And anybody may acquire the freehold of one hundred acres of that favoured country on paying 16s. 6d., with four following annual payments of the same amount, the price of Crown land being 10d. per acre, rising to 2s. 6d. in certain areas. For the rest, steamers ply on some of the lakes, the Government is rapidly extending its network of colonisation roads, and in one district free railway transport is conceded to arriving settlers and their families, with 300 lbs. of household effects.
Nor do these facilities exhaust the measures taken by the provincial authorities to secure population. They recognise a necessity to make further special effort in view of a notable disadvantage in the matter of immigration that is peculiar to Quebec. The majority of new arrivals from the United Kingdom—little dreaming what charming and helpful neighbours the French-Canadians make—elect to locate themselves in the provinces where their mother-tongue prevails, and, the number of immigrants from France being insufficient to adjust the balance, Quebec has its grievance. Perhaps I ought rather to say that Quebec had its grievance, for the genius of French-Canadian politicians has proved a match for the situation.
A law was passed granting boons and honour to the mothers and fathers who rear twelve children or more. I first heard of this stroke of enlightened statesmanship when discussing Canada’s future with M. E. E. Taché, the Deputy Minister of Lands and Forests in Quebec’s noble Parliament House.
“We do not get our due proportion of the inrush of settlers,” explained M. Taché. “Very well, then, for peopling our vast province we look rather to the natural increase of the population already here;” and he presented me with a copy of Volume II. of an interesting Government publication.
This publication shows the law of the twelve children in working. It seems that during the first fourteen years of the existence of the statute 3,395 heads of families were registered as qualified to receive the free grant of 100 acres (or, in the alternative, fifty dollars) by which a progressive Government recognised the service they had rendered to Canada by rearing large families. Those 3,395 names had been printed in Volume I., and the significant fact has to be added that, in the comparatively short ensuing period of fifteen months, as many as 2,018 heads of families were added to the roll of honour.
TYPICAL FRENCH-CANADIAN FAMILY: SIXTEEN CHILDREN
Those prize-winners are recorded in page after page of a table printed in six columns. The first column gives the name of the head of the family—usually, of course, the father, but occasionally his widow or his eldest son. Then occurs the name of the wife, or, in the case of a second marriage, of the wives. The third and fourth subdivisions indicate the parish and county of residence. From the fifth column we learn how many children there are in the family, and the sixth column reveals whether the hundred acres or the fifty dollars were preferred. Since the grant of land is associated with an obligation to clear and cultivate it, and since the people of Quebec are already provided with ample farms, it is natural that choice alighted, in a majority of cases, on the money payment. Here and there, indeed, the table reveals a large family so wealthy and contented that they have waived their claim alike to the land and the cash. The proud father accepts as a sufficient reward the honourable publicity conferred by having his name conspicuously printed in State archives.
The column devoted to “Nombre d’enfants” repays examination. The repetition of the number 12 is constantly interrupted by 13, and, less frequently, by 14; but you do not have to turn many pages before you come upon a 15, then other 15’s, with a sprinkling of 16’s, and with even a 17 here and there. When, on page sixty, I found evidence that a French-Canadian of Montmorency had 18 children I did not doubt that here, at last, I had reached high-water mark. Yet no; on turning to page 127 I learnt that M. Cajetan Vezina, of Hebertville, in the county of Lac St. Jean, had 19 children. Among the 2,018 entries that proved to be the top score. Vive Québec! Vive la famille!