THE TWO DOMINIONS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 298, 10 September 1921, Page 8

THE TWO DOMINIONS

VIEWS OF CANADIAN VISITOR IMMIGRATION AND LAND Visiting Wellington at present is Mr. L. M. Leo, a Canadian journalist, who is seeing Now Zealand for the first time. Mr. Leo comes from Montreal, and is a graduate of the famous M'Gill University of that city. Lately, he has been connected with the staff of tho Vancouver "World.” Mr. Leo is greatly interested in New Zealand, and is making inquiries into its land laws, syste'm of education, defence, etc. He is also a profound admirer of tho natural wonders of Rotorua. Mr. Leo said yesterday that he had noticed what a fine class of immigrant was coming to New Zealand from England. Canada was getting them, too, but the door there was not quite so wide open as it used to be, particularly to people from Eastern Europe. Immigrants arriving at Quebec, St. John or Halifax (according to the season) had either to bo in a position to show £5O or else claim close relationship with someone already settled in the country. There was a suggestion that Canada should follow the United States lead and make an allocation of immigrants tor each country which was sending them, but the notion was not persisted inCanada had been filling up pretty rapidly during the last ten years, and there was not so much Government land left within reasonable distance of a railway. Good land was still to 'be purchased at a price—from £lO to £l2 an acre according to quality. Land could still be obtained by merely registering in British Columbia, but in that case people must bo prepared to rough it in pioneering work. The land varied in quality, was in light bush, ana well watered. It was being largely taken up for- dairy f arm ; ing, being in touch with the Grand Trunk Railway. That was the “land of hope and'glory” at present offering to people with thin purees and stout hearts. The glory of its future was unquestionable. Its winter was mild compared to that of tho interior of Canada; there was much less snow, and it was only liable to fall in four months of the year. Vancouver had been aard hit a few years ago, add mortgages were as thick as leaves in Vallombross, but it was a city that was 'bound to rise again because of its superb natural advantages, and tho fine country that lay around and at the back of it. Of course Vancouver was a prohibition town. “You cannot get a duop,” said Mr. I ( eo, “'unless you pay 25 cents for a Government permit, which entitles you to purchase not more than 4| Imperial quarts of whisky a week, at a dollar and a half a bottle. , The Government Permit Office is a very busy T>i)eo. The person who sells the *X!;och’ must, be careful to send all purchasers off the premises, as a man .who allows anyone to become the worse for liquor on his promises may he fined up to 2000 dollars. Some say that tho Government permit system, which enables a superficially dry country to remain tolerably wet. ‘is a means of enabling British Columbia to gain revenue from from over the border. In the United States the laws on liquor are fairly extreme, and the price of the same is fairly high, so that to such people who are prepared to take a risk, a trip over the border may 'he, not only an oxgifing adventure, but a profitable speculation. On one holiday not so long ago it was reported that 3000 American cans had crossed into British Columbia and departed again in the best of spirits I And when thm 'American fleet visited Vancouver —well, the boys In blue found the svstem in vogue, quite to their liking. Quebec is still wet— the rest of Canada is bone dry.”

Mr. Leo said that there were some ugly phases of the Japanese-American question, but he did not believe that japan would ever go to extremes unless America forced her to, and that was not likely. Japan had her hands full in moulding Korea and China to her will, and until she had made their peoples of combatant value to her. she was not likely to force a trial of strength with America or’ other of the white races. If that ever did come, it would not be in our time. “Give the British Empire fifty years of peace, and she will be unconquerable,’’ said Mr. Leo, “always providing that she does not kill herself by refusing to raise families "