TOO MANY FOREIGNERS

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19400, 28 August 1928, Page 13

TOO MANY FOREIGNERS

CANADIAN IMMIGRATION PROBLEM. BISHOP'S STARTLING VIEWS: (IIIOM OTO OWN COBBBSPONDEKT.) VANCOUVER, July 23. The Right Rev. George Exton'Lioyd, Bishop of Saskatchewan, one of the. shrewdest students of Canadian immigration difficulties, has just added his quota of views on the subject which has been uppermost in politics of the Dominion for the last few years. . "In studying carefully the evidence given before the Immigration Investigation Committee at-Ottawa, writes his lordship, "I find all sorts of reasons given in explanation of the small stream of Old. Country British compared to the Continentals. borne of these reasons have very little substance in them.' There is one very real reason, however, which is hitting us in the West both ways. (1) The fact that Canada willingly admits a Continental stream many times larger than the Old Country British, has the effect of still further diminishing that stream. Old Countrymen see these crowds of Continentals- and they hear all about it in the newspapers and they say, If that is what Canada welcomes, well let them have, we do not want to be mixed up * with a crowd like that. 5 The impression is very general all.over the British Isles that our three j Western provinces are lieing filled up. ! with .Continentals. That is why Brijtish Columbia and Ontana can get [more Old Country British stock than we get in the West. I "(2> A similar effect is being produced here. In- place after place where iwe had a nice little congregation of English-speaking people, chiefly OW i Countrymen, they have disappeared to such an extent that we have had to close up our congregations. Where once these Continentals get.a.fopthold,, they spread and drive out the English-speak-ing 7 people. These have to sell" out at | 'foreigner' prices and either go across the line to the.United States or go to the cities and towns where they can find work" amongst the English-speak-ing people] I venture to assert that fifty per cent, of Old Country settlers and other English-speaking people who soil out and go to the cities and towns do. so, not.because of the glare of the electric light and movies, but because of uncongenial neighbours and foreignised schools for their children. This aspect of the foreignisation of the West is a very serious one and has been hardly commented on in the evidence before the Investigation Committee, arid yet it is one of the worst results of the 'railway agreement. • "I would again urge that the Dominion Government should cancel that agreement forthwith.