Great Scheme to Settle Canada

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 792, 12 October 1929, Page 5

Great Scheme to Settle Canada

OPENING OF WHEAT AREAS GENERAL’S NEW PLAN General Frank A. Sutton, who is even better known as “One-armed-Sutton,” tlie war hero and one-time military adviser to the Chinese War Lord Chang Tso-lin, is in London in connection with a big scheme for British unemployed, and particularly the miners. It is somewhat remarkable that a man whose feats in Gallipoli, Russia and China have become almost legendary should have now settled down to a mission of peace. For the past two years he has been ; surveying the vast territory known as the Peace River district of Alberta and British Columbia, with a view to fully exploiting for the Empire between 20 and 30 million acres of only partiallydeveloped wheat-growing land. Efforts have been made to settle this part of Canada during the past few years, but progress has been handicapped owing to lack of transport facilities, the rivers being of little use for navigation, and the railway only reaching Quesnel. Now, largely as the result of his efforts, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the National Canadian Railways are shortly to open up this country, ■with some 500 miles of new line linking It hy a short route with Vancouver. According to General SuttoD, the failure of most emigration schemes so far has been because men used to

town life have been dumped miles out in the -wilds to go crazy from sheer loneliness. His plan is to set up a chain of leg- ( cabin villages, with electric light , ’ water supply, stores, clubs and even cinemas, where, while leading a , normal social life, miners would be ; taught farming by expert instructors. : The scheme has just been submitted to the Alberta Government for preliminary approval. It is stated that it is along similar lines that Mr. J. H. Thomas hopes to develop emigration. “After a careful study of the laud, and the difficulties to be overcome/' General Sutton told a “Daily Chronicle*’ representative, “I am convinced that by this means any young miner who has not lost the will to work could make good. “Each village would comprise 100 log houses, each surrounded by four acres of land. “The village itself would be surrounded by a square block of 10,000 acres, composed of 100 plots of IGO acres each, to be developed when the emigrants were trained. This again would be surrounded by a belt of some 15,000 acres for still further development. “During the first year the emigrants . • would be taught to build their ow n j log huts, and to work the four acres ! adjoining each. During this period I ; ! suggest that food should be found for : j them, as well as a personal allowance ; of, say, a dollar (4s 2d) a day. j ! “In the second year they would j start farming the 160-acre plots, which - i in no case would be more than about ■ j two miles from the village. ■ | “For economic reasons it would be j necessary to lay out these village blocks next to each other along either 1 side of the railway, so that each • would have adequate transport faeili- ; ties. “Financially it is a proposition ’ j which would have to be organised ■! jointly by the English and Canadian -; Governments, possibly by means of a chartered company. 1 “Every miner settled would cost J about £SOO. which would be advanced > j as a first mortgage, to be paid back ; ! over a period of 20 to 25 years.*'