OVERBOOMED CANADA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 44, 15 November 1907, Page 3

OVERBOOMED CANADA.

THE FROZEN NORTH-WEST. NOT TO BE COMPARED WITH NEW ZEALAND. Mr. Arthur M'Koe, of the firm of M'Kce and Co., land ami estate agents, Panama Street, has returned from a trip to England via Canada, and talks interestingly of what he saw there. " When I was at Winnipeg," said Air. M'Koe, " 1 was told that 10,000 people had arrived there that week from the , East, bound for the great North-West. This is the effect of wicked over-booming, for how those .xior creatures are going to get on I do not .enow. Last winter the cold in the Winnipeg district reached an intensity of 60 degrees below zero. Trains were snowed up, and the people had to be' dug out. Many of the immigrant settlors were frozen, to death — how many will never be known, as Canada does not mention such things in her gaudy advertisements. The great North-West is a vast country of rolling prairie, the greater part of which is under snow for seven and eight months of the year, and as to comparing the condition of life there with New Zealand or Australia—well, it is absurd.

"People are induced to go w'est by the offer of a freo 160 acres, but when they get there they find it is away off the map somewhere. If they decide to work it they must have between £300 and £400 to buy horses, stock and implements, but the majority do not have the money, so they abandon tho freo holding and go out and work for others."

The Cost of Living. "The cost of living is terrific —much higher than Wellington 1 Why the rents in Winnipeg are double as high as they are here. Tney are building what they call 1 apartment buildings,' with flats, and these flats are taken by a person who sublets tb,\ rooms. A single, furnished room in fiich a building • costs 30s. a week. The prico of land is about the same as in Wellington, yet there they have miles of undulating prairie to build on all round the city. There are .>OO lsnd agents in Winnipeg, so I t-houg.it I would como back to Wellington." A Cood Patch. "Kalgary has a milder climate, and is a fine country of about 3,000,000 acres. It is going to be a great producing area, and I tliink Kalgary will in time bo a fine city. It belongs to tho Canadian-Pacific Railway, and has iecei\tly been irrigated most successfully under tho supervision of Dr. Meade, consulting engineer to the Canadian-Pacific Railway Company. That gentleman (who, by the way, was a cabin mate of mine on tho Moana, having been engaged by tho Victorian Government to report on irrigation in that State) told me that before tho irrigation works were started the land was being sold at from one to two dollars per acre —now it is bringing from 15 to 20 dollars per acre, and yet tho cost of irrigation was only about one dollar' per acre. So tho ; C.P.R. people are making money. "My opinion is that a person coming to New' Zealand with tho samo amount of capital, and investing in leasehold hero what he could get freehold land for in Canada, would make just as much money, would live ten times more comfortably, and at the end of tho term his leasehold would be worth more than your Canadian freehold.

"Personally, I would not livo in NorthWost Canada under any consideration," said Mr. M'Keo in conclusion.