SCAMPER ROUND THE WORLD.

NZ Truth, Issue 129, 7 December 1907, Page 6

SCAMPER ROUND THE WORLD.

IN CANADA— HI. >BY ! J. KEIR HARDIE, M.P.-, Leader of the British Labor -Party. In the "Labor Leader" for October the 18th, which periodical is published simultaneously m Manchester and London, Mr K'eir Hardie continues, as follows, <his series of articles oft his tour of the world :— . In referring to the cost of living m my last, I omitted to quote some very interesting facts given by Professor Mayor m an article which he contributed to the Toronto. "Sun" m March of this year. His figures refer to Toronto, but an almost identical state of .affairs would be revealed m any of the Western cities were a similar investigation set afoqt. Talcing 1897 as a starting point, the Professor shows that the increase has been m the j STAPLE ARTICLES OF LIFE, and summarises t.~ ollows, using 100 as the index number for 1897, and showing the increase therein m 1906. Here is the summary; :— 1897.- 1907.' Food -~....v..w.......... 100 ' 128 Rent -.' 100 195 Fuel 100 124 Clothing ..........:.....:: 100 120 , The average mean for the 10 years \ shows an increase of 44. . Thus the head of a family who earned 100 : dollars a month m 1897 would req.uire to earn 144 dollars m 190G to be as well off. Needless to say, there has been no' such increase. Rent, it will be noticed, has almost doubled m the ten years. Further west it has TREBLED AND QUADRUPLED. Whatever minor causes have contributed to this result, the, great cause has been the insane way m which the Government has permitted gambling m land. Time ami again Tmet men who a few years ago were penniless, aiwl who now reckon their fortunes by the hundred thousand dollars. The modus operandi is quite simple. Say, a new township is abotft to be formed, whereupon the land harpies swoop clown upon the spot, and buy from the Government every available acre. The price paid may be from one to three dollars an acre. This they may either hold and sell out to settlers as these come along, or they may sell at a substantial profit to a second GANG OF SHARKS. Whatever the process, the end is the same ; the settler has 'got to pay' from 300 to 1500 dollars for a piece of land which was originally bought for as many cents. As the town grows the price keeps mounting. Money is freely spent m booming the place, and all sorts of more or less bogus inducements are held out to tempt unwary emigrants to come first there, and on to them* the land is unloaded with its financial burden. Then, having extorted the last farthing out of the place, the gang move on to repeat the operation elsewhere, and the real working settler is left" to meet the condition of things which the SHARKS HAVE CREATED, and to pay by their toil for the fortunes which the swindlers have carried off. In Edmonton, which twen-* ty-five years ago was bare prairie, land fronting the main streets now sells at 900 dollars per lineal foot. Nothing can excuse the culpability of a Government which encourages, or even permits, this prodigal squandering of the greatest of all national resources. Twenty years ago the Hudson Bay Company bought 120 square miles of land on Vancouver Island for £27 10s: To-day they are selling it at anything from 1500 dol- j lars an acre upwards. A man named Dunsmore was given 750,000 and ai grant of 1,750,000 acres of land to induce him to build a railway on the same island, and to-day he controls MOST OF ITS FORTUNES. But the classical instance of this kind- of thing is the Canadian Pacific Railway. The line was commenced m 1886, and as an inducement to the company to go on with their great undertaking the Government made" them a grant of 25,000,000 acres of land, free from all taxes so long as hold by the Company, and supplemented this by a gift of 20,000,000 dollars and a loan of 15,000,000 dollars, with certain guarantees over and above. The result of all this prodigality is seen m. the growing cost, of living: and the increasing struggle for existence m the big towns and cities. And the strange thing is that no political party makes the slightest reference to it, all parties apparently being too much mixed up WITH THE SCANDAL 1 to dare -mention. ; it. It should be the easiest thing m the world to make the owning of land dependent upon occupancy arid-use, and kill speculation by a tax which would make it unprofitable. It saddens one to see a great continent, teeming with natural, wealth, bled white by a horde of unscrupulous speculators. The Canadian farmer is doing well. No better testimony could be borne to this fact than . that since this cen.tury opened American farmers have been crossing over from the States and settling m Canada at an average rate of 40,000 a year. Farming I land is still to be had free, and now 1 that m addition to wheat, dairying, ! stock raising, and cattle breeding are becoming common, money is freely made. The farmers complain that ; THE MEAT TRUST • 'is cutting down their profits on live : stock, and are advocating the erection of public abattoirs and other reforms ; but, despite this, they are doing well. In the Province of Alberta the Government lias established a system of co-operative dairies. The farmer brings m his milk to these establishments, and the Government workmen turn it into butter and cheese, place it on the market- m British Columbia and elsewhere, and settle accounts with the farmers monthly. So successful has this experiment m practical Socialism been that thr Government is being pressed to open ham-curing and meat-packing establishments on the same lines, and a Commission is now at work considering; the suggestion. Thus even i m the great Far West, the leaven of I i Socialism is. at work,