THE FUTURE CANADIAN RACE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 87, 9 January 1923, Page 5

THE FUTURE CANADIAN RACE

A NOTE OF WARNING. It ia well, as I sought to show recently. With Canadia/ni childhood to-dayj but no student of ogr Imperial population, which is. ia the last analysis, our Imperial all, can be wholly content if l.e seeks to look a little further into the future (writes a medical correspondent of the "Observer” from Montreal). Upon the vast and generous surface of this Dominion, superabundantly provided with al) that mankind requires for life and health and happiness, a distinativu race, bo be called Canadian, is now in the earliest stages of its formation. If we endeavour to foresee its quality, are must not merely appraise tho environment which will in part fashion and determine it; we must also consider the intrinsic nature of tho stuff, tho geimplajsm, us Weismann taught us to call it, of which that race will bo made, and upon which that naturally perfect environment will work. And here we have to ask two questiems: I'irst, what kind of immigrants are now being, and are in the future likely to be, admitted into Canada; arid second, arhat are the qualitative and quantitative facts of tho birth-rate among those who constitute the Canadian population ctf to-day? The ansivers to these questions, as I . s>'e them, are very far from being so entirely satisfactory as the answers to all the necessary questions that may be asked concerning the environixrtnt. Canada to-day is empty; a population, of eight ermine millions is nothing in comparison with tho area and vital resources of the Dominion, and none know tins better than Canadians themselves. Population is greatly reeded, and one obvious source of it is immigration. On the negative side it is evident that persons diseased in body or mind should bo excluded and thus, before ono enters the country. o>»e signs a statement asserting one’s freedom from such disease, and the negro porter on the train from bew York signs a further statement to tho effect that the passenger in quosltion appears to him to be free from such disease. On the poeitivo side, most of those whose opinion determines action in Canada appear to believe that, by means of a suitable policy, such as our awn Colonial Office has lately furthered bv legislation, an unlimited number of the right kind of immigrant, desired to be of British stock, can be obtairiod, and thus the problem of population can be solved. Ido not believe that this view' is well founded. Uy Ml means let us in the name of Imperial Demography, applaud the efforts of the balvatioii Army and of Dr. Barnardos Homes, iin sending suitable emigrants from Britain to Canada but meanwhile wo must beware of supposing that any factor but onp can suffice to maintain a factor is worthy parenthood upon the soil which is to lie populated But tho qualitative facts of the bn th- ate are well-night a« unsatisfactory in Canada as in Britain. The race is not being chiefly recruited from the physically and mentally best decay of parenthood as tn older peoples, is threatened. Hot however, to French-spoaking and Roman Catholic Quebec, hut to English-speak-ing Canada does the eugenic warning apply that decay of parenthood is the mortal disease of nations.