TH HE commencement of our second vol. | among our contributors of members of both ume will be taken, we trust, as a proof that the Canadian Monthly is not destined to share the fate of those short-lived predecessors, the recollection of whose brief existence has been one of the chief obstacles to the progress of the present enterprise. Without exaggerating our success, we may say that the position already attained by the Magazine, is such as fully to warrant our perseverance in the undertaking. The expense is heavy, but the circulation is large, and its tendency has been steadily upwards. Let Canadians be a little kind and helpful to the effort to establish a worthy organ of Canadian intellect, and we shall look forward with confidence to the result. Contributions which were obtained with difficulty at first, and while the character of the Magazine was unknown, now flow freely in. Their number obliges us to decline many, to the authors of which our best thanks are not the less due for their proffered aid. the political parties. It shows that our profession of neutrality is felt to be sincere, and that the Magazine is regarded as a suitable place for the impartial discussion of questions relating to the broad interests of our common country. earnest endeavour. We can truly say that those who guide it are entirely free from party connections and party bias, and that whether their cause be right or wrong, it can be dictated by no motive but regard for the common good. The national need of an organ devoted not to a party but to Canada is apparent already, and is likely to become more apparent still. To keep it so will be our We continue to welcome contributions, especially such as are either amusing or practically interesting. Essays of a more general kind are not unacceptable, but we can afford them only a limited space. We prefer short tales to serials, but we welcome every description of fiction, from the domestic novel to the fairy tale. Humour in any form is as acceptable as it is rare. We note with pleasure the appearance Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1872, by Adam, Stevenson & Co., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. TH THE IMMIGRANT IN CANADA.* BY THOMAS. WHITE, JR. while it is not so easy to procure the publication of letters written in a spirit of congratulation at the fact of the writer having emigrated, of contentment with the present, and of hope for the future. The disconsolate letters are almost always written within a few days or at most a few weeks of the arrival of the emigrant. The tedium of the ocean. voyage; the intense heart-longing for the old HERE is an unofficial agency constantly at work in promoting or retarding immagration, which it would be very unwise to overlook in any general scheme for the promotion of this great national interest, and which should prompt us to remember that the work is scarcely half done, when we have provided the most ample and complete system of information bureaux in the countries whence immigrants may be expected. | faces, lost apparently for ever, and for the This unofficial agency is in the hands of old haunts now memories of the past; the immigrants themselves, and is not the less landing at the miserable quay at Point Levi, effective because it works silently and se- as forbidding a spot as ever a poor stranger cretly. The letter from the friend in Ame- faced in a strange land; the tedious and rica is conned not only in the old home- novel ride by rail, in cars not always as comstead, by the English fireside, but it passes fortable as they should be, to the western from hand to hand until all the village has destination; the strangeness and newness of read it; and it becomes the leading subject everything; the delay in obtaining employof conversation at the social gatherings for ment, and the fact that it was perhaps not weeks after its arrival. Against its state- that which had been expected; the first full ments those of official pamphlets or official realization of the truth that the new world lecturers can make small headway; and un- like the old is, after all, but a work-a-day fortunately the natural tendency to exagge- world, subject, like other places, to the curse ration on the part of such agents, makes it all -was it not rather a blessing?—which fell the more difficult on their part to combat the upon our first parents, "in the sweat of thy assertions of actual experience on the part of face shalt thou eat bread;" and the revulthe immigrant himself. During the last sion of feeling when the castles in the air three years the British weekly press has con- which he had been building vanished into tained many letters from emigrant settlers in dim distance-all these prompted him to Canada. They have influenced to a con- write home to warn his friends against facsiderable extent the direction of emigration; ing the disappointments which had come and unfortunately, as it is more easy to ap- upon him. It is these letters, written under peal to the fears than to the hopes of people, such impulses, that are the most difficult the letters which breathed a spirit of disap- stumbling-blocks in the way of a conscienpointment were invariably the most influen- tious agent. And one of the problems to be tial. I have known such letters, or extracts solved is, how they can be rendered less frefrom them, cut out by agents interested in quent, and less justifiable. emigration to the United States, and sent to the provincial press throughout the kingdom. They are always, or almost always, inserted; * The solution of this problem must be found on this, not on the other side of the Atlantic. The very complaints contained in those See article on " Immigration" in the No. for March, page 193, vol. 1. letters, silent emissaries of mischief to the cause of immigration, suggests the method of that solution. It consists in a kindly provision for the reception of the emigrant on his arrival in the country, and such a system of labour registration as would enable the agents of the Government not to lose sight of him until he was in actual employment of some kind. Since the former article was written, the Government of Ontario have asked the Legislature for a larger appropriation for the promotion of immigration than has ever been voted before by any Legislature in Canada; and have foreshadowed the policy which they propose to adopt in the expenditure of this liberal appropriation. It would be unfair to criticise this policy for two reasons: first because it is put forward avowedly as an experiment, and as such it should be accepted; and second because the short time which the administration has been in office, and the circumstances under which they accepted it, during the session, justified their asking to be entrusted with the expenditure of this money as the experience and information of the season may seem to them best. It is to be feared, however, that they have not sufficiently considered the influence of this unofficial agency in