But in this work the Canadian Government will give a helping hand.  The authorities in Ottawa will be the first to appreciate what we will do for our new Canadians.  In a recent memoir submitted to the Premiers of our various Provinces the social welfare of the immigrants was one of the topics to which particular attention was given.  We can see that the Government will be ready to subsidize social work in Immigration, provided there is no over-lapping.  There will be subsidies for our work, if we are organized and ask for them.  When looking over the amounts distributed to various Immigrations Societies, we see, for instance, in 1913-1914 the Salvation Army receiving a subsidy of over $22,000, while all the Catholic Immigration Societies received only about $6,000.  We conclude that it is simply because we did not ask for our “Pound of Flesh.”

* * * * * *

Should not, therefore, the work of Catholic Immigration with all its wonderful possibilities for the welfare of Church and Country, appeal to our Canadian Knights of Columbus?  Many and many a settler has been lost to the Church—­he, his children and future generations—­because perhaps no one was there to receive him on his arrival in his new Country, to help him to settle where there was a church, a priest, and a Catholic school.  No one needs more the help of his Catholic brother than the immigrant, who has just broken away with a past made up of customs, friendships, racial feelings, of all that is dear to man’s heart, and faces an enigmatic future.

The long procession which we have seen in the years of intense immigration, winding its way through our cities and losing itself on the plains of the West, is about to start again.  Shall we be there to welcome and direct it?

Knights of Columbus, what is your answer?

[1] 200,000 are expected to come to Canada in 1921 from the British Isles alone.  Hon. J. H. Calder, Minister of Immigration, made this statement.

CHAPTER XVII.

UT SINT UNUM

A Catholic Congress of the Western Provinces, the Ultimate Solution of Their Problems—­What is a Congress?—­Its Utility—­Its Necessity—­A Tentative Programme.

To know a problem, to probe its nature, and to analyze its various factors frequently lead to an easy and happy solution.  But as Church problems are mostly of a complex nature and cover a wide range, they necessarily depend for their solution on the co-operation of the various component units.  This explains why we would now appeal to the Church of the West as a whole, for the solving of the problems dealt with in this book.  Of their nature they out-distance the boundaries of parish and diocese, for they affect the Church as a whole.  Without wishing to disparage the value of parochial and diocesan activities, we claim that the issues we have placed before our readers are