his purse to tide over the first few weeks, unless he were going
to farm work or responsible relatives. Asiatics were restricted
by special regulations. Steadily the bars were raised higher.

Not all the 3,000,000 who came to Canada between 1897 and 1914
remained. Many drifted across the border; many returned to their
old homes, their dreams fulfilled or shattered; yet the vast
majority remained. Never had any country so great a task of
assimilation as faced Canada, with 3,000,000 pouring into a
country of 5,000,000 in a dozen years. Fortunately the great bulk
of the newcomers were of the old stocks.

Closely linked with immigration in promoting the prosperity of
the country were the land policy and the railway policy of the
Administration. The system of granting free homesteads to
settlers was continued on an even more generous scale. The 1800
entries for homesteads in 1896 had become 40,000 ten years later.
In 1906 land equal in area to Massachusetts and Delaware was
given away; in 1908 a Wales, in 1909 five Prince Edward Islands,
and in 1910 and 1911 a Belgium, a Netherlands, and two
Montenegros passed from the state to the settler. Unfortunately
not every homesteader became an active farmer, and production,
though mounting fast, could not keep pace with speculation.

Railway building had almost ceased after the completion of the
Canadian Pacific system. Now it revived on a greater scale than
ever before. In the twenty years after 1896 the miles in
operation grew from 16,000 to nearly 40,000. Two new
transcontinentals were added, and the older roads took on a new
lease of life. At the end of this period of expansion, only the