be another matter. The truth of the controversy respecting imports and exports lies here. We import a greater excess year by year, and thus grow poorer instead of richer, simply because we have more mouths to feed each year. While this goes on, vast territories belonging to the Empire remain deserts, and others are given away.
23. The existence of great fleets of steamers of vast size which could not have been had a few years ago, the political difficulties and pressing yearly increasing distress in England, the wish of the Dominion Government to settle the North-West territory which was owned by an exclusive private corporation only twelve years ago, the certainty of a German and probability of a Chinese immigration thither[1] unless we utilize it ourselves instead of abandoning it to the wolf and the jackal, are all considerations favouring the realization of my scheme.
24. Although the settling may proceed during as many years as there remains unoccupied land, the principal trouble will be during the first two or three years. Once the rudiments of hamlets, towns, and cities are formed, there will be little trouble and not nearly so much expense.
25. The scheme would be greatly helped by the approaching construction or completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which will traverse the territory to be settled in order to unite the two oceans, and will provide work for large numbers of labourers. Primarily designed though it is for the poor who have no resources, the fact need not preclude our attracting (by the offer of assistance in the colony) a limited number among classes possessing some small but insufficient capital. Such people would provide employment for labouring peasants whose mental qualifications did not offer sufficient inducement to trust them with land of their own. In short, the whole management requires the exercise of skill and judgment. Many farmers would be well qualified to act as superintendents of some of the departments, and, doubtless, be glad to accept such positions.
26. Upon some collateral aspects of this many-sided schema it is well to lay stress. This would not be a haphazard fit-ful business—now well, now badly done. The emigrants are not to be turned loose on the prairie to do as they pleas^: protection, direction, control, are essential elements in the scheme, which, before all things, is to be entered upon for State advantage. A considerable organization of skilled educated minds is therefore indispensable. Upon this side of the ocean there will be the personnel devoted to selection, transport and shipment: clerks who must keep the accounts, storekeepers, and so forth. Then come the commanders, officers, engineers, besides crews, of the steamships. To conduct the service with efficiency not fewer than thirty vessels must compose the fleet. On the other side there will be employes who must receive and distribute through the territory the continual arrivals. There will be surveyors and civil engineers, architects and builders, farming superintendents and overseers, resident local commissioners, travelling inspectors, and a respectable battalion of clerks of various
- ↑ The prevision expressed in 1880 has become accomplished fact. "From Victoria, Vancouver's Island, we have reports that ships and steamers are constantly arriving with many Chinese on board. The immigrants are immediately forwarded to the main land of British Columbia, chiefly for railway work. Twenty-four thousand are expected by August, when the Chinese in the province will amount to thirty-two thousand, outnumbering the whites. Fears are expressed that the Province will be Mongolianized." (Times, May 11, 1882.) A (Renter's) telegram from Ottawa, dated March ii, 1883, announces, "a bill will be introduced this Session in the Dominion Parliament restricting Chinese immigration into British Columbia."
