John Bull is a curious and dour foster father in some of his moods. He
never really wakened up to Canada as a desirable place for his numerous
family to settle till he saw Jonathan's coat tails going over the fence
of the border--till somebody began to howl about "the Americanizing of
Canada." Then, in the words of the illustrious Governor-General, "what
was good enough for Americans was good enough" for him. Clifford
Sifton's agents had been combing the United Kingdom as they had combed
the western states. British immigration jumped from almost nothing to
a total of 687,067 in ten years--with accelerating totals every year
since.

If this was "the Americanizing of Canada," it was a good thing for the
Dominion.


III

There was another feature to the tidal wave of four hundred thousand
immigrants a year. The American is a born pioneer, a born gambler, a
born adventurer. The Englishman is a steady-going, dogged-as-does-it
plodder. The American will risk two dollars on the chance of making
ten dollars; he often loses the two dollars, and he often makes the ten
dollars; from his general prosperity, I should say the latter results
oftener than the former; but the American never in the least minds
blazing the trail and stumping his toe and coming a hard fall. John
Bull does. He takes himself horribly seriously. He will never risk
two dollars to gain ten dollars. He will not, in fact, spend the two
dollars till he is sure of four per cent. on it. Four per cent. on two
dollars and ten dollars on two dollars do not belong to the same