178 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE HON. GEORGE FOSTER, Canadian Minister of Commerce and Industry. 



What will Can Ilia be fifty years from now ? To-day 

 we have 7.000.0:: j of people. Last year 354.000 people 

 came in as immigrants and settled in Canada. We took 

 138,000 frcjrn ( ireat Britain, 132,000 from the United 

 States of Aim-rica, and nearly 80,000 from the rest of 

 the world, making a grand total of 350,000. This year 

 the number will at least be 400,000. You may lay 

 down as a lairly reasonable estimate that for the next 

 fifty \c,:i there will be an increase by immigration of 

 at lea--i 500,000 people per year into Canada. Add that 

 to the n.itural increase, and in fifty years the population 

 should be close on 50.000,000 people. 



FORTY MILLION CANADIANS. 



If the aspect of Canada, as evidenced between the 

 periods of 1867 and 1912, is different, how much more 

 different will be the aspect of Canada in relation to this 

 Empire when her population has grown from seven 

 millions to forty or fifty millions of people. This 

 thought impresses itself upon one. Ought we not to 

 be thinking about it — men in the United Kingdom, 

 men in Canada, and men in the Overseas Dominions ? 

 If on a certain day 33.<5oo Scotch people were to make 

 a track to the port of Glasgow and find a fleet to take 

 them at once over to Canada — 33,000 at a time — what a 

 commotion it would raise in (ireat Britain ! Yet this 

 was the number which went out from Scotland in 

 19H-12. If 138,000 people, in these islands were to 

 trek to Liverpool upon a given day of the week and 

 take ship for Canada it would make a great man)' 

 people who do not think certainly do so ; but 

 they went all the same — and they are going every 

 year. 



SIR JOHN TAVERNER, 



I am fully in accord with your statement that " there 

 N no more vital and pressing Imperial duty than the 

 systematic peopling of the Empire." I am also 

 strongly of opinion that there should be co-operation 

 between the Mother Country and the Overseas Govern- 

 ments. If we are really to be partners in the Empire 

 we should work together in building up and main- 

 taining our Empire by our own people for our own 

 people. Surely there is a screw loose somewhere when 

 we find that last year about 100,000 of our people left 

 the Mollier Country to go under foreign flags, and 

 this exodus while there are vast undeveloped areas 

 in different parts of the Empire. This is bad 

 business, and some united effort should be taken to 

 stem this tide. 



The various Governments who are conducting 

 emigration policies are doing their best to secure the 

 class of people which come within their respective 

 policies. Personally, I am very strongly of an oi)inion 

 that there should be some combined action on the 

 part of the Imperial Government and the Overseas 

 Governments in designing a policy for the preparation 



WHAT IT MEANS TO BRITAIN. 



What does that mean to this Old Country — 138,000 

 vacant chairs, vacant rooms, vacant places in the 

 United Kingdom, as compared with last year ; 138,000 

 fewer toilers in this country to work upon its raw- 

 materials and to do its labour ; 138,000 fewer people 

 to pay its municipal taxes and its general taxes ; 

 138,000 fewer people to build homes and replenish them 

 in this country. Emigrants they are called ; I wish 

 somebody would bar that word and substitute another. 



When a man from Nova Scotia goes to British 

 Columbia he is not called an emigrant ; he has simply 

 moved. What reason is there in the world, when a 

 man goes from Scotland to Australia or to Canada, 

 that he should not be put in the same class as the man 

 who has simply moved and not emigrated .' But the 

 head and centre of the Empire is poorer by 138,000 

 people ; and the Empire is that much poorer provided 

 they have not simply moved to another portion of the 

 Empire and which shall continue within the Empire. 



CITIZENS OF PART — CITIZENS OF WHOLE. 



Therein lies the whole question. There should be 

 but one Empire. The citizen of one portion of it should 

 be the citizen of every other portion of it ; the man 

 who goes from one to another should simply have 

 transferred his home and not transferred his national 

 characteristics. If these great, mighty, outlying 

 Dominions continue to grow — as they will grow — and 

 their populations increase — as they will increase — fifty 

 years will put the heart of the Empire and the outlying 

 portions of the Empire in a very different position the 

 one to the other. Are we not going to think about these 

 things ? Shall it always be laissez jatre ? 



Agent-General for Victoria. 



of lads, say from twelve to fourteen years of age, for 

 planting in different parts of the Empire. I think 

 that the best class of emigration that could be brought 

 about, in addition to what has taken place, would be 

 the sending of young men from fourteen to eighteen 

 years of age to our Overseas Dominions and States. 

 The great ad\-antage of this would be that the young 

 men grow up with the conditions obtaining in different 

 parts of the Empire where they may be located, and 

 become very useful citizens. 



I would like to see, say, about fifty miles from 

 London, a farm of about 1,000 acres secured, and there 

 established what might be called a preparatory agri- 

 cultural school, where boys could be taken at even a 

 younger age than twelve, assuming that they would 

 receive some education. But the primary object of 

 this farm would be to give these lads some rural or 

 agricultural training. The farm should be .self-support- 

 ing; the boys should be taught to milk, to look after 

 poultry, feed pigs, and be instructed generally in the 

 class of work obtaining on the ordinary farm. I am 

 quite sure that the various Governments would be 



