and keep it so.

While the statement, that agriculture is the foundation of Canada's
life, is so often repeated that it has become a commonplace remark, is
it not extraordinary that none of its public men since Simcoe's day have
acted upon it? With the words on their lips, Canada rests upon the
farmer, it would be expected the welfare of the farmer would be their
solicitous concern. In the first element of agricultural prosperity, the
settlement of the land, they have kept back the progress of the country
by bestowing it, not on the men ready and anxious to cultivate it, but
upon individuals and companies who expect to make a profit by reselling
to the actual settler. By making the land a commodity to buy political
support, the settlement of the country has been kept back. The rule,
that the land be given only to those who will live upon it and crop it,
would have saved heartbreak to thousands of willing men who came to our
shores asking liberty to till its soil, and would have placed an
occupant on every lot fit to yield a living. The individuals and
companies who have been given grants of blocks of land under the
pretence that they would settle them, have been blights on the progress
of the country.

As to the danger of taxation increasing to a degree that will make the
working of the land unattractive to the intelligent and enterprising,
that menace comes from two classes--the projectors of public works who
agitate for them from self-interest, and from those who have raised a
clamor to encourage manufacturers by giving them bonuses in the form of
protective duties. Should a levy ever be made on the earnings of the
farmer to help a favored class, there will be a leaving of the land for
other countries and for better-paying occupations.

My desire is, to see Canada a land where every man who wishes may own a
part of God's footstool and, by industry, secure a decent living. Surely
it is a patriotic duty to make Canada a nation where toil and thrift
fetch the reward of independence, a nation without beggars or of men
willing to work and cannot get it, a nation of happy homes where there
is neither wealth nor luxury but enough of the world's means to ensure
comfort and to develop in its men and women what is best in human
nature.

CHAPTER X.

PARTING WITH OLD FRIENDS

My story of how I came to Canada and how the family which made me one of
their number got on in its backwoods has taken a long time to tell,