WHY GO TO CANADA?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 169, 26 October 1910, Page 4

WHY GO TO CANADA?

Most men guage the merits of a country on their persona! success or failure. The successful New Zealander looks upon this Dominion as the finest land in the world, and the failure expresses himself otherwise. No abuse, of the great Dominion of Canada can stop the How of people I to that country. Somebody not long ago headed his tirade against Canada, "Heaven or Frozen Hell!" mainly, one supposes, because he was unsuccessful in making a fortune during the two years he was in that country. The disadvantages of the country are beina set out very frequently. Detractors allege the advantages are small, that the advertising is large, that the 1908 harvest was a failure on account of drought, that farmers are absolutely at the mercy of the companies trading in their produce, that it is impossible for a farmer to make a 1 start in Canada with less than £SOO, and that the winters are terrible. Tt is pointed out that labor is practically idle for ' the winter, and that the influx of foreigners blocks the chance of P>ritishers. ■ Mr. W. A. Beddoe, Commissioner for Can- , ada in New Zpaland. does not call the great Dominion a •"Frozen Hell," but a "Treasure Chest." Last Thursday in Auckland he showed that the Dominion i of Canada contained one-third of the iarea of the British Empire, viz.. 3,729,005 square miles. If they were to take the combined area of Germany. France, ■Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, multiply it four times, and add" New Zealand to it twice, then they might 'get the area of Canada, and they miuht have to add another half of New Zea-

land to get it exactly. Canada had been alluded to as an ice-box, but it was a treasure-chest. Amongst the great resources which Canada possessed were 90 per cent, of the nickel deposits of the world and 05 per cent, of the. water powers of the world. The wheat lands of Canada could not be estimated. It was suilicient to say that, the wheat production which had made Canada famous was harvested from 12.01)0,000 acres, and there remained in the western provinces no less than 350,000,000 acres sarily attract New Zealanders to Canada, was justly described as the "granary of | I the world." Mere size should not necessarily attract New Zealanlers to Canada. Even if one can tuck New Zealand away in a corner of the great Dominion, New Zealanders doirt have to sit over a stove for four months in the year to keep warm. The energy that might be applied to the prairie lands of Canada is an equally good weapon in which to fight bush and swamp land in this country, and it is certainly true that settlement in New Zealand is as payable and infinitely more comfortable than in Canada. In the meantime, no derogation of Canada will prevent men with big hearts and strong arms going there, and Canada and all her agents are justified in advertising it all they know how. The failures of individuals in any of the King's dominions are useful in showing strong men that difficulties are made to be overcome.