PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
C.O. 885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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BRANDON.
At midday I went on to Brandon. On arriving there I drove out to the Experi- mental Farm, the superintendent of which, Mr. J. Murray, is one of the local correspondents of the Emigrants' Information Office. He drove me round, and explained to me the various experiments that were in hand, and the ways in which the farmers profited by the work done on the farm. He had not himself any very extensive experience of farm workers, but he had had difficulties with Englishmen, otherwise good, who would not fall in with local ways. He was inclined to think, however, that a middle-aged Scotchman was a tougher customer to deal with.
My driver was a young Englishman of 21. He had been a bank messenger in London, without any kind of experience of farm work, and had come to Canada without money at the age of 19. He had gone straight on to a farm at $10 a month and his board. It was hard work, but he liked it, and soon picked it up. In his second season he got $35 a month. By July this year he had saved nearly $200. He had come into Brandon and was now at a livery stable, where he proposed to stay the winter. After that he was going back to farm work again. He spoke of the need of beginning very humbly and being glad of instruction if you were a "green" hand. He also spoke of the hardship to a farmer, whose work during the summer was a perpetual rush, and to whom any loss of time meant loss of money, of having an obstinate or unadaptable man on his farm who would not be taught and who might cause serious loss by waste of time or injury to plant or stock. He thought that it was impossible for a farmer to be "sympathetic" to the extent of tolerating any unwillingness or inability on the part of a farm labourer to do things in the Canadian way. He himself had gone for small wages at first because he knew he had everything to learn, and farmers are naturally more ready to teach a man whom they are paying a little than one who demands high wages.
On Thursday, the 19th of August, I called on Mr. Clement, the Dominion Lands Agent. He drove me round Brandon. The people purchasing Government land in his district were chiefly Americans and Canadians, very few British. He had had some experience of undesirable British immigrants. A few years ago a large party were referred to him (by an emigration society, I understood him to say) under the impression that he was the Dominion Immigration Agent in Brandon. No accommodation could be got for them, so he housed them in tents. He was shortly requested by the police to have the tents removed and the men sent away. He pro- tested strongly, but had to give way when some of the men were caught red-handed chicken stealing and thieving from a brewery. Mr. Clement promised to act as local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office.
I called at the Immigration Building and saw Mr. F. Bockus, the Dominion Immigration Agent. I looked round the building, which can accommodate 50 or 60 people. As at Winnipeg, free shelter (but not food) is given up to a week. Mr. Bockus had plenty of demands for harvesters, which he was not in a position to fill. He could, of course, always place a man on the land; but he thought that there was no demand in Brandon itself, in spite of its manufactures, for a mechanic or an artisan. Mrs. Bockus, joining in the conversation, observed that Canada was a land of plenty, "especially plenty of work." Mr. Bockus promised to act as local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office. So also did Mr. O. L. Harwood, the Secretary of the Brandon Board of Trade, on whom I called subsequently.
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I went on to Regina at mid-day. On the way I actually witnessed the process of engaging a farm labourer. At a wayside station, just east of Indian Head, a strong, rough looking man got off the train, went up to a man standing on the platform, and said, "I want a job." The following conversation ensued: "Want to work on a farm?" "Yes." All right, Jimmy
is somewhere about. Let's go and find him." Jimmy was duly found, and before the train left the station the man was marching up the platform with his employer.
K
REGINA.
I arrived at Regina late in the evening of the 19th of August. On Friday, the 20th, I called on Mr. Motherwell, the Provincial Commissioner of Agriculture, and on Mr. Rutherford, the Deputy Commissioner. They seemed more cheerful about the English immigrant than the people further east. There were lots of good workers amongst them, and Scotchmen were often as difficult to handle. Then they
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had their own undesirables among the farm helpers who came up from the east, but Canadians did not say much about them.
The demand for harvest help just now was exceptionally large. A record crop was in sight. Every effort was being made to get men up from the east, and Saskatchewan officers were boarding the harvest excursion trains east of Winnipeg to try to keep a fair share of the men for Saskatchewan. Among these men would be a lot of undesirables, but the farmers would take anyone and would pay any wages to meet the immediate stress. Of the harvesters a great many would be attracted by the country and would remain or would return later to settle per- manently.
There was the usual large influx of settlers, of an eminently desirable kind, possessing both capital and experience, from the States. But it was a mistake to suppose that they were all, or even mainly, Yankees. Very large numbers of them were Swedes or Germans who had "made good" in the States and meant to do even better in Canada. There need be no fear about assimilating them. their treasure was there would their heart be also.
Where
I had described to me in some detail the efforts which are being made by the Saskatchewan Department of Agriculture to help the farmers and to advertise the possibilities of the Province. The Provincial University which is being established at Saskatoon will include a Faculty of Agriculture, and an experimental farm will be attached to it.
Mr. Motherwell is himself a homesteader of 27 years' standing. I also had a talk with Mr. Cook, who has been farming in Saskatchewan for 35 years. He had a good word to say of the British worker, even of the gilded class, when brought down to sheer necessity.
It was arranged that Mr. F. Hedley Auld, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics and Information, should act as local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office. I did not see Mr. Auld himself, as he was away from Regina.
I then called on Mr. W. M. Wirth, the Dominion Immigration Agent, at the new Immigration Building in St. John Street. building and I spent some time in looking at his registers and correspondence. Mr. Wirth took me over the It was plain that the immigrants passing through his hands were chiefly English, and chiefly farmers and labourers. Carpenters, he said, were sure to find work, and just now, when the new Parliament Buildings are going up, bricklayers are in demand. Otherwise there is not much scope for mechanics and artisans coming new to the district. He showed me some plaintive appeals for domestic servants which he was quite unable to satisfy. Domestic servants are at present rare birds so far west. They are generally snapped up at some point further east.
They are not greatly troubled with the deportation question at Regina. Last year there were four cases. cases involved British immigrants. One case is that of a German family. The wife This year so far there had been three. None of the three is tuberculous, and the whole family are being deported. There appears to be a great horror of tuberculosis throughout the country. The sick wife cannot, of course, be sent back without her husband to look after her. A second case is that of a man sentenced to a year's imprisonment. He has claimed American citizenship. But there is reason to believe that he has been in Canada a very long time, and, if so, Canada will have to keep him. The third case is that of a boy of 15 or 16 years recently arrived from the States. He was sentenced to a month's imprison- ment for stealing a watch. Mr. Wirth was instructed to investigate the case as a preliminary to deportation. The boy made a favourable impression on Mr. Wirth, who reported accordingly, with the result that he has been given another chance and has been placed with a farmer who knows his history and is willing to give him a fair trial.
Mr. Wirth himself is an interesting example of what Canada can do for a man. He is a German who had had absolutely no experience of work on the land before he arrived in Canada not so many years ago. He had a few cents only in his pocket when he got off the train. He worked on a farm a few years, saved money, and took up a homestead. In four more years he was able to sell his homestead for $3,000, and now has got the appointment of Immigration Agent. He is already a local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office.
In the afternoon I called on Mr. H. C. Lawson, the Secretary of the Regina Board of Trade. He is an old Trinity Cambridge man, who was on a ranch some 30 miles north before he came into Regina a few years ago. He showed great readiness to supply all the information he could, and consented to act as a local