Daughters, as we have already said, can readily obtain employment either in private homes or in hotels at wages varying between $10 and $25 a month. Whether they go into service or remain at home and help upon the farm, they have every prospect of happiness. They are in great demand socially. One mother who had grown-up daughters, when asked whether her girls were seeing enough society, replied: "We had seventeen teams tethered to our front gates last Sunday.”

No feature of this scheme impresses us more favourably than the rude health, the happiness and the bright future prospects of the children. Many mothers, perhaps as many as twenty of those whom we interviewed, said that they and their husbands had not expected much for themselves, but had come for the children's sake to give them better chances in life. The life, especially in the summer, is a very happy one for young children. When not at school they can be constantly out of doors, and after the age of ten can help to some extent in haymaking, fruit picking, looking after the cattle and doing various "chores" (a Canadian phrase for odd jobs) on the farms. Some of the children can milk, and we saw one boy on Lulu Island, not yet twelve years' old, who did the milking on his father's farm and also on the farm of a relative across the way. "The children thrive on it," said one mother in Northern Alberta. "The children are in their glory," said a mother in British Columbia.

Some anxiety was felt, when the scheme was arranged, as to how British families would stand the Canadian winter. As we have already pointed out, only those families who went out in 1925 have had the experience of a whole winter in the Dominion. The winter of 1925-26 was an unusually severe one in the east, i.e., in Quebec, Old Ontario and the Maritime Provinces. A certain number of families in these Provinces, where the temperature does not fall so low as on the prairie, but the snowfall is heavy and the atmosphere less dry, admitted that they found the winter very trying. Others had not minded it at all, and thought it "fine." In western Canada, and especially on the prairie, the winter was an unusually light one, though the thermometer occasionally fell to over 30 degrees below zero. Few, if any, families in the west complained of the severity of the winter. Most of them had liked it, and in one or two cases we were informed that children who had been delicate, with a tendency to bronchitis or other similar troubles, had been far better in health than during previous winters in the Old Country.

"The winter was grand . . . . the children were out every day," said a mother of three children, near Prince Albert in Northern Saskatchewan. The lowest temperature in this district during the winter of 1925-26 was 35 degrees below zero. In an average or severe winter lower temperatures than this are recorded.

In no part of Canada do the children seem to have suffered much, either from the cold of the winter or the heat of the

.summer.

The fact must be faced that Canada, like all large continental countries in the Northern Hemisphere, has great extremes of temperature. The transition from winter to summer and summer to winter is rapid, and the summer temperatures are occasionally very high, though the heat-waves are far less severe than in the United States. We experienced a heat-wave during our stay in Ottawa (the temperature in our sleeping car in the siding at Ottawa Station was 86 degrees at 11 p.m. on the night of the 20th July), and mothers of several of the families whom we visited on the 21st July, the day of our departure from Ottawa, told us that they found the heat very trying. Very hot spells are usually broken by cooler intervals, and sunstroke is rare in that dry, clear atmosphere.

Failures.

We have stated that the percentage of complete failures is very small. We in no way wish to minimise the harm to British settlement which results from the failure of even one single family, but it is clearly impossible to give such detailed particulars of unsatisfactory or doubtful cases as we have given in regard to the satisfactory families, in Appendix I. Every effort was made to show us as many as possible of the difficult problem cases which have occurred, and though we only visited a little over 10 per cent. of the families who have gone out under the scheme we actually saw or were furnished with information regarding fully 50 per cent. of the difficult cases with which the Dominion Authorities are confronted.

We saw about six families whom we regarded as thoroughly unsatisfactory from the point of view of land settlement. We saw not more than twenty other cases whose success we regard as doubtful. Amongst the chief causes of failure or doubtful success are (a) some tendency to intemperance on the part of the husband-this occurred in four or five cases: (b) a lack of adaptability to farm life, usually on the part of the wife-this is the root of the trouble in about half-a-dozen cases: (c) domestic quarrels, also the source of trouble in about half-adozen cases. In one or two cases the father of the family, though more or less experienced, seemed older than his years and incapable either of hard manual labour or the business management of a farm. This was specially noticeable in one Scottish family and one family from Northern Ireland.

We quote particulars of a somewhat remarkable case. arrival at the headquarters of one of the districts we received a letter from a settler who had come out to Canada a few weeks previously, saying that he and his wife had failed to settle, had thrown up the farm, and had just come with their four

young children into the town through which we were passing. We went to interview this family, and in the course of the interview it transpired that the wife, who had been laid up with influenza on her arrival in Canada and had also suffered from a serious nerve shock a year or two previously, had refused to stay any longer on their farm after they had been there two or three weeks. She complained of the isolation, stating that their house was infested with mice, and perhaps rats, that there was no latrine, and that she could not stand the noise of the croaking of frogs. With regard to latrines, we have already expressed the view that the settlers themselves should erect them, as they can do in a few hours and at a trifling cost.

There was really no substantial complaint, the wife frankly admitting that she had found the loneliness greater than she expected, and was not prepared to stick it out. The husband intimated that but for his wife's insistence, he would still have been on the farm.

