CHAPTER II 



Rural Population and Production in Canada 



Urban increase and rural decrease. Depopulation of homestead land. 

 Female population. Movement of population, bad conditions 

 in Ontario. Physical and moral deterioration. Good condi- 

 tions in Ontario. Conditions in Western Provinces. Distribu- 

 tion of lands. Profits of farming and values of farm products. 

 Rural production. Alining, lumbering and fishing industries. 

 New developments of rural industries. Water-powers. Past ten- 

 dencies in industrial growth. 



Urban Increase and Rural Decrease 



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HE rapid growth of urban populations need not be 

 an evil, if the urban development is properly directed 

 and controlled, and if the urban conditions are made 

 as healthy as the rural conditions. Neither growth of cities 

 nor depletion of rural population is necessarily an unhealthy tendency. 

 If the movement from the country to the town is the result of desires 

 for greater opportunities and educational facilities and for obtaining 

 better sanitary and social conditions, who can say that a movement so 

 inspired is an evil? If every city and town were as healthy as the 

 rural districts, as they could be under proper conditions of develop- 

 ment, why deplore the natural tendency of population to migrate to 

 the most profitable industries, so long as they remain the most pro- 

 fitable. We may deplore rural depopulation, but it will be futile to 

 fight against it so long as manufacturing produces a better return to 

 labour and capital than agriculture, and so long as there are urban 

 opportunities for human betterment superior to those in rural dis- 

 tricts. Indeed, we cannot have national prosperity unless human 

 activity is applied to the most profitable fields of production — whe- 

 ther they be growing food, or making clothes, or building ships. One 

 of the men who failed to make a farm pay in Northern Ontario is 

 today managing a large and successful motor industry in Canada, 

 and there are hundred of others who have gone through the same 

 experience. Indirectly, that man, in making cheap motors, is a 

 great agricultural producer; if he had remained on the soil he would 



