RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 209 



It was recommended that the men be trained in farm work, free 

 of cost for all returned soldiers, and that there should be a trained 

 agricultural adviser for each settlement. The Commission very pro- 

 perly recognized that any scheme prepared for returned soldiers 

 should, as regards its general plan, be available for other settlers. 



Legislation has been considered in British Columbia in which 

 the general principles advocated by the commission have been incor- 

 porated. 



In New Brunswick and other provinces committees have been 

 appointed to enquire into the question of settling returned soldiers 

 in farm colonies where they would have social comfort and co-operatiun. 



The Canadian Pacific Railway Company is offering to provide 

 land under specially attractive conditions for returned soldiers. 

 The company undertakes to provide farms of two kinds, (a) improved 

 farms in distinctive colonies, and (b) assisted colonization farms. 

 The first comprises farms in selected colonies, which are improved by 

 the erection of house, barn and fence, the cultivation of a certain area 

 of land and the providing of a water supply. The assisted coloniza- 

 tion farms are first selected by the intending colonist and then im- 

 proved by him with financial assistance by the company. 



A striking fact about all schemes being promoted is the implied 

 acknowledgment that successful agricultural development requires 

 co-operative methods and that provision for social intercourse is 

 considered essential. Great progress has been made in this direction 

 during the past few years, because it has come to be generally admit- 

 ted that the present system of land settlement, which encourages 

 isolation and makes satisfactory co-operation impossible, cannot 

 be continued if we are to have satisfactory rural progress. 



Conditions Necessary to Attract Men to the Land 

 It is hard to understand why the schemes suggested for dealing 

 with the problem of returned soldiers are mostly of the nature of 

 land colonization schemes. It seems to be assumed that a larger 

 proportion of the soldiers will go back to the land than have come 

 from the land. It is doubtful, however, whether the city dwellers 

 among the soldiers who will take up farming will exceed in number 

 the ex-farmers who will want to follow up the excitement of war 

 with the excitement of city life. 



The Parliamentary Committee on the Care of Returned Soldiers 

 was told at Ottawa by Mr. J. B. Kidner, the vocational secretary 

 of the Military Hospitals Commission, that only a very small per- 

 centage of the twelve thousand returned men so far handled by the 



