Winter and Summer Excursions in Canada. By C. L. Johnstone.
(Digby and Long.)—That part of the British public which is occu- pied with the everlasting problem, " What shall we do with our sons ?" ought to be greatly obliged to Mr. Johnstone. He tells the simple truth about Canada, and the simple truth is not easily to be got. Some people have no proper opportunities of discover- ing it,—the traveller, for instance, who , pays a summer visit ; others know it, but will not tell it, among these are not a few land-agents ; the Canadian Government cannot be wholly praised for candour and completeness in its statements. Of the land- agents, Mr. Johnstone has some amusing experiences to relate. One gentleman, seeing him to be a new arrival, offered him some land in the near neighbourhood of a projected railway. The railway has not got beyond the stage of project yet. Another threatened to dismiss the official who kept a record of the weather, because the temperature was not high enough to make a tempting item in
the Company's prospectus. Yet the poor man did his best. He put the thermometer where the flue ran up the wall, and put a wooden covering over it. Whatever may be the significance of the true facts about the Canadian climate, it is quite certain that these facts ought to be exactly stated ; and that the statement Should accompany all o dal prospectuses issued for the information and guidance of emigrants, Mr. Johnstone knows of cases in which men have suffered severely in health from the insufficient clothing with which, in their ignorance of the truth, English settlers have gone over. The writer of this notice has an experience of much the same kind. The estimate for an outfit which he received from an apparently competent adviser was quite insufficient ; had it been adhered to, the young men for whom it was intended muse have suffered greatly. The ambition of the Canadian Government is to obtain for the Dominion a population of Russian density, Such a population, it is pointed out, would be subject to alarming vicissitudes in the food supply. It is noteworthy that of the existing five million about three are of pure or mixed Indian descent. Mr. Johnetone tells us that intermarriage between white settlers and the Indian race is far more frequent than any one out of Canada knows. His book, it must be understood, is not meant to discourage emigration, but to put the matter on a right footing.
Previous page
