ASUDDEN squall on Saskatchewan River drove our canoe in on the north shore for shelter at what looked like a half-breed's ranch-house. For fifty miles above there had not been a sign of life or settlement. For twenty-five miles below, we afterward found, there was not a neighbor. The nearest railroad must have been at least forty-five miles away. As we scrambled up the muddy river banks and crossed the barnard toward a mud-wattled log house, with staring blindless windows on each side the central door, we were perfectly confident this was the domicile of some Indian or halfbreed rancher come so far afield to have free pasturage. The yowl of mongrel dogs that greeted us strengthened this expectation; but when the door opened, there stood no warthy native! At this very Back of Beyond, under as adverse circumstances as you can imagine for a tenderfoot, the door opened on a typical English factory hand. I might

almost say, on a type of generations of factory workers, warped in body, dwarfed of brawn and brain, with the spindly limbs and bulging forehead that come from only one thing,-years of emaciation, of under-pay, and poor food, and, sometimes, no food at all.

Inside the house was one single big room, down the center of which ran a home-made table covered with the cluttered food and dishes of a week's bachelordom piled up for Sunday cleaning. There was a stove and there were a few chairs. Of beds, none was visible; only a pile of rugs to be used on the floor for the night.

The boy who opened the door was one of half a dozen brothers who came out from England four years ago, when the great agitation of the unemployed first began to be so serious in all parts of the British Isles. They had come so far afield in order that they might homestead adjoining quarter-sections and might all live in one house. When they

4

A SETTLER'S HOUSE AT TISDALE.

They are people desperate for work, though £16,000,000 is annually spent in Great Britain to relieve distress.

That was four years ago. To-day the distress is manifoldly worse. It is utterly beyond the tinkering methods of individual charities. There are to-day seven million people in Great Britain in actual want from lack of work. The thing is appalling. The mind cannot grasp it.

THE SALVATION ARMY COLONIZATION WORK. There, then, are the two pictures, the poor in the old land and the poor in the new land. Comment is unnecessary! Since 1906, when the unemployed assumed such tragic importance in England, the Salvation Army has brought to Canada more than 50,000 people; at last enumeration, close on 55,000 people. There is room for 50,000,000. Look at the figures and take in what they mean. dealing with facts. Of those 50,000 Salvation Army colonists less than 1 per cent. has failed to make good! Is there a single other class of immigrants of whom as much may be said?

I am

could be transferred to him where there a no soup kitchens. He would not then li and perpetuate his species. This may sour brutal, but when you have struggled to rai such people only to prove they cannot raised with a derrick and do not want to raised, there does not seem to be any val reason why they should be allowed to pr on the public. "Only the grace of God ca do anything with those old country peop who have been pauperized by years of vi and free charity," said Margaret Scott, Winnipeg, who may best be described as th Jane Addams of the Northwest. Where I records are on file with the army, speci officers are detailed to look up the man's the family's past. Men and women wit black marks against their past are not ser as colonists. If the applicant has a litt money, then the army colonization depar ment will advise, report on land, investiga every offer of land or work, and protect th tenderfoot from sharks moral and financia Passage is booked on ship for the emigran or the emigrant goes on the army's ow chartered ships. Special trains are reserve Breakfas from London to Liverpool. awaits the emigrant there. Army officer accompany the ship. Meals are ready o Officers a the Canadian side of the ocean. company the army trains westward and con duct the newcomers to their new hom whether on land or in lumber woods; an the last words are: Expect hard work. No rosey-hued pictures of easy success ar used to lure the colonist. Here is the car which General Booth presents to each em grant on the army's chartered ships.

"

God carry you safely to your new hom Fearlessly calculate upon hard work. Bravel meet difficulties. Do your duty by your fam lies. Help your comrades. Make Canada home that will be a credit to the old land. Pu God first. Stand by the army. Save your soul. Meet me in Heaven!

If the applicant has a family or depen dents, then either the applicant or the arm must guarantee the support of the depen dents during the colonist's absence and prep aration of the new home. Special care i taken of all young girls emigrating unde the auspices of the army. The army dis courages the settling of Salvation colonist in solid groups as likely to prevent th growth of independence and the nationaliz ing of the newcomer; but every army colon ist is kept in touch with his officers. It i impossible to exaggerate the need and wis

dom of this. Harrowing

ses are continually coming to light in Canada of rft and friendless colonists brought out by chartable organizations, who take no more care of their wards after bringing them to port. What the dan

is to a young and endless girl need not be ld here, and, unfortunately, Canada's laws are Jack to the point of bararity in just this respect. If the applicant to the army is absolutely without money, but otherwise blameless and worthy, then one of two courses followed: The Unemployed Workmen's act authorizes municipal authorities to aid the unemployed in emigrating. If this cannot be done, owing to short term of residence in a county, then the army advances a loan for passage and expenses till the colonist becomes established. When I said that less than 1 per cent. of the 50,000 had failed to make good, I meant that less than 1 per cent. had failed to return the loan. One cannot but wonder if half the £16,000,000 annually spent to relieve the distress of poverty in England were applied to such systematized colonization whether there would be any unemployed question at the end of five years; for if there is one thing more than another that modern investigation has proved it is that while charity may be cheaper than justice, the necessity for charity is in the long run the most wasteful extravagance any nation can have.

A COLONIST'S EXPLANATION. "Why," I asked the youngest of the family of boys on the Upper River, "why do so many Englishmen fail in Canada?

The free soup kitchens in the old country spoil them," he answered. "The free soup kitchens and the labor union hours. A fellow can't succeed in a new country on labor union hours. He has got to work harder when he's his own boss, work till his job is finished, and he has to finish quick in these short seasons or he will be out of hay and lose his stock, or he won't get enough potatoes in in spring to save buying food in winter. You see," he repeated, "it's the

free soup kitchens. They get a man in the way of not depending on himself. Then, when he has work, he spends his wages foolishly, in the grog-shop, and doesn't look ahead. When he comes out here there are not any soup kitchens; and if he does not look out for himself he can't get on. He drifts away from the land to town, where there's help; and then he goes back to England and curses the country."

"Perhaps lonely," I suggested. "Lonely! There's no time to be lonely out here.

Warped of body this young fellow was from long emaciation in his past somewhere; but warped of body he will not be in the next generation. The whole mental tone of the resentful whining typical out-of-work had already changed to sturdy, alert, hardworking independence. Farther down the river we came on another colonist, not a Salvationist, but one of the English Church movement. She, too, showed the same signs of an emaciated ancestry; but the next generation of her is no pauper type. Such rubber-ball bits of bouncing health-glow as her children you could seldom see. Ten years have worked the transformation.

Thousands of examples could be given of Salvation Army colonists making good in Canada, but nearly all may be epitomized thus: "Family found in London absolutely destitute in 1906 or thereabouts; now on land worth from $800 to $3000; debt to the army all paid or being paid; children in sit