Daily British Whig (1850), 26 May 1919, p. 9

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

"CANADA REVISITED Aften Ton Years' Absence F. A, McKenzie, War Correspondent, Tours Canada and Tells What He Sees and Hears | ARTICLE NO, 2. By F. A. McKenzie. (Written especially for the Whig.) In 'the days when Saskatoon was a little more than @ 'colleotion of shacks, a farmer came in wilh a cow for sale. He sold it at unexpectedly high price, Someone offered him a bit of land. With the money from the sale of the cow he Vought the land, and opened a hotel on it, the hotel at first being 'a rough wooden shack, + Population as pouring in. Soon he found him- self richer than he had ever been be- "Tore. The hotel grew. He borrewed --the banks were forcing money on men in those days--and built a big . brick hotel with a theatre attached. He bad a mortgage of a hundred thousand . dollars, but that seemed nothing. 'He was offered six hundred thousand dollars for his property and refused it.- He was coining money and expected soon to be in the mil Honaire class, Strangers would have the - hotel keeper pointed out to them as proof of what men. could do in 'the West. But the tale did not end there; de boom, collapsed. The bank demand-4 ed its mortgage money. The 'hotel keeper could net raise even a hun- dred thonsand dollars mow, so the bank foreclosed, and the man ended up minus even his cow, This is a typical tale of the wrong kind of opportunity that the West af- fords. Hastily won, féverishly grasp4 ed wealth is about as enduring in the West as it f"at Monte Camnlo, The real prospevity of the new West is not of that kind. It is based on solid quiet home building, with little that is spectacular about it. | it has meant for hundreds of thou®ands of people, prosperity in place of pov- erty, ¥ Let me guote some cases known to me: ¢ gor: Dick and I went to school togather, I watched his rise 'in life in London, his rapid professional success and his «brilliant marriage, There was a spe- . cial train for the guests, and one of the most famous bishops pers / visited dim in his home, a delightful house and a clever and winsome wifs. The bea Mul furnishings, the pice turesque grounds, the daintiness of it all gave the place a very special charm. The wife was a typical young Englishwoman of the more brosperous class, 'whose life 'centred around her friends and her home, her social circle, her entertainments, her charities, and after g time her baby daughter, I was away in Asia when ¥ord came to me that Dick had broke down in health and had been sent to Switzerland to recover. Consump- tion of the lungs. Months passed, and he returned to London only to break down again. Then he and his young wife went West and started on the foothills of the Rockies to make a new 'home where life might be possible for him. Years passed I learned fsom friends that Dick was still alive and was making a suctess in his old pro- fession in the new land. People from the foothills whom I met in Europe were loud in 'his praises and still | louder in the praises of his wife. I Listened, slighly -purprised. For, to be frank, Dick with Bis purely Lon- don training, this Oxford aceent and his rather precise form of speech, was not the man I should have pick- ed as most likely to succeed in the West. In the course of my Journey this winter, I reached Dick's city. Soon after my arrival, there was a 'phone message that Dick was coming for me. His home was five miles out, and IT was to go there. 1 found my old friend much the same as ever. But he was driving his own car, and there Was a crisp coficiseness in his speech, a freedom of judgment and a knife-like dncisiveness that I had missed before, When I reached his home I had the surprise of my life. A hearty, up- Standing woman dropped her broom and turned from her home tasks to, greet me. . There were moccasins on her feet; her hands showed that she | worked and worked 'hard; there 'was (formed the ceremony. . pi a woman of theopen. It washard to eae TU PUZ ; LIS Shrioats suse | Weare rather {isn't everything, I gives us much that ave found mi, S | opened up "You's : J retognize the dainty townswoman 1 h Wh some years before. At the kitchén table two girls were sit- ting. They wore sturdy breeches and good open air kit. One of them was their daughter, 'We had tea in the drawing-room, Di¢k'8' London traditions. had made them establish a drawing-room when they first came here. But «it was easy to see that the kitchen was the usual living room of the family. After tea we went out to the farm, The horses had to be taken out. The daughter galloped them barebacked. These were the chickens in their win- ter quanters to be fed, and the hun- dred and one evening tasks OY a farm, which could not be neglected even while a visitor was there. "Our people want us to &0 back on a long visit this summer,' "said the wife. "But ean you picture me now sitting in a London drawing-room, doing fine sewing and playing with life? I can't. It would choke mre. I work over our farm from half past six in the morning until half past ten at night, but I'm happier than ever before. J "When we first came West, we took a furnished house in the city. Dick's professional work grew, but wo knew that we must get away from city life. He was fighting his way 'back to life, and baby was dll. LIL seemed that Babs would never grow up. I took her two thousand miles to a great' American doctor, and she was cased up in plaster of Paris for months. "We did nothing hastily. After months of searching we found this farm. We bought it for sixty dollars an acre; during the land boom we were offered" $280 an acre for. it. Some speculators meant to sell it as town plots, But here we resolved to build our home. Dick kept on with his proféssion; I was to run 'the farm. Well, I've'riin it. That's all. Babs just grew into health, There doesn't look much the matter with her now, does there?" The mother looked over the field to where Babs was