THE SOUL OF CANADA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2988, 21 June 1911, Page 113

THE SOUL OF CANADA.

BOOMS AND SOCIAL RECKLESSNESS. DR Fll\ S IMPRh. iONS. (Fbom Ouk Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 28. The social conditions of the people of Canada was naturally one of the keenest interest to Dr Findlay during his recent passage through the Dominion. Like his chief, Sir Joseph Ward, he was amazed by the extraordinary expansion in material wealth which the Dominion has passed through within the last few years. Four times he has been in Canada; twice he has crossed it, once in early spring, and this time when the country still lay in the clutches of winter. His recent crossing of the continent was made under conditions which brought home to him forcibly the great advantages which New Zealand enjoyed in respect of climate over such a country as Canada. This impression was confirmed by each and all of the New Zealanders whom he met in the Dominion. The general feeling was that they would rather live in New Zealand on a certain income than in Canada on twice th© amount. In Vancouver Dr Findlay saw the remarkable spectacle of £OOO houses and shops all in course of erection at the same time. "The development seems prodigious," he said, " and yet I was sorry to observe that no very extensive provision was made in the new quarter of up-to-date town-plan-ring The population when I was there aft the end of 1902 was 40,000;. in less than nine years it has grown to l[io,ooo, and the increase for some time past has been at the rate" of over 2000 per month. This growth, of course, largely anticipates tho expected results from the completion of the r©w railway systems which are to junction or terminate at Vancouver.'' WEALTH BEFORE WELFARE. , " But while throughout Canada there is a great sense of progress, fortunes being' rapidly accmulated in all - directions, thera is less provision being made for the very pocir and the unfortunate than in any parb of Australia or New Zealand. They rathov despise—so some of their leaders say —a country which requires to nuiko provision in the shape of old-a.ge pensions, because, they declare, Canada enables every man' to make ample provision for his old ago with his own hands and his own industry, while this self-complacent declaration is confronted by men &weepin<r iho snow from the crossings in some of the bigger centres for such pittances as they can obtain from the charity of passers-by. " Much might be said upon this topic, but of one thing I am certain, that tho sense of social life and activity of the stocial conscience are much less than in New Zealand. In the present trend it can clearly be seen that in Canada, as in America, huge fortunes will be accumulated; at one end of the social scale while—particularly in the enormous and rapidly-grow-ing : oentres —poverty and saualor and degradation will be found at the other. On© need only point at what stares one in the face in every large city in America to prove that this will be the ultimate result unless those social agencies for which the Oanalian people just now Appear to have little time, are placed in some shape upon their statute books." i