The Truth about Canada

I have been this last year engaged on railway work in Manitoba, miles away from big towns, and have seen something of what life farmers and others lead, besides leading a very rough life myself . . . Statistics are given showing the number of immigrants per annum, and as much “copy” as possible made out of it. But nothing is said of the hundreds who return to Europe, and I know as a fact that this is the case, and I know many more would do so if they had the money to pay their way. They are helped out to Canada, but then they have to make the best of it when once there, and they can, as a rule, only just manage to subsist. I have been inside many farm houses in Manitoba, and, as a rule, they contain nothing but the barest necessities, comforts being conspicuous by their absence.

Many people in Canada have expressed the opinion to me that immigration is being overdone. The country cannot absorb the thousands who enter, and owing to the very long and intensely severe winter, thousands are thrown out of employment during those months.

A CIVIL ENGINEER “John Bull.”