Abstract

The use of Canada's immigration policy to promote its agricultural development and to provide traffic for its railways is examined through the "Railway Agreement between the Dominion Department of Immigration and Colonization and the country's two railways. By this agreement the railways gained the authority to select, transport, and the responsibility to place immigrants from eleven central and eastern European countries as agriculturists, agricultural workers, and domestic servants. Officials of their colonization departments became immigration agents for Canada on the continent of Europe. The agreement exemplified the nature of the relationship between government and railways in Canada's immigration policy and activities in the 1920's. It is best understood within the context of Canada’s British, continental European, and United States immigration policy in the years following World War I.