EMIGRANT MINERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1929, Page 4

EMIGRANT MINERS

MAKING PRAIRIE LIFE LESS LOVE General Frank A. Sutton, who is even better known as “One-armed Sutton,” the war hero and one time military adviser to the Chinese War Lord. Chang Tso-lin, is in London in connection with a big . scheme for the British unemployed, and particularly the/miners, says the ‘Daily Chronicle.’ it is somewhat remarkable that a man whose feats in Gallipoli, Russia, and China have become almost legendary, should have now settled down to a mission of peace.

For the past two years he has been surveying the vast territory known as the Peace River district of Alberta and British Columbia, with a view to fully exploiting for the' Empire between twenty and thirty million acres of only pdrtially-developed wheat-grow-ing land. Efforts have been made to settle this part of Canada during the past'few years, but progress has been handicapped owing to lack of transport facilities, the rivers being little used for navigation and the railway only reaching Quesnel. Now, largely as the result of his efforts, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the National Canadian Railways are shortly to open up this country, with some 500 miles of new line, linking it by a short route with Vancou--ver.

According to General Sutton, the failure of most immigration schemes so far has been because men used to town life have been dumped miles out in the wilds to go crazy from sheer loneliness. ‘

His plan is to set up a chain of logcabin villages, with electric light, water supply, stores, clubs, and even cinemas, where, while leading a normal social life, miners would be taught farming by expert instructors. \ The scheme has just been submitted to the Alberta Government for preliminary approval. It is stated that it is along similar lines that Mr. J. H. Thomas hopes to develop immigration. “After a careful study of the land, and the difficulties to be overcome,” General Sutton told a ‘Daily Chronicle’ representative, “I am convinced that by this means any young miner who has not lost the will to work could make good. “Each village would comprise 100 log houses, each surrounded by four acres of land. The village itself would be surrounded by a square block of 16,000 acres, composed of 100 plots of 160 acres each, to be developed when the emigrants were trained. This again would be surrounded by a belt of some 15,000 acres for still further development. “During the first year the emigrants would be taught to build their own log huts, and to work the four acres adjoining each. During this period I suggest that food should be found for them, as well as a personal allowance of, say, a dollar (4s 2d) a day.

“In the second year they could start farming the 160-acres plots, which in no case would be more than about two miles from the village.

“For economic reasons it would be necessary to lay out these village blocks, next to each other along either side of the railway, so that each would have adequate transport facilities. Financially it is a proposition which would have to be organised jointly by the English and Canadian Governments, possibly by means of a chartered company. Every miner settled would cost about £5OO, which would be advanced as a first mortgage, to be paid back over a period of twenty to twenty-five years.” i