EMIGRATION TO CANADA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3087, 8 January 1909, Page 4

EMIGRATION TO CANADA.

A recent protest by the Colonial Trades and Labour Congress against indiscriminate immigration is made the text of a striking statement of the Canadian point of view on this question in an influential Montreal journal. In the course of the article, which doubtless indicates the general trend of intelligent opinion in Canada, the journal says:—"There are a lot of well-intentioned people in Britain who cannot understand our point of view. They believe that all that is needed is to lift a family out I of London, carry it to Canada, get a job for the father and work for the children, give them r.ew neighbours and a freedom from old temptations, and all will be well. But they forget the Canadian end of the story. Here we have working men who have won their way to better wage conditions than exist in the Motherland. This derelict, in immediate need of a job, will offer to work for London prices, though his failure at Home shows that he cannot return London ability. The Canadian does not understand why these British philanthropists cannot secure these better surroundings for their own slum products at home. Our Government has realised that it must not encourage immigration to swell the working classes in our cities. Certainly elements ought not to be welcomed to the country which may be marked as 'undesirable,' and we should not permit the philanthropists of other

lands to lay their burdens upon our shoulders. If they desire to prepare their people for life in Canada, let the*n do so at home, and then send the finished product to us with a self-reliant stride and the stamina that marks the good citizen. We still have opportunities here for the capable, but our resentment at being treated as a 'dumping-ground' has reached the boiling-point."