to big strong, silent, self-confident manhood.

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
category of investment. Jonathan makes the ideal pioneer; John Bull,
the ideal permanent settler who comes in and buys from the pioneer.

If this, too, be "the Americanizing of Canada," it has been a good
thing for the country.

To be sure, there have been hideous horrible abuses. The real estate
boom reached the proportions of a fevered madness before it collapsed.
Americans bought r_an_ches for five dollars an acre and resold them as
r_awn_ches for fifty dollars to young Englishmen who will never make a
cent on their investment; chiefly because fruit trees take from five to
ten years to come to maturity, and because fruit must be near a market,
and because only an expert can succeed at fruit.

If ever wildcat flourished in a gold camp or gambling joint, and that
wildcat did not hie to Canada when the real estate boom broke lo