LIV ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
which are north of Toronto had not been? Had we not in Ontario 
whole townships of Highland and Irish fisher-folk, who were unskilled 
in agriculture, who became, at any rate in their children, farmers and 
business men of the best type? What shall we say of companies of 
immigrants of four and five hundred families coming at one time, who in 
early Ontario had rations issued to them for eighteen months, and con- 
trast this with the immigrant of to-day who must have money in his 
pocket? What can Nova Scotia and Ontario say, when the former had 
hundreds and hundreds of Maroons, brought from Jamaica, reaching 
7,000, and when the latter had in its western peninsula 12,000 Africans 
just brought from the grasp of slavery to be assimilated? 
Those who come to us are our fellow men. If they obey our laws 
and our customs they have a right to come. We are only entitled to 
possess what we can use. The great vacant prairies we have are God’s 
land, and they are for his poorer children of whatever race. Let us not 
be wiser than our fathers. They were made up of swarthy Iberians, 
and ruddy Picts, and stalwart Britons, of masterful Dalriads and staid 
Angles, Jutes and Saxons, of blue-eyed Norsemen, of enterprising 
Danes, of Norsemen and Angevin conquerors, of French refugees, 
Jewish merchants—a great strong composite. 
Can we do better than they have done? 
(g) Lhe second problem is that of the great influx of Americans 
into western Canada. It is well to be watchful; but before we can judge 
of this it is essential that we should know the character and motives of 
those who are coming in so great numbers to Canada from the United 
States. Late statistics by men in authority state something like the 
following figures as to the origin of the American immigrants coming 
to us: 
; ; Germans @G.) NL 15% 
English speaking me g 
ee eae tee ee Pits aE TRUE 25% 
Returned Canadians or their children. ......... 40% 
Native born Americans) ee ON ASE eee 20% 
These figures are intended to include the three western Canadian prairie 
provinces. In Manitoba alone, lying as it does alongside of North 
Dakota, which for thirty miles along the boundary was settled entirely 
by Canadians, the proportion of Canadians coming to us would pro- 
bably reach forty or fifty per cent. In Manitoba almost all who come 
purchase farms, as homesteads are not available. 
Manitoba.—It may be well to give details of a few settlements as 
illustrations. These are all within forty miles of Winnipeg: 
A. Numbers of American families making up one-half of one 
church were returned Canadians and their children from 
