ad literally never done a stroke
in her life till she came to Canada, when in emergency of prairie fire,
or blizzard, or absent ranch hands, she has saddled her horse and
rounded to shelter herds of cattle and droves of ponies. She didn't
boast about it. She probably didn't mention it, and when winter came,
she would go off for her holiday to England or California. Having come
of blood that had proved itself fit in England, she proved the same
strain of blood in Canada; and to this class of English Canada gives
more than a welcome. She confers charter rights.

Lack of domestic help will long be the great drawback for English
people on the prairie. You may bring your help with you if you like.
If they are single, they will marry. If they are married, they will
take up land of their own and begin farming for themselves. It is this
which forces efficiency or exterminates--on the prairie. Let no woman
come to the prairie with dolce far niente dreams of opalescent peaks,
of fenceless fields and rides to a horizon that forever recedes, with a
wind that sings a jubilate of freedom. All these she will have; but
they are not ends in themselves; they are incidental. Days there will
be when the fat squaw who is doing the washing will put all the laundry
in soap suds, then roll down her sleeves and demand double pay before
she goes on. Prairie fires will come when men are absent, and women
must know how to set a back fire; and whether the ranch hands are near
or far, stock must never be allowed to drive before a blizzard. The
woman with iron in her blood will meet all fate's challenges halfway
and master every emergency. The kind that has a rabbit heart and sits
down to weep and wail should not essay adventures in the Canadian West.

IV

I said that England's colonies depended on the Mother Country for
protection from attack by land and sea. Of the vessels calling at
Canadian ports, three-fifths are British, one-fifth foreign, and
one-fifth Canadian. Whore England is the great sea carrier for Europe,
Canada has not wakened up to establish enough sea carriers for her own
needs.

Canada's exports to the whole British Empire are almost two hundred
millions a year.[2] Her aggregate trade with the British Empire has
increased three hundred per cent. since confederation, or from one
hundred and seven to three hundred and sixteen millions. With the
United States, her aggregate trade has increased from eighty-nine to