The wild-lands tax which prevails in the western provinces of the Dominion, and which we hope will be increased, will make it unprofitable to hold land idle, and will do much, if made heavy enough, to liberate land for settlement.

As it is now, people who have no money to buy land have to go long distances from the railroad to get homesteads, and there suffer all the inconveniences and hardships and dangers of pioneer life, miles from neighbors, many miles from a doctor, and without school or church; while great tracts of splendid land lie idle and unimproved, close beside the little towns, held in the tight clasp of a hypothetical owner far away.

Western Canada has a land problem which war conditions have intensified.  But people are beginning to talk of these things, and the next few years will see radical changes.

The coming of women into the political world should help.  Women are born conservationists.  Their first game is housekeeping and doll-mending.  The doll, by preference, is a sick doll, and in need of care.  Their work is to care for, work for something, and if the advent of women into politics does not mean that life is made easier and safer for other women and for children, then we will have to confess with shame and sorrow that politically we have failed!  But we are not going to fail!  Already the angel has come down and has troubled the water.  Discussions are raging in women’s societies and wherever women meet together, and out of it something will come.  Men are always quite willing to be guided by women when their schemes are sound and sane.

In New Zealand the first political activity of women was directed toward lowering the death-rate among children, by sending out trained nurses to care for them and give instruction to the mothers.  Ours will follow the same line, because the heart of woman is the same everywhere.  Dreams will soon begin to come true.  Good dreams always do—­in time; and why not?  There is nothing too good to be true!  Here is one that is coming!

Little Mary Wood set out bravely to do the chores; for it was Christmas Eve, and even in the remoteness of the Abilene Valley, some of the old-time festivity of Christmas was felt.  Mary’s mother had had good times at Christmas when she was a little girl, and Mary’s imagination did the rest.  Mary started out singing.

It was a mean wind that came through the valley that night; a wind that took no notice of Christmas, or Sunday, or even of the brave little girl doing the chores, so that her father might not have them to do when he came home.  It was so mean that it would not even go round Mary Wood, aged eleven, and small for her age—­it went straight through her and chattered her teeth and blued her hands, and would have frozen her nose if she had not at intervals put her little hand over it.

But in spite of the wind, the chores were done at last, and Mary came back to the house.  Mary’s mother was always waiting to open the door and shut it quick again, but to-night, when Mary reached the door she had to open it herself, for her mother had gone to bed.