British Columbia has prided itself with justice on its British origin, and is exceeded in this respect only by the Maritime Provinces. Of its European immigrants (one in eleven of the whole), approximately equal numbers are Nordics from northern or western Europe, and Alpines or Mediterraneans from southeastern and central Europe. During the World War its young men showed great attachment to the mother country, and the loss from death was correspondingly great. Because of its great distance from the ports of entry, it was long avoided by immigrants. Not until about 1907 did it begin to get its fair share. Since then, it has held its own, about half of its new arrivals however coming from the United States.
The province also has its Asiatic problem, which has been the source of hard feeling on several occasions. One of the great hindrances to its more rapid development was shortage of labor, and it was natural that the Orient, which could reach British Columbia more easily and cheaply than could either Europe or even the Atlantic provinces of Canada itself, should be called upon to meet the need. Chinese soon began to enter, until stopped by a head tax of $500. Japanese came in considerable numbers, not merely in the fisheries but for day labor in railway construction. Some 6000 Hindus likewise found their way there. Orientals now amount to one in every seven of the total population. There is a real Asiatic question here and the Whites are beginning to look to the United States for protection.
Canada's immense arctic area, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, may be neglected in this discussion because of the lack of population. Those who see in the mosquito-infested tundra of "The Land of Little Sticks," with its months of winter darkness, a future populous area of agricultural and livestock industry are destined to wait long for the realization of their dream.
So far as the British element in Canada is concerned, it has been pointed out above in several places that the country is to a certain extent an offspring of the United States. This contribution has continued up to the present time. During the 1880's there was another great period of migration from the Union to the Dominion. At that time nearly twice as many entered Canada from this country as from Great Britain, and six times as many as from the continent of Europe.
Not all of these Americans were of the old native stock. It has been calculated that at least half of this contingent was of British extraction, the other half being made up of various European nationalities who, after becoming acclimated to the New World in the United States, passed on to Canadian soil. Thus the contribution from the United States during that period did not represent a purely Nordic accession.
The 1890's represented a period of British immigration. But, with the turn of the century, Canada began to share in the great influx of miscellaneous peoples who were already deluging the shores of the United States. During the first twelve years of the twentieth century, Canada received 2,000,000 people, of whom 800,000 were British. About 700,000 others came from the United States, but more than a third of these are calculated to have been Continental arrivals who merely passed through the United States for convenience. In 1901 there were in Canada some 650,000 of "foreign stock"—that is, of neither British nor French origin. In 1921 there were more than twice as many. Since the beginning of the century Canada has acquired more than 100,000 Jews.