Paul Thompson THIS MOTHER AND CHILD HAVE COME THOUSANDS OF MILES, BUT THEY HAD TO WAIT TILL THEY ARRIVED BEFORE THEY KNEW WHETHER THEY WERE WELCOME OR NOT

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tioned abroad he witnessed thousands of Italians pass through the visé mill at Rome, Naples, and Palermo. It seemed that in the great majority of cases few of the applicants knew what it was all about.

As material for citizenship the bulk of it did not measure up. Cases were not uncommon at the American Embassy when naturalized Italians holding American passports came to Italy, voted in the Italian elections, thereby forfeiting their American citizenship, and unhesitatingly announced the fact to Embassy officials. American citizenship apparently meant nothing beyond a pleasant method of procuring a passport. Personal inquiry among twoscore Italians bound for America from Naples taking passage in the steerage elicited the information that probably only three had any intention of becoming citizens.

The visé office of the Department of State received thousands of applications for visés of Russians, Austrians, Poles, and other nationalities in Central Europe, to say nothing of thousands of Germans. In many cases agents from the Department of Justice investigated the references living in America named upon the application, but even then it was an impossibility to bar the very ones whose coming to America meant the greatest damage.

MMIGRATION problems date back to

the earliest history of the human race. The Old Testament abounds in accounts of migratory movements, not entirely free from the friction which is sometimes supposed to be a product of modern conditions. Cain was the first immigrant, and from his day to ours the migration of individuals from one country to another has been accompanied by problems for the sociologist and economist, as well as by occasion for misgivings upon the part of patriots of the Old World and the New.

Immigration in the earliest stages of the world's history had a way of being not infrequently associated with conquest. The immigrants came as a fighting force, and, if their arm prevailed, they took what they wanted and the original residents of the country were reduced to the status of a subject people. It was with the discovery of the New World and the tremendous opportunity which it afforded as an outlet for surplus population that immigration as we understand it to-day may be said to have had its beginning.

For a century or more the United States has been one of the chief magnets attracting immigration from rope and, to a lesser degree, from r countries. More recently Canada become an important source of

THEY WOULD BE

attraction. The movement Canadawards began in earnest about the first year of the present century, when, in round numbers, 50,000 people entered the Dominion. Ten years later-in 1910the total annual immigration had reached the figure of 208,794. It continued to increase until 1914, when a total of 384,878 immigrants were received, of whom 142,622 were British, 107,530 were from the United States, and 134,726 from all other countries. With the outbreak of war the movement from Great Britain almost entirely ceased, and the United States became the principal source of Canadian immigration until 1920, when the British totals again mounted into first place.

In their immigration problems, as otherwise, the two countries have much in common. Divided by a border-line which stretches across a continent, unmarked by a fort or a gun; speaking the same language; employing the same systems of currency, transportation, and business; actuated by the same ideals of liberty and the highest standard of

universal happiness, two such countries must be deeply interested in any influx of population which could to any perceptible degree affect the culture of either. In area and natural resources both countries are about the same, but as the density of population in the United States is twelve times as great as in Canada, the angles from which immigration is viewed, although similar, are not identical.

Canada's need of immigrants is perhaps a much more pressing one than that of the United States; but, while the Dominion stands with welcoming arms extended to the desirable type of settler, the policy of the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization is distinctly a policy of selection. Not only must the immigrant be morally and physically acceptable; he must be of a vocation or adaptability which reasonably assures him of success under Canadian conditions. In this connection it may be noted that the Canadian climate, healthful but vigorous, acts as an automatic deterrent toward weaklings,

either physically or spiritually, seeking admission. Climatically Canada is attractive only to the hardy northern races--mainly the British, French, and Scandinavian-and this fact itself greatly simplifies the Dominion's problems of selection.

Although a country of varied resources, Canada's fundamental industry is agriculture, and the type of immigrant most welcome is the farmerpreferably the farmer of experience and with some capital. The area of Canada is 3,729,655 square miles, and the arable lands are estimated at 300,000,000 acres, of which only one-sixth is as yet under cultivation. This land, much of which is of extreme fertility, is available to the settler either as free homesteads or as purchased farms at prices rarely ranging higher than thirty dollars an acre for virgin prairie. It has proved particularly attractive to farmers in the United States, who are accustomed to agriculture under similar conditions, and who in many cases are able to buy a section (640 acres) in Canada for the price realized from the sale of 80 or 100 acres in their old home locality in the United States, where the pressure of population has forced the price of land into high figures. The opportunity for the tenant-farmer and the farm laborer to become owners is of course such as is not found in countries of older settlement and consequently higher land prices.

The Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization therefore centralizes the positive side of its immigration efforts upon securing farmers and farm laborers, and upon filling the constant demand for household workers, which latter has become an important phase of the Department's work, with too many ramifications to be discussed at length in this article. Hostels for the care and direction of women household workers are provided in the principal centers, and a careful system of selection abroad and supervised transportation to Canada is in effect. Other classes of laborers are not sought abroad except on the advice of the Canadian Department of Labor when there is a shortage of workers in any particular trade, and all required labor is not available in Canada.

For the convenience of the intending immigrant the Canadian Government maintains twelve agencies in the United Kingdom and some eighteen information bureaus in the United States. Here the prospective settler can obtain full information and advice concerning the trip to Canada, the selection of land or obtaining employment, the conditions to be complied with, rates of wages, price of land, cost of living, social and economic conditions, etc. The function of these offices is primarily one of service; service perhaps quite as valuable to the country in which they are located as to the Dominion, as they tend to prevent the irritating incidents which so readily arise where citizens of one country seek to enter another without any

authoritative advice as to the conditions which must be complied with.

I have spoken of the positive side of Canadian immigration activities. There is also the negative side-the side which has to do with protecting Canada from the immigrant unsuited to Canadian conditions and protecting the would-be immigrant from a step which would ultimately prove to be a disappointment. By maintaining its agencies and information bureaus in the principal countries from which emigration takes place to Canada the Canadian Government leaves the intending immigrant without excuse if he attempts to enter Canada in ignorance or disregard of the regulations which have been laid down in that connection.

The Canadian Immigration Act prohibits the landing in Canada of the following:

(a) Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who may have been insane at any time previously.

(b) Persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with any contagious or infectious disease which may become dangerous to the public health.

(c) Immoral persons and persons who have committed any crime involving moral turpitude.

(d) Professional beggars or vagrants; persons afflicted with chronic alcoholism and persons likely to become a public charge.

(e) Anarchists; persons who disbelieve in or are opposed to organized government, including those who belong to organizations holding such views.

(/) Immigrants who are nationals of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, or Turkey.

(g) Persons who have been rejected at a Canadian port or who have been deported from Canada.

(h) Immigrants who do not go to

Canada from the country of their birth or citizenship by continuous journey and on through tickets purchased in their own country or prepaid in Canada.

(i) Immigrants over fifteen years of age who are unable to read. (Certain relatives are by law exempt.)

(j) Immigrants who are dumb, blind, or otherwise physically defective. (Under certain conditions, individuals of this class may be admitted, but only after special reference to a Canadian Government Emigration Agent.)

(k) Persons not included within any of the foregoing prohibited classes who upon examination by a medical officer are certified as being mentally or physically defective to such a degree as to affect their ability to earn a living.

Settlers do not pay a tax on entering Canada, but, as a rule, are required to be in possession of a certain amount of money at time of entry. The purpose of the money test is, first, to prevent a person entering Canada without sufficient funds to look after himself in case he is unable to

secure employment immediately, and, secondly, to protect Canada against an oversupply of any class of labor for which there may not be a demand.

Industrial and labor conditions (es

pecially for classes other than agriculturists and household workers) are subject to change, and any such change may be reflected in the amount of landing money which the immigrant is required to possess.

By the maintenance of its offices in the United Kingdom and the United States the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization is able, to a large degree, to eliminate the unsuitable immigrant at the source. Elimination at the source is, naturally, much to be preferred over rejection upon arrival at a Canadian port, which may involve hardship to the immigrant, unnecessary transportation outlays, and vexatious accumulations of official activities at the point of entry. So effective have the elimination proceedings in the United Kingdom become that in the last fiscal year, notwithstanding the high standard required by the Canadian immigration authorities, only 662 persons out of 68,342 immigrants seeking entry into Canada at ocean ports were rejected. The selective measures employed by Canadian immigration agents in the United States are less effective, owing to the obvious fact that there is nothing to prevent any immigrant disregarding the advice of the Canadian Immigration Bureau and seeking entry into Canada at any point on the border. During the year above referred to 19,745 persons seeking entry into Canada at United States border points were denied admission out of a total of 69,401. A comparison of these figures indicates the effectiveness of the elimination which can be applied where passengers have to seek ocean transportation as compared to the conditions where they may arrive at the border of the country by railway train, by automobile, by prairie schooner, or on foot.

Keystone