Justice for Doukhobors

              Justice For Doukhobors
Strong Appeal by Professor James Mavor of Toronto University
8 University Crescent.
Toronto, 1st May, 1919. Sir,—1 desire to appeal to the high-minded public of Canada to prevent, as they can, if they will, the perpetration of what appears to me to be a monstrous national crime. It is well known that between 7,000 and 8,000 Doukhobors emigrated from Russia in 1899. The oppression they endured from the Government there was well known and they applied to be allowed to come to this country. They made two conditions, both of which were accepted by the Minister of the Interior of the time. The first of these conditions—exemption from military service—was embodied in an Order-in-Council. The second condition— freedom to settle in villages—was as fully accepted, although it was not embodied in so formal a docurrient. When they came the people were received with open arms. The immigration was the largest which had ever came to Canada in one mass. The fame of Canada as the refuge of the unfortunate was spread and even trumpeted throughout the world. Other circumstances, no doubt conspired, but the Doukhobor immigration represented the beginning of a great movement from Europe which was looked upon at the time as of the utmost importance in building up this country. The European immigrants built the railways in the Northwest and contributed enormously to the increase of production. Had this immigration not taken place it is doubtful if the Northwest would now have been in the economical position in which it finds itself.
Whether the disturbance to their village and family life due to the frequent harassing conduct of the Rus-. sian Government affected their minds or not, it is the fact that for some years before and for some years after their arrival in Canada, the Doukhobors were subject to outbreaks of religious fanaticism. These outbreaks did not, however, affect more than from one-fifth to one-quarter of the people and in no case were the outbreaks of long duration. There have been no outbreaks for several years. When the arrangements were being made about their settlement. I was invited by the Department of the Interior to make some suggestions;*and I suggested that the land allotted to the Doukhobors should • be on the outer limit of what was considered by the Government surveyors, at that time, as suitable for practicable settlement. I pointed out that the fact of their being a "hard knot" in a country otherwise occupied by farmers cultivating individually, would not be
so inconvenient as it might be if the settlement were in the heart of the country, and that the area intervening between the existing settlements and the Doukhobor lands would fill up all the more readily, that they were beyond that area. This suggestion was adopted, and the anticipation proved tOi be correct. The intervening area did fill up very rapidly and the lands quickly rose in value. What I did not anticipate was that the Government would break faith with the people and would so soon as it was subjected to pressure by land speculators, seek to deprive the Doukhobors of the lands which had been given to, them, or explicitly reserved for them. Had I done so nothing would have induced me to encourage any immigrants to come to this country.
The process    of    attack    upon the Doukhobor   lands  began  in  1906.    It is  necessary to explain  certain peculiarities of the people which laid them open to the attack and left them defenceless    before    it.     About    three-fourths   of them   practised   rigid cooperation.    They  bought  collectively and they sold collectively.   'The local merchants disliked them because they did not profit by their proximity on account of the purchases of the Doukhobors being made principally in Toronto and Vancouver, where, soon after   their   settlement,   they   began   to buy on a large scale.    The local farmers professed to believe that the sale of Doukhobor produce reduced prices. Together with the land speculators '—many farmers being among these— and aided by the local politicians, the groups mentioned    organized    a raid upon   Sir   Wilfrid   Laurier   and   Mr. Frank Oliver.    Neither of these had ever been  in  the  Doukhobor  Settlement, nor  did    they    know anything about  the  people  or their  character. The Doukhobors had no votes because they objected to the oath of allegiance —conceiving that to swear it gave the Government a power over them which they could not understand.    For this reason  their  case was  regarded with cynical indifference.    Instead of dealing with the question in a diplomatic manner, the Government in 1907, simply  cancelled  the  Doukhobor  grants and took away from the people nearly 400,000 acres of land.   Technically the Government   may   have   acted   within their    powers—morally,   their    action was without justification.    One of the peculiarities of the Doukhobors is adherence to the maxim of Tolstoy, by whom in recent years they have been much influenced—that maxim is "Re-1 sist   not   evil."     They   accepted   the
situation and of course believed that like the Government of Russia—the Canadian Government was simply an instrument of oppression. They decided that even the small^ portion of land left to them was held on very insecure tenure and therefore they should buy land instead of trusting to Government grants. They bought large tracts of land -in British Columbia from and with the knowledge of the Government of that province. They were well advised, at all events for the time, for in 1912 further encroachment upon their Saskatchewan lands was made, at the instance of Conservative politicians and others.
Some thousands of the Doukhobors were transferred to the Britisli Columbia lands. There they engaged in the intensive agriculture to which they had been accustomed in Russia, this form of agriculture not being possible in northern Saskatchewan. They established large fruit farms, built jam factories and produced on a large scale. During the war they presented the Government with great quantities of jam as their contribution to the war funds.
Now comes the crime—these peaceable if obstinate and peculiar people are being forced out of their purchased lands as they were forced out of their homesteads by the same conspiracy of local tradesmen, local farmers, local politicians and local speculators. These people have entertained the idea of exploiting the returned soldier in order to deprive the Doukhobors of their cultivated lands. The intention of the scheme is as obvious as it is discreditable. On the plea that the returned soldier must have land, they have induced the Government to buy out the Doukhobors at forced sale, and then to give the returned soldiers grants of their land. The experience of such military grants in this country and elsewhere, is that the soldier quickly realizes uporl his grant and then the opportunity of the speculator comes.. He buys the grants thus suddenly thrown upon, the market, at a low price, and holds the land for a profit, meanwhile allowing it to fall out of cultivation.
There is plenty of land in British Columbia and in the Northwest for all the returned soldiers who genuinely desire to settle down to an agricultural life. They should be generously treated m the distribution of land but there can be no sound policy in turning out established settlers who are making a success of the intensive cultivation and who have bought and paid for their land believing in the good faith of the people of Canada and