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FALLING ON DEAF EARS? CANADIAN PROMOTION AND WELSH EMIGRATION TO THE PRAIRIES IN 1896 the new Liberal government of Wilfred Laurier in Canada embarked on a massive campaign to settle the western plains. Wales was one of the areas targeted as a source of immigrants. It was a country which had contributed relatively few emigrants to Canada in the past,2 although its people seemed to possess many of the desirable traits for successful settlers in the eyes of immigration and government officials. Indeed, the Canadian High Commissioner, Lord Strathcona, was quoted as admiring the Welsh because of their thrift, sobriety, perseverance and certain phrases of mind and character which will enable them to overcome what has been nicely termed the luxuriance and confusion of uncultivated nature. Instead of leaving the immigration process to individual or entre- preneurial initiative, the Canadian government created a massive publicity drive to attract immigrants to this new settlement frontier. Several schemes to create Welsh settlements on the Prairies in the previous two decades had not been realized. Hence, this promotion seemed to provide new opportunities for the Welsh to realize these dreams. Many different methods were used to create favourable perceptions of the opportunities available in the Prairies and to downplay the hazards to be overcome in the settlement of an often unfamiliar world. Certainly this new information was not the only P. Berton, The Promised Land: Settling, 1891-1914 (Toronto, 1984). 2 W K. D. Davies, 'The Welsh in Canada: a geographical overview', in M. E. Chamberlain (ed.), The Welsh in Canada (Swansea, 1986), pp. 1-45. 3 Quoted in a letter from William L. Griffith (WG) in Western Mail (WM), 12 November 1897.