RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 211 



As a first duty to all prospective settlers, including the returned 

 soldiers, the system of colonization should be revised so as to make 

 farming more profitable. It is conceivable that the giving of free 

 farms to soldiers will only accentuate the evils of haphazard settle- 

 ment and enlarge the field of speculation, by which the real benefit 

 derived from the free grants of land and money will pass to enterprising 

 and undeserving second parties, and harm instead of good done to 

 colonization. 



Until development schemes are made it is not likely that the 

 settlement of isolated groups of returned soldiers in rural districts 

 will succeed, no matter how liberal the terms may be that are offered 

 by the Governments. The areas available for free homesteads are 

 for the most part in remote regions, where success is difficult because 

 of want of proper means of communication. The returned soldier 

 will need social intercourse and good facilities for educating his child- 

 ren, and these must be provided wherever settlement is permitted; 

 they cannot be provided in small artificial colonies, or without closer 

 settlement over wide areas, better roads, and the expenditure of 

 capital in planning and developing large areas of the land. 



As an alternative to placing ex-soldiers on isolated farms in 

 territory remote from existing railways and centres of population, 

 consideration should be given to schemes that have been suggested 

 for filling up the available territory nearest to these railways and 

 centres.* In any case we should plan and develop the new territory 

 in such a way as to give the settlers the advantages of accessibility 

 to market centres by road and rail, and the social conditions which 

 they need to make them prosperous and contented. Otherwise we 

 may only succeed either in deadening their initiative and enterprise 

 or in creating a sickening of heart that will drive them back into the 

 cities. 



The proposal to settle untrained returned soldiers on the western 

 farm lands is not altogether welcomed by those who speak for the 

 existing settlers. The Farmer's Advocate, referring to the matter, says 

 that men should go to that position for which environment and train- 

 ing fitted them. "The farmers in western Canada will meet their 

 responsibility, but it is unfair to the farm and unfair to the returned 

 soldier to attempt to make the farm the solution of the problem that 

 will arise when our soldiers return." 



The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, which met at Van- 



* The Returned Soldiers Employment Commission of Saskatchewan has 

 resolved to ask the Dominion Government to select land for returned soldiers near 

 to railways. 



17 



