For seventy-five years Canada has given a cordial welcome to immigrants and during the last quarter of a century she has been conducting recruiting campaigns to get settlers. But where formerly immigration was only something to be desired, the situation to-day makes the coming of new people an imperative necessity. They are needed not merely to open up rich virgin lands, but to share the burden of carrying the national overhead. A single fact will make clear this situation. The interest on the Canadian national debt is five times what the total revenues of the government were before the World War. The people are faced with the alternative of having less to live on after their increased taxes are paid, or of dividing their heavier expenses among a larger number of producers. Naturally they prefer the latter. Canada’s per capita debt mounted from seventy-two dollars in 1914 to three hundred and twenty-two dollars three years after the war, and the total stands to-day at just under three billion dollars. The war has not only multiplied the public debt, but it has also greatly reduced immigration. The population of Canada is now nearly nine million, and if the high rate of increase that prevailed for the five years preceding 1914 is regained it will soon be ten million and more. The national production and revenues in that case will grow proportionately, and the individual share of the burden of taxes and debt will be considerably less. The prediction of James J. Hill, many years ago, that Canada would have fifty million people by 1950 seems unlikely to be fulfilled, but every Canadian expects the population of his country eventually to reach that figure. The Dominion has four hundred and forty million acres of land suitable for cultivation. Only one fourth of this area is even occupied, and but thirteen per cent. is being tilled. To get men and women on the unoccupied lands is a national policy of the government that enjoys the support of all the people. Canada’s banner year was 1913, when more than four hundred thousand immigrants settled in the Dominion. During the war not one eighth of this number came in. The annual inflow is now only one fourth what it was the year before the World War, and about as many more are added by natural increase. If there is no radical change in conditions Canada should gain at least a million about every five years. On the other hand, she has lost population by emigration, especially to the United States.