1915 March.

Dear Mr. Nicholson,

It was a pleasure to get your letter as we had not heard from Richmond in several months…

Well we are coming through quite a serious time in the world's history, are we not?  And I expect that the next months will be a terrible time for slaughter. It seems to bad that in this late period of the world's existence that war should be waged so ruthlessly.

They are recruiting here very diligently, as you see the Western cities have so many British born that they join with less thought and consideration than the Canadian born.

And as war broke out just at the end of a country-wide boom and where building was overdone it caught a great many without work and without means and so the unemployed turned to the colours partly for the compulsion and partly for the trip, and partly for the trip home.

It has been a boom for the western cities as it has improved the upkeep on the unemployed on the government generally and not on the cities where borrowing for extensions have been a little too free.

Re getting work here, I would not care to advise you to come at present. The camps are not running altho they are starting up and the mills are not going full blast. I understand that most of the mill companies have been securing limits extending their holdings and have been borrowing from the banks freely. Now they have to pay up on their bank liabilities and can't do any more borrowing and they are short of cash to keep up the outlay on labour. Although recruiting has reduced the number of unemployed, there has been a loss of population due to mechanics, American and other, that were in here with their families during the building boom have gone back south and so the population is about 20,000 or more less than when I came here in 1912.  There is also quite a movement back to the land..as we import a great deal of beef and butter from New Zealand and an awful lot of fruit from the States. I think this will stop soon when we have better cooperative societies in the fruit districts. I think the only thing holding out brighter prospects for some time is the land in which I feel the first movement will take place as increased production means more business, also mining and fishing will be quite profitable and then the lumbering.   Just as soon as the war is over.