The Promised Land: Settling the West 1896-1914 Read Online Free
Author: Pierre Berton
changed the face of the prairie landscape. Improvements in binder twine accelerated the automation of farming.
Yet none of these technological and agricultural advances fully explains the rush to the Canadian West that took place during the Sifton period. Far more significant was the growing scarcity of free land – especially humid land – in the United States and indeed in Canada. Experiments in the techniques of dryland farming had already proven the efficiency of summer fallowing. But dry-farming methods had to await the end of the depression. Once Canada was seen to contain the last frost-free, sub-humid areas of the continent, it required only an educational program to bring in the farmers.
The Liberal government’s plan for Western Canada was simple and specific. The prairies were to be settled by practical farmers; nobody else was wanted from overseas. City people, clerks, shopkeepers, and artisans were not to be considered.
“We do not want anything but agricultural laborers and farmers or people who are coming for the purpose of engaging in agriculture, whether as farmers or farm laborers,” Sifton told his deputy. The Liberals, in short, had espoused John A. Macdonald’s National Policy and made it their own. The West would be a gigantic granary, tied to Central Canada by a ribbon of steel. The wheat would move east in ever-increasing quantities; the manufactured goods required by Western farmers would fill up the empty freight cars on the return journey. The concept of an industrialized West had no place in this scheme.
Sifton was convinced that certain races had the character to become farmers while others did not. “Northernness” was the key. The Scots, Scandinavians, Germans, and British would make excellent citizens. Even the northern English, in Sifton’s view, were preferable to the southern English; in fact, a higher bonus was paid to steamship agents for those who emigrated from northern England.
The northern Slavs were welcomed. Mediterranean people were not. Italians, especially southern Italians, and Jews were taboo. “I don’t want anything done to facilitate Italian immigration,” Sifton told his people. He feared the infusion of “undesirable persons.” When in May, 1898, the CPR hired a carload of Italians from New York to work on the construction of the Crow’s Nest Pass line, Sifton sent them all back. At one point the department had looked favourably on a plan to bring in a small number of Rumanian Jewish farmers. Laurier put a stop to it. “I do not favour this movement,” he told Sifton, who, in redrafting the department’s memo, declared that “experienceshows that the Jewish people do not become agriculturalists.” Given the anti-Semitism of the time, this attitude caused scarcely a raised eyebrow.
The Canadian policy was more pragmatic and certainly more cautious than that of the United States, which, in its idealism and self-confidence, had welcomed the masses of Europe to its shores, serene in the belief that once established in America they could not help but flourish. But Canada wanted only those who it believed would not become a burden on the public purse. The Americans saw their country as a haven for the downtrodden; at least that was the rhetoric, and the rhetoric was often as important as the reality. Canada didn’t really want the downtrodden unless they could contribute to the nation’s wealth. It could be argued that while most emigrants set off for the United States in search of something vaguely called the American Dream, the ones who came to Canada were escaping from something that might be called the European Nightmare. The Americans offered an ideal: liberty. The Canadians offered something more practical: free land.
Every immigrant who arrived in the North West was entitled to choose 160 acres of public land on the payment of a ten-dollar registration fee. He must be prepared to live on his land and do a stipulated amount of work on it for
Yet none of these technological and agricultural advances fully explains the rush to the Canadian West that took place during the Sifton period. Far more significant was the growing scarcity of free land – especially humid land – in the United States and indeed in Canada. Experiments in the techniques of dryland farming had already proven the efficiency of summer fallowing. But dry-farming methods had to await the end of the depression. Once Canada was seen to contain the last frost-free, sub-humid areas of the continent, it required only an educational program to bring in the farmers.
The Liberal government’s plan for Western Canada was simple and specific. The prairies were to be settled by practical farmers; nobody else was wanted from overseas. City people, clerks, shopkeepers, and artisans were not to be considered.
“We do not want anything but agricultural laborers and farmers or people who are coming for the purpose of engaging in agriculture, whether as farmers or farm laborers,” Sifton told his deputy. The Liberals, in short, had espoused John A. Macdonald’s National Policy and made it their own. The West would be a gigantic granary, tied to Central Canada by a ribbon of steel. The wheat would move east in ever-increasing quantities; the manufactured goods required by Western farmers would fill up the empty freight cars on the return journey. The concept of an industrialized West had no place in this scheme.
Sifton was convinced that certain races had the character to become farmers while others did not. “Northernness” was the key. The Scots, Scandinavians, Germans, and British would make excellent citizens. Even the northern English, in Sifton’s view, were preferable to the southern English; in fact, a higher bonus was paid to steamship agents for those who emigrated from northern England.
The northern Slavs were welcomed. Mediterranean people were not. Italians, especially southern Italians, and Jews were taboo. “I don’t want anything done to facilitate Italian immigration,” Sifton told his people. He feared the infusion of “undesirable persons.” When in May, 1898, the CPR hired a carload of Italians from New York to work on the construction of the Crow’s Nest Pass line, Sifton sent them all back. At one point the department had looked favourably on a plan to bring in a small number of Rumanian Jewish farmers. Laurier put a stop to it. “I do not favour this movement,” he told Sifton, who, in redrafting the department’s memo, declared that “experienceshows that the Jewish people do not become agriculturalists.” Given the anti-Semitism of the time, this attitude caused scarcely a raised eyebrow.
The Canadian policy was more pragmatic and certainly more cautious than that of the United States, which, in its idealism and self-confidence, had welcomed the masses of Europe to its shores, serene in the belief that once established in America they could not help but flourish. But Canada wanted only those who it believed would not become a burden on the public purse. The Americans saw their country as a haven for the downtrodden; at least that was the rhetoric, and the rhetoric was often as important as the reality. Canada didn’t really want the downtrodden unless they could contribute to the nation’s wealth. It could be argued that while most emigrants set off for the United States in search of something vaguely called the American Dream, the ones who came to Canada were escaping from something that might be called the European Nightmare. The Americans offered an ideal: liberty. The Canadians offered something more practical: free land.
Every immigrant who arrived in the North West was entitled to choose 160 acres of public land on the payment of a ten-dollar registration fee. He must be prepared to live on his land and do a stipulated amount of work on it for
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