PEOPLE OF CANADA

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 11

PEOPLE OF CANADA

THE RACIAL CONTENT BRITISH. STOCK DECLINING (From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, August 26. ~ Recent statistics disclose facts disturbing to those who desire to see the British origin or content of the population of Canada maintained. British! stock is no longer the/ predominant J racial strain. It is-a 'safe prophecy that the next census' will' reveal that I French-Canadian and European stock will hold the balance of power. |

For five years past there has been no immigration to Canada from the Empire. The birth-rate. among the Anglo-Saxon elements of the Dominion's population has fallen 36 per cent, since 1923. Excluding' French-Cana-dians, it ranks twenty-seventh among, the nations. The French-Canadian birth-rate continues among the highest in the world. The paradox of the: British decline is enhanced by .the fact that the, average national age in Canada is 23.9 years—the ideal period for marriage and children. Immigration from the United States last year was as great as the total volume from British countries in the past five years. The birth-rate-in the jmost-British portion of Canada, British Columbia, is the lowest in the British Empire, and is one-third of the Oriental birth-rate in the Pacific province. - •

The problem has more than one angle disturbing to British minds. Even when immigration is revived,' it will be difficult to ' restore . the/ British balance of the population. European residents on the Prairie recruit settlers from their.native countries —guaranteeing them emploj'ment and a home —in greater numbers than do Britons in Canada. One cogent reason is the disinclination among young people in 'the Motherland to migrate' to' a Dominion where they will ( not receive the benefits of, unemployment '"'insurance that they 7now enjoy. Another : is that the economic" standard of the people of the United Kingdom is improving. , Canada has as yet done nothing to cope with ■• the evils of depression, as it i affects employment. One national attempt by Mr. Bennett was frustrated by' the refusal of the Provinces to co-operate, on the' ground that their rights were being ; evaded. The same obstacle lies in the path of Federal schemes for old age pensions and other Social Security plans. Meantime, French Canada forges •ahead. With one-third of the Dominion's population, maintaining its', traditional identity in language, civil 1 laws, religion, and politics—it- recently demanded and secured .the concessoti of the notes of the Bank of Canada being bi-lingual—it is a growing, challenge.to the Anglo-Saxon elements of the social amalgam of the senior Dominion..