THE CANADIAN BOOM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 127, 2 June 1904, Page 2

THE CANADIAN BOOM.

Lust year, for the first time, Canada jfceeived', relatively to the present population, more immigrants than the United States, the figures being 128,000 to a little over a million. And during 1904 the same thing continues, arrivals in Canada, for t'ourtiths of tho lean month of March' being over 4000. Of the newcomers in 1903 50,000 were American farmers from the north-west—almost to a man self-supporting,small capitalists, eager, ambitious, untiring. A contemporary remarks that this seems to be a sign that at last the vast territory of Canada, largely because of better facilities of transportation, has become at last ocjually attractive with the remaining open lands of the United States. In 1903 the record shows 32,682 Canadian homestead entries including 5,021,280 acres; and the land grant railroads and the Hudson Bay Company also sold to settlers 4,229,011 acres more. Yet in 1806' after the present wave of prosperity had'fairly begun to move, there were ojily 2000 Canadian homestead entries.. Already, both at Washington and Ottawa, this- interesting phase of continental development is very carefully watc'hcd, and each Gove*nment finds more than enough possible gain in it to outweigh any !.possible material or sentimental los«. Canada's revenue will soon show a [ marked increase ; and the rapid increase in American exports to Canada, in spite of tariff discriminations, can only be accoui*ed for by the liking Americans take with them, wherever they go, tor their own tools farm machines, vehicles, clothingone might even add, pills and potions and papers and books, which in the grand total make quite a respectable showing. Some of the Canadian journals deplore the "Ameri- ■ cassation" of the western dominions of the Dominion, and some of the American journals also deplore the voluntary exile of so many g oo d American citizens. But it could hardly be disputed that many parts of Canada are nearer to ideal democracy of manners than most parts of the United States; and nothing tends more to improve governing conditions than a sharp rivalty for the patronage of the governed. Already guesses aieput lor th as to when Canada will outnumber the population of the Mother Conn try, but these lack serious importance, because no one cun yet tell how much of the Canadian wilderness is practically habitable. Until Alaska began to be developed it was believed that profitable tillage of these Arctic wastes, with their summers of forty days and winters of more than forty weeks was simply impossible ; but it is now set forth by some authorities that this '?" S _T intor slee *' B ' iV(>s v egetation strength to complete the circle of its life at high pressure, whilst the very brevity of that life in the open saves it from many dangers. It' there be a modicum of truth in this view Canada may yet have her hundreds of Bullions of inhabitants and her hundreds of thousands of millions of 1 dollars.