’Thank you. And you don’t think any
attempt to bring in white immigration would succeed?’
’Not if it didn’t suit Labour. You
can try it if you like, and see what happens.’
On that hint I made an experiment in another city.
There were three men of position, and importance,
and affluence, each keenly interested in the development
of their land, each asserting that what the land needed
was white immigrants. And we four talked for two
hours on the matter—up and down and in
circles. The one point on which those three men
were unanimous was, that whatever steps were taken
to bring people into British Columbia from England,
by private recruiting or otherwise, should be taken
secretly. Otherwise the business of the people
concerned in the scheme would suffer.
At which point I dropped the Great Question of Asiatic
Exclusion which is Agitating all our Community; and
I leave it to you, especially in Australia and the
Cape, to draw your own conclusions.
Externally, British Columbia appears to be the richest
and the loveliest section of the Continent. Over
and above her own resources she has a fair chance
to secure an immense Asiatic trade, which she urgently
desires. Her land, in many places over large areas,
is peculiarly fitted for the small former and fruit-grower,
who can send his truck to the cities. On every
hand I heard a demand for labour of all kinds.
At the same time, in no other part of the Continent
did I meet so many men who insistently decried the
value and possibilities of their country, or who dwelt
more fluently on the hardships and privations to be
endured by the white immigrant. I believe that
one or two gentlemen have gone to England to explain
the drawbacks viva voce. It is possible
that they incur a great responsibility in the present,
and even a terrible one for the future.
After Politics, let us return to the Prairie which
is the High Veldt, plus Hope, Activity, and Reward.
Winnipeg is the door to it—a great city
in a great plain, comparing herself, innocently enough,
to other cities of her acquaintance, but quite unlike
any other city.
When one meets, in her own house, a woman not seen
since girlhood she is all a stranger till some remembered
tone or gesture links up to the past, and one cries:
‘It is you after all.’ But,
indeed, the child has gone; the woman with her influences
has taken her place. I tried vainly to recover
the gawky, graceless city I had known, so unformed
and so insistent on her shy self. I even ventured
to remind a man of it. ’I remember,’
he said, smiling, ‘but we were young then.
This thing,’ indicating an immense perspective
of asphalted avenue that dipped under thirty railway
tracks, ’only came up in the last ten years—practically
the last five. We’ve had to enlarge all
those warehouses yonder by adding two or three stories
to ’em, and we’ve hardly begun to go ahead
yet. We’re just beginning.’