the policy which they have foreshadowed. A liberal expenditure upon agencies at leading centres within the Province, and upon a system of internal transit for emigrants, would secure to the cause of emigration to Ontario the active co-operation of the emigrants settling in it. That co-operation is worth more, far more, than any system of agency in Great Britain, in view of the fact that already the agencies abroad have been amply, and on the whole ably, filled by the Dominion Government. It is worth more than any result that will flow from a system of subsidized immigration; and it can be secured at very much less cost. Such centres of population as Brockville, Belleville, Peterborough, Guelph and London, whence emigrants could be distributed to the surrounding districts, should be supplied with agents; the same policy being pursued in each of the other Provinces. These local agents should be charged with the duty of obtaining full information as to the labour wants of their respective districts, thus enabling them to do the double good of securing employment. for the immigrant and labour for the employer. They should be in constant communication with the Dominion agencies at the larger centres, so that on the arrival of immigrants these latter would know where to send them; and in this way they would be made to feel that they were at least welcome, and that the government and people were doing their best to tide over for them the first days of terrible lonesomeness and helplessness. In order that this plan may be carried out successfully, that the unofficial agent may be prompted to work for, instead of against, emigration to the Dominion, it is essential that there should, as far as possible, be public works in progress at all times. It is true that the ordinary system of labour registration will always do much towards securing employment to the newly arrived emigrant, and under all circumstances it is of the very first importance that it should be kept up as an active and constant agency. Its importance is admirably illustrated in a pamphlet just issued by Mr. F. P. Mackelcan, of Montreal. He points out, what is at once a patent and a painful fact to all who feel an interest in the prosperity of Canada, that while fields have remained uncultivated and workshops partially idle for want of labour, emigrants who could have tilled the fields and laboured in the workshops, have passed through the country into a foreign land under the impression that there was no employment for them here. "The chief subject of anxiety that presses upon the new comers," the writer of this pam phlet points out, "is that of their own prospects. All however, that they can discern is an Immigration agent, and Immigration Societies, ready to plant them on wild land, or amongst the farmers; and minor places of information and aid, that are themselves institutions of benevolence or even of char ity. This, to the new population flowing in, is a cause of deep, if not lasting, anxiety.— They have heard that they were wanted, that there was room for them, nay more, that prosperity awaited them, but the exact opening for the individual, who is all the world to himself, is not so easily seen." And then he proceeds to draw a picture, the correctness of which every one will at once recognize" Now the truth is, all the while, that employers exist here in abundance, farmers are restrained from cultivating the lands they possess for want of able and willing hands, and in almost all departments of industry commonly found in cities there is room for more, and many manufactures would spring up and flourish if the qualified skill could be found. The two great classes, the employer and the worker, the two great elements, capital and labour, are side by side, but they so exist as masses and in that state cannot combine; there is a process required of dividing and sorting and distributing; the ironfounder who needs moulders cannot in their place receive dry-goods clerks or printers, nor can the proprieter of a newspaper, who requires compositors, accept a ploughman or a shepherd, nor the farmer thrive with the aid of working jewellers and cotton spinners. Political economists write about supply and demand adjusting each other mutually, as though such things were fluid, and by some law of nature flowed together and became level. This doctrine will only be realised as a truth when the supply and demand become cognizant of each other, not in mass but in minute detal, for thus and thus only do they ever flow together and neutralize and satisfy each other; and to accomplish this great result is Although this is absolutely true, the pro- saw the Great Western and the Grand Trunk ted Kingdom. It averaged over three hun dred thousand annually; but Canada receiv- .......... Wellington, Grey & Bruce-Harris- Kingston and Pembroke... Pembroke..... 532 107,000 labour wants of the country, so as to coun- dred and seventy-two thousand, the per- These considerations afford substantial encouragement for the prosecution of a vigorous policy for the promotion of immigration in the future. Active as have been the last four years, those in the immediate future promise to be still more active. With the railways in course of construction which are now projected, there need be no hesitation about inviting any number of hardy workers from the old world. The extent of mere local enterprise of this kind is apparent from the grants made during the session of the Ontario Legislature just closed. Here they are: Toronto & Nipissing-Uxbridge to 32 64,000 .151 400, 550 45 119,250 47 94,000 68 136,000 46,000 12 ......... 48,000 Belleville and ville and Harriston. . . . All these railways are assisted by large local subsidies, and for the first time in the history of railway enterprises in Canada by large subscriptions to their share capital from private individuals. This latter fact is important as showing on the part of merchants and private capitalists an increased confidence in the permanent prosperity of the country. Nor is railway enterprise by any means confined to the Province of Ontario. In New Brunswick a private company, subsidized by a liberal land grant from the Governments of that Province and of Quebec, has undertaken the construction of a railway from Rivière du Loup to St. John. In Quebec, the North Shore Railway, between Quebec and Montreal has just been placed under contract, and work will, it is authoritatively stated, be commenced during the present season. The Northern Colonization Railway from Montreal to Ottawa, there connecting with the Canada Central, which has recently received a decided impulse by the accession of Sir Hugh Allan as its President, will also be commenced this year. While in the eastern townships of the Province, a perfect net-work of railways are 33% $67,000 projected, with such influential backing as 12/2 to justify the belief that they will be prosecuted without delay. These are all private 132,000 projects, the result of individual and muni |