The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-03-08
COMING TO AMERICA.
TIDE OF 14161aRAr1oN FROM
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
London Newspapers View Of the
Reception Of Newcomers to
the States and
Canada.

tho oE1CeS ana
Canada.
The human Niagara flowing from all
lands into the United States is, il mere
volume be considered, the most re-
markable phenomenon of the sort
known to history, says the London Mail.
In 1904 sl2.S70 immigrants landed on
the shores Of the states, an average of
nearly 10000 every week, or more than
A000-the population of decent-sized
town-every day. But this flood of i'm
migration is of very mixed and doubt
full quality. 1t is made up largely of the
cheap races Of Europe; nearly one
fourth could neither read nor write; the
vast majority of them had only few
coins in their pockets. The bulk Of
these immigrants poured into the great
cities and settled down there as a sort
Of human sediment, under conditions
which recall the Ghetto of ancient
Rome. They congest the jails and the
insane asylums of the United States, or
they form separate colonies within the
boundary of the states, with social and
political ideals of their own, and refuse
to melt into the general population. In
his last report the commissioner of i'm
migration laments almost tearfully over
"the failure of the government to pro-
vide for the distribution of aliens
throughout the United States" and he
charges foreign powers with spending
large sums of money and employing
many agents in the business of keeping
their subjects together as separate
colonies on American soil and prevent
ing them melting into the common citi-
zenship of the United States. The I'M
stable element in the politics of the
United States is simply the dyspepsia
caused by the presence of so much I'M
digested, not to say undigestible, mate
rial in its population.
The immigration into Canada, as far
as volume is concerned, is only ripple
which may we'll become tide. Canada
is being advertised as though it were a
patent medicine. Its agencies are scat
tered all over Europe; they invade the
United States itself, and last year per-
suaded no fewer than $4,000 settlers to
give up the exhausted farm lands of
New England and of some of the west
ern states and betake themselves to
Manitoba.
Canada does not spoon-feed her immi-
grants. She does not buy them. The
average cost to the dominion is little
over Ell per head for each settler, and
this is mainly expended in advertising.
But If money is not wasted on the inn
migrants, nothing else is denied to them.
The government clothes itself, to an al
most amusing degree, with all the
functions of providence for the great
host of intending settlers crowding into
its ports. A great steamboat with 1,5OO
immigrants on board moors, for ex-
ample, alongside the port at Quebec.
The immigrants are marched in process
sion down long passage, and betwixt
narrow ratings they are checked,
classed and medically examined almost
without being conscious of the process.
Long trains with open doors are wait
ing along the platform, and in period
of time incredibly brief, the immigrants,
in family groups, are packed into the
train and moved off.
When the destination is at last
reached there are government agents,
with maps of the district and vehicles
in which to drive the intending settler
round to make his choice. At cost OF
time and money incredibly small the
immigrant is then planted on his home
stead block, or his quarter section of
purchased land and finds himself prac-
ticing the rudiments of farming; while
the government continues to watch
over him, supply him with paternal ada
vice and encouragement, and, if neces-
sary. seed corn-everything, indeed, ex-
cept cash.