Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794974814

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-182133

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Place of publication:: Ottawa

Publisher:: Acland

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: 224 S.; Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Introduction

Collection:: Economics Books

2 ORIGIN, BIRTHPLACE AND NATIONALITY Provided (1) “that the child of a British subject, whether that child was born before or after the passing of this Act, shall be deemed to have been born within His Majesty's allegiance if born in a place where by treaty, rapitulation, grant, usage, sufferance, or other fawebal means, His Majesty exercises jurisdiction over British subjects.” (2) “The wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject.” (3) “A woman, who having been an alien, has by or in consequence of her marriage become a British subject, shall not, by reason only of the death of her husband or the disso- lution of her marriage, cease to be a British subject.” The approximate number of Canadian nationals in 1921, on the assumption that all Canadian-born persons resident in Canada are Canadian nationals, was 8412383, including 6,832,747 Canadian-born, 1,065454 resident British-born and 514,182 naturalized foreign-born, of whom 237,994 had been born in the United States. Doubtless there were domiciled in Canada at the date of the census certain Canadian-born people who had at some time or other given up their original Canadian citizenship and had not resumed it either because of personal preference or because they had not been resident in this eountry the necessary period of five years required for repatriation. Again, certain of our British-born people domiciled in Canada were not Canadian citizens either because they had been naturalized in some foreign country and had mever given up such allegiance or because they had not been resi- dent in Canada for the one year required to vote at elections or the five-year period required by the Immigration Act.l On the other hand, many Canadian citizens are residents of other countries, the largest number being in the United States, where the census taken on January 1, 1920, showed that out of 1,117,778 white persons of Canadian birth reported as residents of the United States at the date of the census, 607,303 were naturalized citizens, 72,714 had taken out their first papers and 345,557 were, from the point of view of the United States, aliens, and therefore, from our point of view, presumably Canadian citizens, while the citizenship of 92,304 was not ascertained. Thus a very considerable mumber of Canadian citizens were domiciled outside of Canada in 1920 and 1921. USE OF THE TERM “ORIGIN” AS DISTINGUISHED FROM “RACE?” In a strictly biological sense, the term “race” signifies a subgroup of the human species related by ties of physical kinship. Scientists have attempted to divide and subdivide the human species into groups on the basis of biological traits, such as shape of the head, stature, colour of skin, etc, and to such groups and to such only, would the biologist apply the term “race”. The use of the term, however, even in this strictly scientific sense is neither definite nor free from confusion, for there is no universally accepted classification. Further- more, the identification of certain types of culture with definite biological types has led inevitably to the result that, even in the hands of the ethnologist, the term “race” has acquired a cultural as well as a biological implication. Most modern national groups are composed of widely varying racial strains. The English type, if such exists in the biological sense, is the product of the commingling of perhaps half a dozen primitive stocks. The same applies to the French, Italians and indeed to any European group. Whether these peoples, during the past thousand years, have evolved distinct and homogeneous biological types ‘which could approximately be termed “races” is a matter for debate. Homogeneity is always relative; so with race differentia- tion. The technical biological question as such, however, is of minor importance as far as the census is concerned. Even in such cases as Scottish and Irish, where it is well known that distinct strains exist, the cultural consideration is predominant. The significant fact in the present connection is this. The combined biological and cultural effect on Canada of the infiltration of a group of English is clearly different from that produced by a similar number of, say, Ukrainians coming to the country. This is partly due to the different biological strains and partly to different cultural environment in the home country. It would be futile from a practical point of view to attempt to separate 10ut of 1,065,454 British-born residents of Canada on June 1, 1921, 90,056 immigrants had arrived since January 1, 1920, most of whom would presumably not have been residents of Canada for the one year required by the Dominion Election Act. Further, a total of 177,920 British-born immigrants had entered the country since January 1, 1915, and most of these would not have been five years in the country and would not be considered as “ Canadian ritizens >> under the definition of section 2 of the Immigration Act.

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