88 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



way traffic than of Common welfare. Settlers were 

 sought by a world-wide propaganda in order that when 

 placed on the land they might furnish railway freight- 

 age. Eventual national progress would have been 

 more fully secured by a less artificial development. 

 Agriculture in the West would have developed upon 

 more helpful lines. It is more than a question whether 

 agricultural prosperity in the East was not injured 

 by the forcing of Western grain-growing. The exodus 

 from Nova Scotia and Ontario was due not only to the 

 lure of free land in Manitoba, but also to economic 

 pressure in the East due to artificial development of the 

 West. And more recently we have seen considerations 

 of railway haulage become a factor in deciding an 

 issue of national importance to the disadvantage of the 

 farmer in the rejection of reciprocity in natural pro- 

 ducts with the United States. And an injury of great 

 magnitude has been inflicted upon the farmers of the 

 West by the exemption of the lands of the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway Company from taxation. The inten- 

 tion of Parliament was that these lands should be 

 exempt from taxation until the settlement of the local- 

 ity ; the interpretation placed upon the wording of the 

 act of gift is that they are exempt until the settlement 

 of the particular parcel of land. Municipal develop- 

 ment and all progress is thereby greatly hampered. 



Our system of banking throws an undue burden upon 

 the farmer. Capital is withdrawn from the country 

 to be used in the city by means of facilities for making 

 loans to manufacturers which are denied to farmers. 

 I have heard farmers object to any proposal to furnish 

 them with facilities for credit on the ground that such 

 would be provision for sinking into debt. These indi- 



