fertile land. Improvements in farming methods made it possible to
cope with the peculiar problems of prairie husbandry. British
capital, moreover, no longer found so ready an outlet in the
United States, which was now financing its own development; and
it had suffered severe losses in Argentine smashes and Australian
droughts. Capital, therefore, was free to turn to Canada.

But it was not enough merely to have the resources; it was
essential to display them and to disclose their value. Canada
needed millions of men of the right stock, and fortunately there
were millions who needed Canada. The work of the Government was
to put the facts before these potential settlers. The new
Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton, himself a western man,
at once began an immigration campaign which has never been
equaled in any country for vigor and practical efficiency. Canada
had hitherto received few settlers direct from the Continent.
Western Europe was now prosperous, and emigrants were few. But
eastern Europe was in a ferment, and thousands were ready to
swarm to new homes overseas.

The activities of a subsidized immigration agency, the North
Atlantic Trading Company, brought great numbers of these peoples.
Foremost in numbers were the Ruthenians from Galicia. Most
distinctive were the Doukhobors or Spirit Wrestlers of Southern
Russia, about ten thousand of whom were brought to Canada at the
instance of Tolstoy and some English Quakers to escape
persecution for their refusal to undertake military service. The
religious fanaticism of the Doukhobors, particularly when it took
the form of midwinter pilgrimages in nature's garb, and the
clannishness of the Ruthenians, who settled in solid blocks, gave