The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-12-23
Correspondence of The Journal.

correspondence OF Inc journal
Ottawa, Ont, Dee 19.-The voice of
the west sounds loud today in the Can
adian parliament. Western legislators
no longer hide themselves on the back
benches of the house of commons. They
sit we'll to the front, and see to it that
when they speak their words reach
every corner of the assembly.
One does not need to know the west
ern members to pick them out. There
is an aler tness about them, an air Of
unconventionalitv. an Impatient disre-
gard of the time-worn conventions of
parliament, that mar ks them at once
as representatives of the young and
vigorous west. Parliamentary whips do
not have to hunt them up when they are
wanted for aIvote. Tley came to o.
tawa not to loaf, but to transact the
country's business. Their snap and go
is already putting new life into the
house of commons. They are broad
/ enough to take an intelligent interest
while keenly alert to everything affect
! ing the welfare Of western Canada.
The old joke that the western tail
would before long wag the Canadian
dog is rapidly becoming true, and it is
well for the country that it is so. The
strenuous melting-pot Of the pioneer
west produces the finest type Of man,
1y sound. Into that melting-pot is
poured not only the youth and vigor
of eastern Canada, but the cream of
immi grafton from the western states,
Great Britain and northern Europe, and
out of it will come the type Of the new
Canadian, with the characteristics OF
these various races purified in the SPAR
king atmosphere Of the northwestern
Z prairies
''The Problem Of Quebec
One of the results hoped for by pa
triotic Canadians from this fusion of
races in the new west is that it will
solve the problem of Quebec. Until a
year or two ago it did not seem posi-
BILE that Canada could ever become a
homogeneous nation. The confedera-
ton of the old colonies had been mar
velously successful so far as English
speaking Canadians were concerned. 1t
/. wiped out the iealousies that formerly
separated the Nova Scotian from the
Unitarian, the Prince Edward islander
from the men Of Manitoba and British
a Columbia
:, But in the very heart of the country
almost entirely by men Of different
! race, different speech, different aspira
( lions and ways Of looking at things
4 And for years there seemed no pros
pect of assimilating this foreign ele
ment Of the population. In fact, i
looked for a time as if Canada nigh
Z eventually furnish the singular specta
Gle of an Anglo-Saxon population beins
swamped by an offshoot~ Of old France
Until "a few Years ago immigration
Y to Canada from Europe was negligibl
quantity, while all the time the peopl
#4o of Quebec were catching up to an
threatening eventually to outstrip thos
of the. English provinces. At a tim
! when political economists have been be
wailing in every land the alarming dc
Il crease in the birth rate, French-speak
4 ing Canada has been producing fam
II lilies of ten, fifteen, twenty and some
u times twenty-five children.
Is it any wonder that, starting wit
few score thousands at the time o
the cession of Canada to England, an
with no immigration from any source
Quebec has increased tofa million an
three-quarters Of people within Canad;
Il in addition to half million or MOI
that have emigrated to- the easter
(. states.
Hope in the West.
Whom the tide of Immigration turne
decidedly into western Canada, the fir