CONDITIONS IN CANADA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1246, 16 May 1914, Page 4

CONDITIONS IN CANADA.

The recent depression in Canada was referred to by Mr W. D. Scott, superintendent of the Canadian Immigration Department, in an interview in London. Mr Scott said the situation was improving rapidly, and money was getting easier. Labour conditions generally were also better. There was never • any limit to the numbers of agricultural workers and domestic servants that the Department could place. One good effect of the recent slackness had been to put a lot of people who had abandoned rural occupations back on the land. “By the end of April I believe that Canada will be quite over the hill,” continued Mr Scott. “There will not, however, be any relaxation ol the ordinary immigration restrictions and regulations this summer. The total immigration for the year is likely to be a little below last year’s figures, but I do not expect the decrease to amount to much more than xo per cent. Immigration from the United States is keeping up well, but it is evident that as the supply of free homesteads within easy reach ot transportation facilities diminishes the newcomers from the States must be more and more of the type which is sufficiently well provided with money to purchase farms. This will naturally lead, to a reduction in the number of settlers from the South as time goes on.” Speaking of the foreign immigrants, such as Galicians, Menuonites, Doukhobors, Rutheuians, and other European races, Mr Scott said that he had no fears as to Canada’s ability to absorb them in the course of time. The colonies established by these people naturally acted as foci to which new arrivals were attracted, but. while it was impossible to transform the first generation into standard Canadians, the children, by means of education and contact with the world outside their particular island community, gradually become detached and absorbed into the ordinary population. With regard to the city trend of rural population, Mr Scott said that although this was undoubtedly a serious problem, there was quite a counter-current at work. A number of men who had made a certain amount of money iu the cities were affected by the “back to the land” propaganda, and were turning towards the more healthy life of the farmer. As to the drain on the countryside in this country caused by the emigration of rural workers, he did not think that the time was close at baud when serious difficulty would be experienced by Canada in securing settlers of the purely agricultural type.