It transpired that they had friends in a distant town in Canada who would, it was thought, be willing to find him employment at his own trade, viz., tailoring. We accordingly decided that if enquiry showed that the friends in question were willing to receive this family, we would provide out of a small charitable fund at our disposal sufficient money to enable them to reach their friends. It was subsequently ascertained that the friends had agreed to receive the family and had had no difficulty in providing the husband with an opportunity for earning good wages at his own trade. The family was seen some weeks later, and was found happily and comfortably installed, the husband receiving wages of between $25 and $30 a week. A high Canadian official who visited the family at our request expressed himself as well satisfied with them, and described them as good citizens. This is one of the few cases in which a family settled under the scheme has exchanged farm work for town life. It is, of course, recognized that such cases will occur from time to time, and seeing that each family successfully settled on the land provides employment for a considerable number of town workers, there will, we feel confident, be no criticism in any quarter, provided that the proportion of families who abandon the scheme and enter the towns remains as small as it is at present.

Our presence in Canada was, we hope, of some service in facilitating a solution of this and several other difficult cases.

Qualifications for Success.

It is, we think, possible to indicate certain qualities and conditions which make for success. The right spirit, as we have already said, is all important, more important than experience,

to which undue weight may perhaps have been attached, and far more important than capital, though the possession of a reasonable amount of money is of very great value during the first year or two of settlement. The ideal family is probably the one in which the father is about forty-two-with fifteen or more years of hard work in him-the mother a few years younger, and two or three of the children of an age, say, from twelve to eighteen, at which they can either do a full day's work on the farm, or bring grist to the mill by working away from home. We saw a family of twelve in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, who went to Canada this spring from Sussex. Three of the girls are out in service and three of the boys at work on farms. All six are getting good wages, and it is hoped to discharge the liability for the farm ($3,500) in a very few years.

Major Barnett expressed to us the view, with which we are in entire agreement, that the most contented families are those who find themselves on arrival in Canada in a distinctly better position than they occupied in the Old Country. Those who have given up good appointments at home, and we saw several such families, may look back and wonder if they have benefited by the change. But those families who worked in this country for a weekly wage, lived in many cases in rented rooms with no permanent homes of their own, are naturally conscious of the improvement in their position when they find themselves in possession of a house and a considerable piece of land, of which they may hope with thrift and hard work to become in due course the absolute owners. The family which has been for any long period in receipt of unemployment benefit is regarded with disfavour in Canada. The family which has just succeeded, though perhaps with difficulty, in keeping itself in work, which has (to use an apt Canadian phrase) kept "half a jump ahead of the wolf" is the kind of family which the Department of Immigration considers to have the best chance of success.

We have spoken of the care and patience with which the Department handles the whole process of settlement. As an illustration, we quote one example of the handling of a very difficult and sad situation.

In April, 1925, a family consisting of father, mother and three sons, aged fifteen, eleven and four, went out under the scheme from Buckinghamshire. The father and the eldest son. were immediately placed in employment and a farm was allotted to the family. About a fortnight after the family's arrival, the father was admitted to hospital suffering from scarlet fever and pneumonia, and his illness ended fatally on the 27th April. A few days later, both the mother and her youngest son developed scarlet fever, were admitted to hospital, and were not discharged until the beginning of June.

The Land Settlement Branch determined to give the mother and her sons a chance of remaining under the scheme, the idea being that in a few years the eldest boy would have acquired sufficient knowledge to enable him to manage a farm. A position was therefore found for the mother where she was able to have her small boy with her, and her other two sons were found work upon farms in the vicinity. At the present time, the mother and her three sons are on the same farm. The mother is receiving $30 a month and the eldest boy $25 a month, the second being at school. There is every hope that this family will have the same opportunity of successful settlement as they would have had if the father had lived.

Settlers from the United Kingdom: Future Possibilities. We have pointed out that the Three Thousand Families Scheme has established the fact that families of the right type are available in the United Kingdom for settlement upon the land in Canada. We believe that with the co-operation of the Dominion and Provincial Governments the numbers of British families so settled annually can be very substantially increased. The best methods of promoting such settlement have long been engaging the consideration of the Dominion Authorities at Ottawa, and of most, if not all, the Provincial Governments.

It is not, however, generally appreciated that the number of suitable farms and the areas of suitable improved land immediately available and within reasonable access to railways and markets are limited. It is, indeed, doubtful whether the Dominion Government will be able next season fully to implement the Three Thousand Families Scheme and provide additional farms -some 1,600 in number-which are required to complete the settlement of the whole of the 3,000 families. Steps have, however, not yet been taken to purchase farms in the Maritime Provinces (the number so purchased may not exceed one-fifth of the total number of farms allotted to British families) as contemplated in the Agreement of 1924. It may seem surprising that in a country with such vast agricultural resources as Canada there should be any limit to the land available and suitable for British settlement. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Maritime Provinces, the southern part of the Province of Quebec, and the whole of Old Ontario are already closely settled, though it should be possible to purchase a sufficient number of farms for the settlement of a few thousand families in the Maritime Provinces. A limited number of farms will also be available in Quebec and Ontario. Between Eastern Canada and Winnipeg, north of Lakes Huron and Superior, lies an extensive region mainly composed of rock and forest. This region is known to contain rich minerals, but is not generally suitable for settlement. Throughout the prairie,