28. POPULATION; RACIAL DISTRI BUTION AND IMMIGRATION. In a new country, population grows by additions from without rather than by natural increase, and questions relating to immigration and the for eign element become of primary significance. Especially is this the case in Canada after the experiences of the present century, when in less than 20 years the inflow from abroad amounted to not less than 60 per cent of the original people. A considerable portion of this was °floating* labor whose stay in the country was brief, but even so the situation which the figures reveal is sufficiently arresting. When it is remembered that the stock of 1900 was in its turn largely composed of persons born in other countries, the importance of a careful analysis of the Canadian population from the point of view of origins is further emphasized.
Population According to Origin.— The immigration returns do not offer the final ave nue to racial origins, yet, as above hinted, they throw so powerful a light on Canada in the making— on the process whose result it is the purpose of the present article to describe that comparative statistics of 1900, 1911 and 1914-16 may be quoted as having a bearing on the matter to follow. The accompanying tabu lar statement (Table I) shows also the extraor dinary range from which Canada has drawn population since 1900, whether as settlers in tending to adopt the country permanently, or as laborers attracted by the great construction aboomx' of 1900-12. The figures of earlier years are not available in similar detail, but doubtless differ mainly in degree. It will be seen that roughly 38 per cent of the recent. heavy drafts came from the British Isles, 35 per cent from the United States and 27 per cent from the countries of continental Europe.
As has been said, not all of this influx re mained. Indeed the census shows an increase in the number of those resident in Canada, but born outside, of only 887,461 during the first decade of the century (see Table II), whereas the immigrants during the same years were at least double that number. The two sets of figures, however, in the absence of statistics of emigration and of reliable vital statistics cannot be collated with the immigra tion returns, and Table II is to be regarded merely as a further introductory sidelight on the subject in hand.
Latest Census the analysis of the population as it stands to-day from a racial standpoint, recourse must be had to the specific results of the decennial census. The last census for the whole of Canada was taken in June 1911. It contained altogether 41 questions on population, one of which required the ra cial or tribal origin of each individual. The Canadian census does not take cognizance of as there is only a small admixture of the red, black and yellow races, which it is thought is sufficiently indicated by the returns of origins. Enumerators in taking the census are instructed to trace racial or tribal origin through the father. A person, for example, whose father is English, but whose mother is Scotch, would be ranked as °English.* It was pointed out, to the enumerators that such terms as aAmencana or ought not to be applied in a tribal sense. In the case of Indians, the origin is traced through the mother; and the name of their tribe given, as Chippewa, Cree, etc. Persons of mixed white and red blood, usually called ((half-breeds,' were to be described, in addition to the tribal name, with the name of the white race infused in the blood. Thus aCree F. B.* would denote that the person is a mixture of Cree and French. that the person was a mixture of Chippewa and Scottish. Children of marriages between white and black or yel low races were to be classed as Negro, Mon golian (Chinese or Japanese) as the case might be. Throughout the census no attempt was made at classification by physical types, such as form of the head, facial features, etc., as this is essentially a matter of expert inves tigation. A question as to country of birth i was added in which distinctive sections are particularized, as for example, between Bo hemia and Galicia in Austria-Hungary, England and Scotland in Great Britain, etc., etc. This question was inserted largely as a check on the population immediately derived from the Uni ted States.