igration from the States began; the trickle became a trek; the trek,
a stampede. In 1896 the immigrants from the United States to Canada had
been so few as not to be recorded; in 1897 there were 2000; in 1899,
12,000; in the fiscal year 1902-03, 50,000; and in 1912-13, 139,000.
The new immigrants proved to be the best of settlers; nearly all were
progressive farmers experienced in western methods and possessed of
capital. The countermovement from Canada to the United States never
wholly ceased, but it slackened and was much more than offset by this
northward rush. Nothing so helped to confirm Canadian confidence in
their own land and to make the outside world share this high estimate as
this unimpeachable evidence from over a million American newcomers who
found in Canada, between 1897 and 1914, greater opportunities than even
the United States could offer. The Ministry then carried its propaganda
to Great Britain. Newspapers, schools, exhibitions were used in ways
which startled the stolid Englishman into attention. Circumstances
played into the hands of the propagandists, who took advantage of the
flow of United States settlers into the West, the Klondike gold fields
rush, the presence of Laurier at the Jubilee festivities at London in
1897, Canada's share in the Boer War. British immigrants rose to 50,000
in 1903-04, to 120,000 in 1907-08, and to 150,000 in 1912-13. From 1897
to the outbreak of the war over 1,100,000 Britishers came to Canada.
Three out of four were English, the rest mainly Scotch; the Irish, who
once had come in tens of thousands and whose descendants still formed
the largest element in the English-speaking peoples of Canada, now
sent only one man for every twelve from England. The gates of Canadian
immigration, however, were not thrown open to all comers. The criminal,
the insane and feeble-minded, the diseased, and others likely to
become public charges, were barred altogether or allowed to remain
provisionally, subject to deportation within three years. Immigrants
sent out by British charitable societies were subjected, after 1908,
to rigid inspection before leaving England. No immigrant was admitted
without sufficient money in his purse to tide over the first few weeks,
unless he were going to farm work or responsible relatives. Asiatics
were restricted by special regulations. Steadily the bars were raised
higher.

Not all the 3,000,000 who came to Canada between 1897 and 1914 remained.
Many dri