That this is true I know from personal experience, since when, some
years ago, I was a Commissioner from the British Government and had
authority to formulate a scheme of Colonial land-settlement, the Prime
Minister of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, told me so himself in the
plainest language. Indeed, he did more, formally offering a huge block
of territory to be selected anywhere I might choose in the Dominion,
with the aid of its Officers, for the purposes of settlement by poor
folk and their children under the auspices of the Salvation Army.
Also, he added the promise of as much more land as might be required
in the future for the same purpose.[3]
Most unhappily, as I hold, that offer was not accepted by the British
Government. If this had been done, by now hundreds of English families
would have been transferred from conditions of want at home in the
English towns, into those of peace and plenty upon the land abroad.
Moreover, the recent rise in the value of Canadian land has been so
great that the scheme would not have cost the British taxpayer a
halfpenny, or so I most firmly believe.
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