WHAT CANADA IS DOING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 974, 18 February 1910, Page 7

WHAT CANADA IS DOING.

While New Zealand is being slowly throttled by the "taihoa'"' policy which keeps the native lands of the Dominion locked up and unproductive, retards progress and prosperity, and makes settlement impossible, Canada is straining every nerve to attract population, and offering every inducement for people to go on the land. Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, an active member of the greatest railway system in the world, the Canadian Pacific railway, recently arrived in England, full of fresh plans for strengthening Anglo-Canadian relations. Overlord of a vast system of transportation stretching from Liverpool to Hongkong, with 14,500 miles of track 40,000 employees, several j great lines of steamships, and j millions of acres of land, he wields j a power difficult to over-estimate. One of Sir Thomas' schemes is for a '

new method of emigration. "The British people have not in the past availed themselves so fully of the opportunities of the West as they might." he said. "The American, even the wealthy American, will build himself a rough hut and live in it for a season or two while making a start. The Englishman does not like thif, yet he wants land. Recently, when 1,600 small holdings vere offered in England, there were 35,000 applicants. All of these could be accommodated by us. We propose

to prepare land for this class of small holder. We will build his house, fence his holding, break part of the soil, and sow it, so that he can come and nnd all ready for him to settle down. ThiF. will be within reach of the English countryman who has £IOO capital to make a start. The prosperity of the West and all over Canada has been so great this year thac I am satisfied that 1910 should be a record year for immigration." This prosperity is, of course, due mainly to the enormous land settlement that is going on. Every acre that this taken up and made productive helps to swell the increasing wealth of the country. Canada is fol-