Canada -- Economic conditions; Canada -- Emigration and immigration
to returning them, after a couple of years or so, as undesirables, to
the countries of their origin. It is quite easy to understand the
dislike which not only the Dominion and Provincial Governments, but
Canadians as a whole, have of immigrants of the types referred to. They
give a bad name to the country and prejudice it in the minds of people
at home and people in other countries in whose estimation the Canadians
desire to stand well. Canada requires and desires immigrants of the best
type—physically, intellectually and morally—to contribute towards the
making of the Canadian nation that is to be. Only such men can play a
worthy and valuable part in developing the amazing resources of the
country and making the population of the great cities which are
springing up in all the Provinces. During the last few years emigrants
have been going out from the best families in the Old Country—young men
of education and with a certain amount of capital at their disposal.
Canada offers to these a career unequalled in its opportunities, while
at the same time such men are a contribution to the future prosperity of
Canada even more valuable than the placing in Canada of British capital,
which is flowing into the Dominion in ever deepening and widening
streams.
[Illustration: A COUNTRY SCENE IN OTTAWA.]
That inflow of British capital into Canada is one of the most
significant of the developments of the last few years. British noblemen,
who have found it increasingly difficult to get profits out of the land
in the Old Country, have been prospecting in Canada. They have bought up
large blocks of land along the lines of railway development, and have
been making large profits out of the reselling and the settlement of
their estates. Not that Canada will tolerate in the Dominion the
creation of a feudal land system such as we have in the Old Country.
Land ownership, not tenancy from a landlord, is the rule in Canada, and
if there were any danger of landlord monopoly being created in Canada
public opinion would soon force the Dominion and Provincial Governments
to put a stop to it, but in land purchase and the reselling, in railway
construction and in the development of the rapidly-growing industrial
concerns of Canada, hundreds of millions of British capital have already
been absorbed and the cry is still for more. Everywhere on my tour in
the Dominion I heard the complaint, “All we want is capital. We have all
the natural resources that any country could desire, but for years to
come every penny we can get hold of has to go into capital expenditure.”
The head of a great firm of agricultural implement manufacturers at
Hamilton told me that his firm, a branch of an American firm, has spent
within five years something like five million dollars in opening
branches at various centres, and he said, “I might almost say we have
not yet got back a dollar. The farmers are making large profits, but
they have no money to spend. As soon as they sell their wheat they need
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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