THE LAND OF THE MAPLE LEAF.
The Land of the Maple Leaf. By B. Stewart. (G. Routledge and Sons. 6s.)—" Canada as I Saw it" is Mr. Stewart's second title. The book is not written, he informs us, to please the Immi- gration Department of the Dominion Government nor the trans- portation companies. He wants to tell people who think of trying their fortune in the great North-West what they will find. Ho discusses many questions for which it will be better to refer the reader to the book itself. Such discussions cannot be transferred whole to a review, nor can they be adequately epitomised. There is one chapter, however, which furnishes extracts that admit of being quoted without qualification. In this the quarrel between the manufacturers and the farmers of the Dominion is empha- sised. The rate on dutiable goods has risen from 211 per cent. in 1878 to 271 per cent. in 1904, and there is every prospect of its rising still more. The result is the depression of agriculture. The manufacturer of farming implements, his European rivals being excluded, gets a price for his goods that is twenty-five per cent. above their value. The woollen manufacturers, with high prices and inferior materials, get between forty and fifty. The result is a diminution of the rural population and an increase of the urban. The dwellers in the country, unable to get more for their produce than its market value, naturally press into the cities, where this artificial rise is secured by the Customs. This, surely, is a curious perversion of the "Back to the Land ! " cry.
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