galloping at breakneck pace barebacked on ber faverite mare, UL work: 1 have a woman to help mie in the heuse, and Dick and Babs we work alll n& slowly. For sheep breed- is year; I am testing the varieties suitable for us, and in a few years we will build up our own flock. You see gur horses. er proud of that foal Babe claims it as hers, and is al- ready talking about the prize it is bound to win at the summer fair. We live in the open. We breathe 'fresh air. Babs rides on horseback miles every day to schogl in the city. 1 plough my own fields." Our land Is not too big for us to do everything ourselves if necessary. «Can you im- | agine me going back to London to sit in a drawing-room, say pretty things and be a dressed up doll? That day is over. x3 We havh lexfned that - In Lohdon we made a great deal, but .in\ London the money disa almost as quickly as it came. Heavy taxes andg-heavy costs of living. Here we don't handle own; taxation fs the same "| the endless out unknown. We. hav 10 go to the city abd spend, hav desire to. Our own ! We want. We Aare Sound ea) content, suffi- © We our - 18 80 mixed that one part can fail and yet the others Travelling across Manitoba, my neighbor in the smoker ot the trata sconyersation me. English : [years ago in Lomdoh, tramping the ten | start again, for the west is the land 0 much' money. But "We. don't Fe 'Our lan ur | a | valued officers. pull us We face the future un-f magn had to start as a'shopman on thirty bob a week. I would have finished at two tem, until 1 was chucked out as foo old. Here I had my opportunity, and took it. in England theré would have been no opportunity." - In, Northern Alberta ¥ came on a great local character. "Dad" Je will call him: He was 'one of -the original Barr colomlsts. He is not far short of seventy, "a tough, hardy, hearty veteran. "I've dome more in 'the last eigh- teen years," he said, "than in the fifty years of my life = hefore. I once had a little shop outside Lon- don. Then there came the chain shops and the co-operative Stores, and I was frogen put. So I took to 1ife insurance, industrial life insur- ance; getting weekly payments of a few pence a week each. A hard life. 1 was a good Methodist, a bandsman in our. mission band, and a teetotaler. I worked hard and wasted nothing, but with all my work I could just scrape along. "One day I read of the coming adarr tolony. . Everyone who joined « was supposed to have so much money in hand. I had only enough to Ray my" fare, but I sald nothing, paid my fare, and got oir the boat with empty pockets. 1 got work : helping with the' books of the ecol- | ony on the boat. When we reacl- ed Saskatoon I had enough to hire a horse and cart,' I hauled peoples things. So I got over to Llogd- minster, across the prairie, "Before 1 left London, peopfe laughed at mg 'Why, Dad,' they said, 'what are you, a man of fifty, going to do in the wild west? You're a townsman. You know no- thing of country, life' They were wrong. Asa lad I was on the land in Yorkshire and what a Yorkshire farm boy doesn't know about farm- ng isn't worth kpowing. +I got a contraet for town cart- ing. I did everytiling that I could. To-day I'm -a made man. Twenty wet streets, I dreamed of the work- house. It seemed .; opening. out ahead. I'd worked as hard as 'any man, but there was no chance. Here { found my chance. And many an- other man just around here will tell you the same tale. Canada made us." 1 One hears much, In going over the west, of the man who failed. These failures ean, be put down. to three or four. general causes, lazi- ness, speculation; or 'sheer misfor- tune. But even the failures find fresh opportunities... The waitress in my Saskatchewan hotel was. a type of failure through misfortune, She and her husband had plunged into wheat farming. : There came two bad years, y survived them, Last y ishing. Om ; promised a modest fortune. - Four days later their!emtire crop was ruined by the early frost. ? They had to.give up. their farm. But here failure need be only tem- porary. 'They went into town."She Bot work as a waitpges, he in a warehouse. At once they were earning enough ° to leave ' them a good 'margin to save. Next year, with courage regathered, they whi where. fortume may sometimes frown, but ever carries"a smile be-. hind her frowa. wl : hs =F. A' McKENZIE. Mr.'and, Mrs. Robert Sergeant] Meadow View Farm, ' Maberly, an-} nounce the engagements of their 10 John B. Dewdeth, Glatt Tar. as to John E. Dowdell, Glen Tay, and Miss Edith Eleanor to Clarendon, . the weddin place on June 11th. embrance and an 'by 'the Norfolk street Sunday school, of 'which Mr, Guess was one of the most ned flour} ; hig | pss BECOND BECTION = EEE gt - Save the Money You Waste and. Make It Earn YouiMore Money How much of your wagss do you fritter away each week wi trifles ? : If you reckon it up you will probably find that at least five per cent. disappears thus "like snow wreaths in thaw." If your weekly wage is $15.00 you spend easily 75 cents of that on "mere nothings" before you know it. But suppose you said to your employer: "Each week I want you to keep 75 cents out of my pay envelope and invest it for me in War Savings Stamps. As you buy each War Savings Stamp put it in my pay envelope, and go on doing that for a year." Vig You will never miss that 75 cents. But at the end of the year you will have over $36.00 invested in Savings Stamps. By they / will be worth considerably more than $36.00, and by 1924 they will - be worth $45.00; : wt War Savings Stamps are guaranteed by the Dominion Govern- ment. They have the whole resources of Canada as their security, the same as Victory Loans. . And they bear an unusually high rate - of interest. You can cash them at any time, however, if you need to. : Make Your Savings Serve You and Serve Your Country--Invest Them in War, Savings Stamps. War Savings Stamps can be bought wher- ever this sign is displayed. 2 -

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy