The Ministry then carried its propaganda to Great Britain. Newspapers, schools, exhibitions were used in ways which startled the stolid Englishman into attention. Circumstances played into the hands of the propagandists, who took advantage of the flow of United States settlers into the West, the Klondike gold fields rush, the presence of Laurier at the Jubilee festivities at London in 1897, Canada's share in the Boer War. British immigrants rose to 50,000 in 1903-04, to 120,000 in 1907-08, and to 150,000 in 1912-13. From 1897 to the outbreak of the war over 1,100,000 Britishers came to Canada. Three out of four were English, the rest mainly Scotch; the Irish, who once had come in tens of thousands and whose descendants still formed the largest element in the English-speaking peoples of Canada, now sent only one man for every twelve from England. The gates of Canadian immigration, however, were not thrown open to all comers. The criminal, the insane and feeble-minded, the diseased, and others likely to become public charges, were barred altogether or allowed to remain provisionally, subject to deportation within three years. Immigrants sent out by British charitable societies were subjected, after 1908, to rigid inspection before leaving England. No immigrant was admitted without sufficient money in his purse to tide over the first few weeks, unless he were going to farm work or responsible relatives. Asiatics were restricted by special regulations. Steadily the bars were raised higher. Not all the 3,000,000 who came to Canada between 1897 and 1914 remained. Many drifted across the border; many returned to their old homes, their dreams fulfilled or shattered; yet the vast majority remained. Never had any country so great a task of assimilation as faced Canada, with 3,000,000 pouring into a country of 5,000,000 in a dozen years. Fortunately the great bulk of the newcomers were of the old stocks. Closely linked with immigration in promoting the prosperity of the country were the land policy and the railway policy of the Administration. The system of granting free homesteads to settlers was continued on an even more generous scale. The 1800 entries for homesteads in 1896 had become 40,000 ten years later. In 1906 land equal in area to Massachusetts and Delaware was given away; in 1908 a Wales, in 1909 five Prince Edward Islands, and in 1910 and 1911 a Belgium, a Netherlands, and two Montenegros passed from the state to the settler. Unfortunately not every homesteader became an active farmer, and production, though mounting fast, could not keep pace with speculation.