DIFFICULTIES OF ORIGIN CLASSIFICATION 13

she biological and the cultural influence. It is known, for example, that biologically the
Orientals are not assimilable in Canada, even if culturally assimilation were possible. On
the other hand, neither Mennonites nor Doukhobors are easily assimilated culturally, though
biologically an infusion could be effected. But the relative importance of the biological
and cultural factors is not subject to quantitative measurement. Both, however, are combined
 under the term “ origin.”
The term “ origin”, therefore, as used by the census, usually has a combined biological,
cultural and geographical significance. It suggests whence our people come and the implied
biological strain and cultural background. Following popular usage, the terms, “ English
stock”, “ French stock”, “ Italian stock”, etc., are employed to describe the sum total of the
biological and cultural characteristics which distinguish such groups from others. Such
sage is familiar to the public in general, and only when our “origin” classifications follow
such lines, can they be collected by a census, be understood by the people or have any
significance from the practical standpoint of the development of a Canadian nation.
PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES IN THE ORIGIN CLASSIFICATION
The term “origin”, as used here, has a combined biological, cultural anl geographical
significance. In certain cases all three aspects are clearly defined; in others the classification
means little more than geographical origin, being distinct from nativity classification mainly
1 that it includes not only immigrants, but their descendants. The situation is made clear
oy examining the actual divisions in the origin tables of the census.
First, there are cases in which the biological connotation included in the term “ origin”
is pronounced, i.e, where the strains of the immigrating people are comparatively pure.
Such are the coloured stocks, the Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Negro and aboriginal Indians.
In the case of many of the white peoples also the term “ origin” includes both biological and
cultural elements, as in the case of the English, French, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German,
Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Syrian, and so on.. With such
groups no serious difficulties are involved.
With certain other groups, however, the problem of classification is not so simple.
Nearly 10,000 people in Canada in 1921 claimed to be of “Swiss” origin. Here “origin”
can only mean original geographical habitat (“Swiss” being a national term including
French, German and other stocks), coupled with a more or less distinct culture, the product
of the partial fusing of several North Western European stocks. The same may be said
of the Belgians, of whom nearly 60 p.c. speak Flemish as the mother tongue, while a considerable
 proportion speak French, Belgium consisting of two distinct peoples, the Flemish
and the Walloons.
It is in the Eastern and Central parts of Europe, however, that the greatest difficulty
arises. While there are certain groups like the Buigarians, Hungarians and Czechoslovaks
where the mixture is not so confusing, there are groups found in the Canadian census like the
Roumanians, 13 p.c. of whom spoke German as the mother tongue and 18 p.c. spoke one of
the Slavic languages, arguing biologically a mixture of stocks. The intermingling is perhaps
not so great with the Poles, 85 p.c. of whom spoke Slavie languages as the mother tongue
and only a little under 10 pec. spoke German. The Serbo{Croats are preponderantly
Slavs, judging from the data on mother tongue; but further difficulties emerge with the
Russian, Ukrainian and Austrian groups. Of those reported as of Russian origin 40 pe.
spoke German as the mother tongue—presumably those from the Baltic provinces of
Russia—and 54 p.c. spoke one of the Slavic ianguages, the great majority Russian. Thus,
while the majority of those classed as of Russian origin were Slavs, there was a considerable
admixture of Teutonic stock. Of the Austrians, some 41 p.c. spoke German as mother
tongue, and 53 p.c. one of the Slavic languages, nearly one-half of the latter speaking
Bukovinian, Galician, Ruthenian or Ukrainian. Such a group is clearly mot a biological
init. The term “ Austrian” in the “origin” tables merely designates a group of immigrant
seople, most of whom are Slavs, and whose homes before coming to Canada in the pre-war
days had been for many generations within common political boundaries and who had
therefore the common traits begotten of a similar cultural and economic environment. .