APPENDIX E 



LAND SETTLEMENT AND AFTER-WAR EMPLOYMENT 



PROBLEMS* 



POSITIONS FOR RETURNED SOLDIERS CAN BE BEST ENSURED BY NOW 

 SETTLING, ON VACANT LANDS IN THE WEST, THE MANY 

 THOUSANDS OF TOWN-DWELLING IMMIGRANTS WHO 

 CAME TO CANADA DIRECT FROM CULTIVAT- 

 ING OLD-WORLD FARMS 



By J. H. T. FALK 

 Secy. Winnipeg Social Welfare Commission 



Grave doubts exist in the minds of those who have talked with 

 returned soldiers as to whether, no matter how advantageous the 

 conditions, any large number of them will be willing to take up agri- 

 culture as an occupation. Production, and production from the land, 

 is looked upon as the one hope of salvation for our af ter-the-war con- 

 ditions. Can we not avoid some of our past mistakes and maladjust- 

 ments in meeting after- war problems? 



OUR TOWN-DWELLING FARMERS 



In a small office on Main Street, in the City of Winnipeg, one day 

 early in April, 1915, the writer, tired of authorizing grocery and wood 

 orders to be sent to Slav dependent families as relief, because of their 

 unemployment, picked out from the applicants one who seemed cap- 

 able of acting as an interpreter and started an inquiry into the nature 

 of the occupation of the applicants in their country of origin. Some 

 255 were interviewed in a short time; of these 70 per cent had owned 

 land, cultivated it, and thereby earned a livelihood in Eastern Europe; 

 17 per cent had worked as labourers upon the land of the owner; and 

 7 per cent had been tenant farmers. Only 6 per cent had earned their 

 livelihood from any other source than by production from the soil. 



The writer's thoughts ran thus : "Here we are at war, never before 

 was the necessity for production greater, never before was man power 

 of more value, and here in Western Canada, in its greatest city, 

 money raised primarily for patriotic purposes has been used to keep 



* From Canadian Finance, June 20th, 1917. 



268 



