34 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



one of our cities from a southern European country. The husband 

 for a time peddled plaster casts of antiques. Subsequently, with the 

 development of the fresh fruit trade, he secured a stand on the most 

 prominent business thoroughfare, the site being an alley way to 

 what was formerly a blacksmith's shop. Here, using the walls of 

 the adjoining stores, the landlord constructed a shack, a lean-to, 

 consisting of space for a fruit stand in front and one room in the 

 rear, which served as kitchen, bed room, living room and, inci- 

 dentally, as store room for fruit. In this slum home, lived for some 

 years this man and woman. Several children were born there, the 

 greater number died there, and were it not that the site was re- 

 quired for new buildings, the family might have been living there 

 now. 



The housing of the immigrant population is a problem which 

 concerns every city, town and district in Canada and must be grap- 

 pled with right now. It is a phase of the housing question which is 

 little understood and to which little or no attention has been paid. 

 One has only to visit some of the larger cities to witness the evil con- 

 ditions which now exist and then to ask himself where this will end 

 unless proper measures are at once adopted. 



Consider for a moment the distribution of the immigrant popu- 

 lation for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1910, which numbered 

 104,996. Where and under what conditions has this large number 

 been housed? How many new houses have been erected to meet 

 the wants of the larger portion who, with little money, no know- 

 ledge of our language, customs and laws have had to secure housing 

 accommodation? To those who went out to build our great railway 

 lines I will not refer except to say that their housing conditions 

 might be bettered and yet not be called sanitary, or even equal to 

 the conditions under which many a good farmer houses his cattle. 

 They certainly could not compare with the accommodation afforded 

 cattle, in some of the dairy barns in Ontario. The foreign immi- 

 grant, while in many instances like the passenger in the overcrowded 

 street car, is at this disadvantage: he is overcrowded all the time, 

 day and night. Both alike pay for accommodation which they 

 don't get, the one to the street car company, the other to the land- 

 lord. If these conditions were of a transitory character it would not 

 be so bad; but they have been growing in our midst and unless 

 action is speedily taken to remedy them, the consequences will be 

 alike disastrous to the nation from the standpoint of .public health, 

 economics and sociology. That the question is of general interest 

 may be gathered from a glance at the immigration statistics referred 

 to above. 



