rants at first included
too many who had been assisted by charitable societies, and always they
flocked more to the towns than to the land. Yet these immigrants were
in the main the best of new citizens.

During the fifteen years of Liberal administration (1896-1911) the
total immigration to Canada exceeded two millions. Of this total about
thirty-eight per cent came from the British Isles, twenty-six from
Continental Europe, and thirty-four from the United States. This
increase was not all net. There was a constant ebb as well as flow,
many returning to their native land, whether to enjoy the fortune they
had gained or to lament that the golden pavements they had heard of
were nowhere to be seen. The exodus of native-born to the United
States did not wholly cease, though it fell off notably and was far
more than offset by the northward flow. After all deductions, the
population of Canada during this period grew from barely over five to
seven {227} and a quarter millions, showing a rate of increase for the
last decade (1901-11) unequalled elsewhere in the world.

Closely connected with the immigration campaign was the Government's
land policy. The old system of giving free homesteads to all comers
was continued, but with a simplified procedure, lower fees, and greater
privileges to the settler. No more land was tied up in railway grants,
and in 1908 the odd sections, previously reserved for railway grants
and sales, were opened to homesteaders. The pre-emption regulations
were revised for the semi-arid districts where a hundred and sixty
acres was too small a unit. Sales of farm lands to colonization
companies and of timber limits were continued, with occasional
excessive gains to speculators, which the Opposition vigorously
denounced. Yet the homesteader remained the chief figure in the
opening of the West. The entries, as we have seen, were eighteen
hundred in 1896. They were forty-four thousand in 1911. Areas of land
princely in their vastness were thus given away. Each year the
Dominion granted free land exceeding in area and in richness coveted
territories for whose possession European nations stood ready to set
the world at war. In 1908, for {228} example, a Wales was given away;
in 1909, five Prince Edward Islands; while in 1910 and 1911, what with
homesteads, pre-emptions, and veteran grants, a Belgium, a Holland, a
Luxemburg and a Montenegro passed from the state to the settler.[1]

After and