative publication of a letter written on Apl. 26 by A. W. Chisholm, Liberal M.P. for Inverness, which stated a weakness in the personnel of Liberal candidates in that constituency; a controversy, pro and con, as to the comparative prices of school-books in Nova Scotia and other Provinces with a Government defence resting on the Advisory Committee's report, on the claim that it would give no contract to a Departmental store monopoly as Ontario had done, and on the belief that locally-pre pared books were best, as far as possible, and the Conservative contention that the price of coal had gone up a dollar a ton because of an alleged combine of the great local companies. Reciprocity was pressed into the fight by the Halifax Chronicle (said to be Mr. Fielding's personal organ), and, on May 18th it declared that Mr. Murray and his Government stood for Reciprocity "because no other question means so much, or can mean so much, to the welfare of the Province." On May 29th it editorially urged that "the people of Nova Scotia should make their voice heard with no uncertain sound in support of this freer-trade measure, which opens up to them the greatest opportunity for commercial advancement and industrial development since Confederation." The Yarmouth Liberal Convention passed a Resolution in favour of Reciprocity. On Nomination day it was found that a straight fight was in process everywhere and that there were no acclamations; on Election day the Murray Government was sustained by a large majority. The following were the candidates and the victors: Riding. Conservative Liberal Candidate Politics. Annapolis....A. L. Davidson... Hon. O. T. Daniels. Hon. O. T. Daniels. Lib. N. P. Phinney. .J. B. Hall... N. P. Phinney.....Cons. E. L. Gerrior..... Hon. C. P. Chis holm Hugh McDougall. F. R. Trotter. E. L. Gerrior Cape Breton...J. C. Douglas... Dr. A. S. Kendall. J. C. Douglas. Colchester .... Hants Lunenburg Pictou Queens G. T. McNutt. N. B. Smith.. .. Dr. J. F. Ellis. F. J. Logan. . Hon. G. E. Faulk .R. H. Kennedy. J. C. Tory. Dr. J. F. Ellis. Hon. G. E. Faulk- R. E. Finn. Albert Parsons... George Wilson... Albert Parsons. C. A. Campbell... Dr. A. M. Covert.. Dr. A. M. Covert... ...A. C. Zwicker.... Hon. A. K. Mac .... lean J. W. Margeson..C. U. Mader 46 . Hon. A. K. Maclean. 46 J. W. Margeson... Cons. S. G. Robertson.. R. M. MacGregor. R. M. MacGregor.. Lib. J. M. Baillie. C. E. Tanner. W. L. Hall. P. Kempton. Rev. W. Fisher. Hon. G. H. Murray. .... J. McVicar. 66 46 64 H. D. Corning.....Cons. J. L. D'Entrement. E. H. Armstrong. E. H. Armstrong..Lib. |