In May-August 1875 my father, the Rev. G. M. Grant, published in the Canadian Monthly four articles on Joseph Howe, which give, in my opinion, the best account ever likely to be written of Howe's character, motives, and influence. Twenty-five years later he had begun to write for the 'Makers of Canada' a life of Howe, but his death left this task to Mr Justice Longley. In this he had thought to incorporate much of his earlier articles, and his copies of them remain in my hands, with excisions an

Joseph Howe was in a very special sense at once the child and the father of Nova Scotia. His love for his native province was deep and passionate. He was one in whom her defects and excellences could be seen in bold outline; one who knew and loved her with unswerving love; who caught the inspiration of her woods, streams, and shores; and who gave it back in verses not unmeet, in a thousand stirring appeals to her people, and in that which is always more heroic than words, namely, civic action an

Howe was born on the 13th of December 1804, in an old-fashioned cottage on the steep hill that rises up from the city side of the Northwest Arm, a beautiful inlet of the sea stealing up from the entrance of the harbour for three or four miles into the land behind the city of Halifax. A 'lawn with oak-trees round the edges,' a little garden and orchard with apple and cherry trees, surrounded the house. Behind, sombre pine-groves shut it out from the world, and in front, at the foot of the hillsid

To understand the system of government which Howe assailed, we must go back to the very origin of the British colonies. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries an exaggerated importance was attached to money as such. A dollar's worth of gold or silver was held to be of more value than a dollar's worth of grain or timber; not merely more convenient, or more portable, or more easily exchangeable, but absolutely of more value. A country was supposed to be rich in proportion to the amount of mone

One of the oldest political struggles in the world is that of the people to control their government. In this struggle the barons faced King John at Runnymede. In this struggle King Charles I was sent to the block. It is a struggle of which the end is not yet. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the British people worked out what seemed to them a satisfactory solution of the problem, by making the Executive, or Government, responsible to the House of Commons, which in its turn had a

In 1825 a train of cars, carrying coal, drawn by a steam locomotive, ran from Stockton to Darlington in Lancashire. In a week the price of coals in Darlington fell from eighteen shillings to eight shillings and sixpence. In 1830 the 'Rocket,' designed by George Stephenson, ran from Liverpool to Manchester at a rate of nearly forty miles an hour, and the possibilities of the new method of transportation became manifest. But the jealousy of the landed interest, eager to maintain the beauty and the

Foiled in the great scheme, the government of Nova Scotia nevertheless went ahead with its policy of provincial railway construction, and in 1854 Howe, to the surprise of many, withdrew from the Executive to accept the post of Railway Commissioner. His motives were probably in part a desire to provide for his family, which his personal extravagance and political honour alike had kept in a continual state of penury, and in part that disgust at partisan bickering which so often seizes upon provinc

Besides the two noble volumes, Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe , edited by Joseph Andrew Chisholm, K. C. (Halifax, 1909), the reader should consult the biography of Howe by Mr Justice Longley in the 'Makers of Canada' series, and the account of Nova Scotian history by Professor Archibald MacMechan in Canada and its Provinces , vol. xiii. See also Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada by Sir Charles Tupper (London, 1914); and, in this Series, The Winning of Popular Government and The

Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton of the University of Toronto A series of thirty-two freshly-written narratives for popular reading, designed to set forth, in historic continuity, the principal events and movements in Canada, from the Norse Voyages to the Railway Builders....

1. The Dawn of Canadian History A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada BY STEPHEN LEACOCK 2. The Mariner of St Malo A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier BY STEPHEN LEACOCK...

3. The Founder of New France A Chronicle of Champlain BY CHARLES W. COLBY 4. The Jesuit Missions A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness BY THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS 5. The Seigneurs of Old Canada A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism BY WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO 6. The Great Intendant A Chronicle of Jean Talon BY THOMAS CHAPAIS 7. The Fighting Governor A Chronicle of Frontenac BY CHARLES W. COLBY...

8. The Great Fortress A Chronicle of Louisbourg BY WILLIAM WOOD 9. The Acadian Exiles A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline BY ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY 10. The Passing of New France A Chronicle of Montcalm BY WILLIAM WOOD 11. The Winning of Canada A Chronicle of Wolfe BY WILLIAM WOOD...

12. The Father of British Canada A Chronicle of Carleton BY WILLIAM WOOD 13. The United Empire Loyalists A Chronicle of the Great Migration BY W. STEWART WALLACE 14. The War with the United States A Chronicle of 1812 BY WILLIAM WOOD...

15. The War Chief of the Ottawas A Chronicle of the Pontiac War BY THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS 16. The War Chief of the Six Nations A Chronicle of Joseph Brant BY LOUIS AUBREY WOOD 17. Tecumseh A Chronicle of the last Great Leader of his People BY ETHEL T. RAYMOND...

18. The 'Adventurers of England' on Hudson Bay A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North BY AGNES C. LAUT 19. Pathfinders of the Great Plains A Chronicle of La Vérendrye and his Sons BY LAWRENCE J. BURPEE 20. Adventurers of the Far North A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas BY STEPHEN LEACOCK 21. The Red River Colony A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba BY LOUIS AUBREY WOOD 22. Pioneers of the Pacific Coast A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters BY AGNES C. LAUT 23. The Cariboo Trail A Chronic

24. The Family Compact A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Upper Canada BY W. STEWART WALLACE 25. The Patriotes of '37 A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lower Canada BY ALFRED D. DECELLES 26. The Tribune of Nova Scotia A Chronicle of Joseph Howe BY WILLIAM LAWSON GRANT 27. The Winning of Popular Government A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 BY ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN...

28. The Fathers of Confederation A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion BY A. H. U. COLQUHOUN 29. The Day of Sir John Macdonald A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Dominion BY SIR JOSEPH POPE 30. The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier A Chronicle of Our Own Times BY OSCAR D. SKELTON...

31. All Afloat A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways BY WILLIAM WOOD 32. The Railway Builders A Chronicle of Overland Highways BY OSCAR D. SKELTON...