Trains of Recollection: Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur HawkesHanna, D. B. (David Blyth)
History
Trains of Recollection: Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur Hawkes
Hanna, D. B. (David Blyth)
Canadian National Railways; Railroads -- Canada; Railroads -- Scotland
The necessity of making known, what the Canadian National lines
are and the territory they serve, also the numerous additions and
changes in train service has involved a large amount of advertising
during the past two years. This was necessary, not only to inform the
public at large but also the transportation selling forces of other
lines--particularly in the United States, in a position to direct
business to us. The accumulating effect of this advertising is now
beginning to be felt and is undoubtedly reflected in the proportion
of competitive travel that we are securing. Steps are being taken
to complete a wall map of the system which will fill a great want
and when it is distributed, will have more effect in informing the
Canadian public as to what constitutes the Canadian National Railways
than any other medium.
DEVELOPMENT AND COLONIZATION:--It would appear necessary to emphasize
the fact, that we fully realize the vital importance to Canada
in general, and the Canadian National Railways in particular, of
increased population. Immigration of the right kind should be
fostered from Overseas, as well as from the United States, and
settlement encouraged on our lines, not only in Western Canada, but
in the Maritime Provinces, Quebec and Ontario.
To increase population, particularly in the agricultural districts
is a necessity, and to that end, we have been working in the United
States with a specialized staff at Chicago, Boston and Seattle,
co-operating with our Canadian staff, and in close co-operation with
the representatives in the United States, and in Canada, of the
Immigration and Colonization Department of the Dominion Government.
Through the work of our Industrial and Resources Department,
colonization is stimulated, and suitable people induced to settle in
Canada, and acquire lands along the lines of the Canadian National
Railways; adding directly to the country’s wealth, in capital, and
in the plant and effects they bring with them, and as producers of
increased traffic for the railway.
In order to give some idea of the activities of the Department in
the United States during the period under review, it is worthy of
mention that information is being sent out periodically to some forty
thousand enquirers. The Chicago office alone is in correspondence
with between five and six thousand prospective settlers, and has
distributed some 374,000 pamphlets giving information about Canada
and the Canadian National Railways.
It is estimated that over one million acres have been taken up so
far in the West along the National lines, under the auspices of the
Soldiers Settlement Board, and that 67 per cent. of the homesteading
in 1920 and upwards of 80 per cent. in 1921, applied for in the
prairie provinces were contiguous to the National lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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