PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 885
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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On Tuesday, the 17th of August, I spent some hours in the office of Mr. Burke, the Provincial Immigration Officer. During that time several immigrants came in, and I was struck by the patience and tact with which he handled them. He was struggling with the importunate demands for harvesters and could only send tens where hundreds were asked for.. It was explained to me that, owing to the dry fine weather, the harvesting had begun rather suddenly this year, and that the supply of hands would draw more nearly level to the demand later. I was told that the farmers always made a great outcry at the beginning of harvest to make sure of getting all the men they wanted. Three Englishmen came in, good sturdy fellows, who were inclined to be a bit obstreperous at first. Knowing nothing of the Government Immigration Agents, they had gone to one of the private employ- ment agencies with which Winnipeg swarms, and had paid a dollar for registering there. The agency had kept them overnight in Winnipeg, while others who had come in by the same train and had gone to either the Dominion or the Provincial Immigration Offices had got away the same night. At first they seemed disposed to blame Mr. Burke because they had not known of his existence in time to save their dollars. But eventually they saw reason, accepted employment offered by Mr. Burke, and went away grateful.
Another Englishman who came in was, at the first glance, a public school Boy. Clean, well dressed, almost daintily dressed, distinctly frail in appearance, it seemed hopeless for him to try the severe work of harvesting alongside some of the rough specimens I had seen. However, his case was not so hopeless. He had come to Canada on a visit, had liked the country, and had worked on a farm in Quebec since early spring. He had stood it all very well, and felt pretty sure that he could go through with the harvesting. Mr. Burke advised him, if he found it too much for him, to take lower wages and do the lightest jobs, and placed him with a man who, he thought, would treat him decently.
Mr. Burke had no use for mechanics and artisans. There was no marked demand. Those who came out would be pretty sure to be squeezed out or inter- fered with by the unions unless they joined them. But he thought that any black- smith or carpenter ought to get on who was willing to go into a country district fairly well settled and turn his hand to any job in his own line that might offer. Mr. Burke took me over the Winnipeg Lodging and Coffee House, just across Logan Street from his office. Men can get a bed there for 5 cents or 10 cents (for the former price the beds are in tiers of two, like the berths in a ship's cabin) and a good meal for 5 cents or 10 cents. Women are not admitted. The place was scrupulously clean, which was wonderful considering the class of men resorting there, some of whom I saw. It is not subsidised at all, but just pays its way at the prices quoted. Some 700 or 800 men can be accommodated at a time.
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What struck me in moving about Winnipeg was the cosmopolitan character of its population. The streets were, of course, full of intending harvesters of various nationalities. But, apart from them, there was the oddest mixture of races. one time I found myself in a car in the north-west of the city with about 25 other people. It was obvious that not more than five of them were British. Many of them were apparently Scandinavians, but the rest I could not place with certainty. I was told afterwards that this was a recognised foreign quarter of the city. On another occasion I was passing the Canadian Northern Railway Depôt just as work ceased. About 20 of the workmen boarded my car. Hardly one of them appeared to me to be British, though one or two I heard talking spoke English of a kind.
Mr. W. D. Scott, the Superintendent of Immigration, came to Winnipeg on his way east before I left, and on the morning of Wednesday, the 18th of August, I enjoyed a long talk with him. The talk ran more or less on lines which were by this time tolerably familiar. Mr. Scott was well satisfied with the result of the immigration regulations. Canada was now getting a better class of immigrants all round, and was resolved to maintain the higher level. The prejudice which had undeniably existed against the English immigrant was in process of disappear- ing in consequence. Mr. Scott admitted that the desirable majority had had to suffer for the shortcomings of the undesirable minority. In this connection he told me a parable. A certain farmer had a pet lamb. When it grew big he put it among a flock of sheep that he was selling. The intending buyer came among the flock and handled them to judge their quality. The pet lamb, being used to human attentions, was always on the spot, and was handled over and over again. At last the buyer said to the farmer: " A mighty poor lot of sheep you seem to have here!"
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The farmer caught the pet lamb, threw it over the fence, and said, “Now find another bad one."
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Mr. Scott thought that the British immigrant had still two great faults; he was, on the whole, too much given to drinking and too ready to accept relief. the latter respect Mr. Scott seemed to think that English charity was too readily and indiscriminately given, and that the self-reliance of the recipients was sapped in consequence.
put it to Mr. Scott that the demand for workers was growing in Canada and was destined to increase enormously in the future, and that we had not in England any corresponding surplus of men accustomed to work on the land or to manual labour which would fit them for such work. He seemed to have no fear that an adequate supply would not be forthcoming from the sources which the Canadian Government regarded with favour, viz., the British Isles, the United States, and the countries of Europe bordering on the North Sea. I enquired whether he ever had any doubts of the capacity of Canada to assimilate the mixture of nationalities pouring into the country. He had no tremors on the subject. In the second generation at any rate, by dint of educational and religious influences and the pressure of social environment, the process of assimilation would, he thought, be complete. To this end the Government countenanced individual settle- ment rather than settlement by groups or colonies. It was impossible to prevent the natural preference of a German for German neighbours, or of a Scandinavian for Scandinavian neighbours, and in the early days, when it was everything to get a start, the Government had been glad to see colonies established. But now the breaking up and admixture of nationalities was distinctly their aim.
We discussed the question of deportations. Mr. Scott held very firmly that the law was fairly adniinistered. He referred to the close supervision exercised by his Department over every detail of each case. He said that perhaps only 20 per cent of the applications for deportation actually resulted in the issue of an order. A man might have become a public charge, and the municipality concerned niight be quite properly satisfied that work was not to be found for him, or would not be accepted by him, within their borders. But the Dominion Government had a wider outlook, and if it were possible to put the man to work elsewhere they would do so rather than send him out of the country. They discriminated also in another way. If the ground on which deportation was applied for was physical disability, and the disability had occurred in the course of work in Canada, e.g., as the result of an accident with machinery, they thought it only fair to keep the man in Canada unless it were his express wish to be sent back to his friends at home. But if the disability were due to hereditary taint, or had been present when the man entered Canada, he was deported as a matter of course, always within the limit of time prescribed by the law. Mr. Scott referred at this point to the action of the Ontario Government in sending back people to England outside the time limit laid down by the law. ment without reference to, and without the sympathy of, the Dominion Government. This action was taken by the Ontario Govern- It was ultra vires from a legal point of view; the Ontario Government have no powers under the deportation law. They had, however, paid the passages of the persons back, so that to talk of " deportation" was perhaps incorrect. Mr. Scott thought that the local authorities in England saddled with these returned In any case, persons would be justified in sending them back to Ontario. I remarked that pro- bably the Dominion Immigration authorities would not let them land, but he seemed to think that that could be arranged. It must be borne in mind that the present Dominion Government and the present Ontario Government are politically opposed.
Mr. Scott found it absolutely incredible, as the authorities at Ottawa had done already, that any man's deportation papers could give ground for a suspicion of criminality, unless a criminal conviction had been actually the ground for deportation. He spoke spontaneously of the work of the Salvation Army. He recognised that their Emigration Department was now a large passage agency (he compared it to Cook's), but he held nevertheless that, by reason of their ramified organisation, reaching into every hole and corner of the country, they did highly effective and valuable work in distributing and looking after the emigrants whose passages they booked.
We spoke also of child emigration. He was very enthusiastic about it, and spoke of the great success attained, and of the extent to which the demand exceeded the supply.
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