THE TWO DOMINIONS

Evening Star, Issue 17766, 14 September 1921, Page 7

THE TWO DOMINIONS

’ CANADIAN VISITOR'S VIEWS. BRITAIN’S Flltef FOUNDATION. Visiting Wellington at present Is Mr L. M. Leo. a Canadian journalist, who is seeing New Zealand for the first lime. Mr Leo comes from Montreal, and is a graduate of the famous M'Gil! University of that city. Lately ho has been connected with the staff of the Vancouver ‘ World.' Mr Leo is rrcatly interested in New Zealand, and is making inquiries into its laud laws, system of education, defence, etc, Mr Leo stated to a 'Dominion' interviewer that lie had noticed what a fine class of immigrant was coming to New Zealand from England. Canada was getting them, too. but the door ihe.ro 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 ho in a position to show £SO ®r else claim close relationship with someone already settled in the country. There was a suggestion that Canada uhould follow the United Slates’ lead and make an allocation of immigrants for each country which was sending them ; but the notion was not persisted in, Canada 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 £11) to £l2 an acre, according to quality. Land could still be obtained by merely registering in British Columbia but in that ease people must he prepared to rough it m pioneering work. Tho Jam! varied" in duality, was in light hush, and well watered. It was being largely taken up for dairy farming, being in touch with the Grand Trunk Railway. That was the

“land of hope and glory” at present offering to pconlo with I bin purses and etout hearts. The glory of its future was un'Uicslioniiblc. Its winter was mild compared to that of tho interior of Canada; there was much less snow, and it was Habic to fall in only four months of the vear.

Vancouver had been hard hit a fe'.v vears ago, and mortgages were as thick us leaves in Vallombrosa ; but it was a city that was hound to rise again because of its superb natural advantages and the fine country that lay around and at the back of it. ’Of course. Vancouver was a Prohibition town. ‘‘You cannot get a drop,” said Mr Leo. “ unless yon pav 25 rents for a Government permit, which entitles you to purchase not more than four and a-half imperial quarts of whisky a, week, at a dollar and a-half a bottle. The Government permit office is a very busy place. The person who sells the ‘ hooch ’ must, however, be careful to send all purchasers off the premises, as a man wild allows anyone to become the worse for liquor on his premises may be fined up to 2.000 dollars. Some say that the Government permit system. which enables a superficially dry country to remain tolerably wet, is a means of enabling British Columbia to eain revenue from visitors from over the border. In the United States the, laws on liquor are fairiv extreme, and tho 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 be not only an exciting adventure, but a profitable speculation. On one holiday not so long ago it was reported that 3,000 .American cans had crossed into British Columbia and departed again in the best of spirits! And when (lie American fleet visited Vancouver —well. the boys in blue found the system 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, hut ho did not believe that Japan would ever go to extremes unless America forced her to, and that was not likely. Jan an had her hands full in moulding Korea and China to her wiii. 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 vaeoa. If that, ever did come, it would not be in our time.

'■ Give the British Empire fifty years of peace, and she will bo unconquerable,” saj,d Mr Leo. “ always providing that slw docs not kill herself by refusing to raise families/'