The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎76r] (156/244)

1892 IMPRESSIONS OF NOR 641
continent. It reminds one very much of the fat soil of Lombardy
along the river Po. The charming little city of New Westminster is
-situated near the very centre of this favoured comer of the province,
and no one visiting British Columbia should think of leaving before
paying a visit to this city. The famous salmon-canneries of the
Eraser are to be found here, while numerous other forms of industrial
prosperity are contributing to make this ' royal city,' as it is called, a
rich and thriving community. To no part of the North-West would
English or Irish agricultural labourers, or Scotch crofters, be more
welcome than to this section of the province ; but there is, unfortu
nately, this drawback—that the Government has given away all its
best lands, which are held for speculative values by absentee and
other owners, and colonists would therefore have to pay stiff prices
(though ridiculously small in European eyes), as compared with the
cost of land in Manitoba or Assiniboia, for holdings in the favoured
region of New Westminster.
It is this state of things, more than any other cause, which still
leaves these naturally favoured countries of the North-West com
paratively unpopulated. All the best land has been given away
to railway companies, 'free, gratis, and for nothing,' or sold for
little or nothing to syndicates, companies, corporations, and indi
vidual speculators. These owners are mostly absentees, and are
doing absolutely nothing (railway companies excepted) towards the
development of a country over millions of acres of whose soil they
hold a monopoly. They are simply waiting for the advent of that
population which will give value to their possessions ; while the
Government, which desires to attract colonists, has parted with
those very lands which would offer the strongest inducement to
settlers to come. This is especially true of British Columbia, and
more is the pity, because, taken all round, in mildness of climate,
loveliness of scenery, richness of soil, and in the variety and abundance
of its mineral wealth, it is the most favoured of all the North-Western
countries, and is destined in my belief to become, in the near future,
an irresistible attraction to Americans, as well as to Europeans,
desiring a change of home location.
To propose the colonisation of the Canadian North-West by means
of one or two hundred thousand agricultural labourers from Great
Britain will seem a ' large order.' The opponents of emigration will
foe up in arms at once in opposition to any such suggestion. Para
doxical as it may appear, I am not, and never have been, an advocate
of emigration. My present proposal is made homoeopathically. It
would, if carried out, promote many interests which have not been
benefited by the process of emigration that has called forth the ob
jections of radical land reformers, and other labour advocates, who
■demand the full utilisation of the soil of Great Britain for labour
purposes before British workers are sent away to colonial or other