35
VICTORIA.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
6T
C.O.
Reference :-
885
20 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
On Wednesday, the 25th of August, I went on to Laggan, coming back to Banff in the evening. Thursday, the 26th, I spent at Banff, which is concerned more with tourists than immigrants. On the morning of Friday, the 27th, I left Banff for Vancouver.
The driver of the "rig" I had at Banff was an Englishman, who had been in Canada five years. He had lived in Lincolnshire previously and had served in a shop near Grimsby. Absolutely without experience of horses or farming, and crippled with rheumatism, he had tried farm work on the prairie and then had come on to Banff. There he got cured of his rheumatism and got work in a livery stable.
When I saw him he was as healthy looking as anyone could wish to be. He said he had very great difficulties at first in getting used to Canadian methods. He thought that an Englishman, even if he had worked on a farm, would meet with similar difficulties. He already showed a strong tendency to be amused at the unhandiness of the English newcomer with Canadian harness and farm implements.
VANCOUVER.
I got to Vancouver in the morning of Saturday, the 28th of August, and called on Mr. J. H. MacGill, the Dominion Immigration Agent. He had not been in office long enough, he said, to express an opinion as to any change in the class of immi- grant in the last two years. Comparatively few immigrants from the United Kingdom reached Vancouver direct. Those who came through (apart from people with capital looking for land) were mainly men who had had an unsuccessful shot at other things en route, and had more or less drifted across the continent in that way.
He did not appear to have a very good opinion of those who did come through. He said that they did not adapt themselves readily to local condi- tions. Even farm hands did not show themselves very useful on the land as compared with the Swedes and Germans, of whom numbers came in through or from the States. He thought there was work to be got by carpenters and builders both in and near Vancouver. This was not true of blacksmiths-British methods of smithing differing considerably from Canadian. Domestic servants could not be got for love or money. There was no immigration of children into British Columbia. From his experience of it in the Eastern Provinces he thought it could be successfully extended to British Columbia. He had an appreciable number of deportations to attend to. About 30 cases were then pending. The majority of the cases were British. In practically every case the ground of deportation was either a criminal conviction or physical inability to work.
Mr. MacGill promised to act as local correspondent of the Emigrants' Informa- tion Office.
In the afternoon I called on Mrs. Skinner, one of the local corres- pondents of the Emigrants' Information Office. the Young Women's Christian Association, Vancouver Branch.
She is the President of while remarking that the Young Women's Christian Association and the (It is worth Young Men's Christian Association appear to be most flourishing institutions throughout Canada. Their buildings are often among the handsomest in the town, and they are sometimes assisted financially by the Government.) Mrs. Skinner receives the girls sent out by the British Women's Emigration Association, and finds them situations. The girls are put up in the Young Women's Christian Association building on arrival. Mrs. Skinner described to me the care taken of the girls throughout the journey and on their arrival. them the whole way, and special accommodation is reserved for them on the trains. A matron accompanies Few domestic servants came through, and the people of British Columbia were compelled to fall back on lady helps or mothers' helps. Mrs. Skinner thought that, if great care were taken in selecting the homes to which girls were sent, this was a very successful form of service. She quoted several instances to me, most of which appeared to end in marriage. She said they got a very good class of girl for this sort of employment, and I gathered that she had not any serious trouble with any of her protégées. Mrs. Skinner gives all her services quite gratuitously both to employers and employed. Vancouver. Her husband is the Government Superintendent of Forests, or some- She is a lady of considerable standing in thing of that kind, and both are very old residents in the Province.
On Sunday, the 29th of August, I went on to Victoria.
"
On Monday, the 30th of August, I called on Mr. F. H. Clark, the head of the Provincial Government_Bureau of Information. Mr. Clark already acts as local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office. He had the Circular before him for revision when I called. He found next to no alterations to suggest. He thought the publication so useful that he asked me to send him a supply for use in his own office. He was particularly struck by the wisdom of the "Hints to Emigrants," which he thought admirably adapted to secure the end in view.
He said that the great need of British Columbia was men with capital. It was not a country like the prairie lands where a man without capital or with very little could hope to succeed. The land had to be cleared, or had to be bought ready cleared, and, in the case of fruit-growing, there was, of course, the period of waiting for the trees to bear. The farm help required was chiefly for fruit farms, which did not need so much hired labour as grain farms. Nor was such labour required for the whole year; as a rule only at picking times. Workers were, of course, required for the mines and for lumbering. In the fisheries and canneries the actual labour was generally performed by Chinese or Indians, and the only room for British immigrants was for the employer with capital. Mr. Clark emphasised the dependence of all the industries of British Columbia on the prairie A bad crop, and the farmers had less money to purchase fish or fruit, and less money to put up buildings.
crop.
The Province was woefully in want of domestic servants. Mr. Clark thought child immigration on the lines which had proved successful in the east would do well in British Columbia. He spoke appreciatively of the immigrants from the I'nited States, the bulk of whom were of the class British Columbia wanted.
I failed to see Mr. Palmer, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, who acts as a local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office. He was away from Victoria. However, I saw Mr. Hodson, the Live Stock Commissioner, his chief assistant, and arranged to have the publications of the Department sent to the Emigrants' Information Office.
also saw Dr. H. G. Milne, the Dominion Immigration Agent. He told me that he got few British immigrants through his hands direct. His work lay mainly with Asiatics and immigrants from the United States. The latter particularly were a fruitful source of trouble. Seattle is only a few hours' sail away, and it is the happy hunting ground of some very undesirable characters. However, he was on very good terms with the United States officers near the boundary, and they often managed to return one another's undesirables without going through the lengthy course of reference to their respective capitals. He had a considerable number of deportations, but these again were chiefly United States immigrants and Asiatics. I read the papers in one case then pending-that of a young American girl. The story, if her own account of herself was true, formed a record of depravity and villainy, including murder, which would almost be counted incredible if it were made known. Dr. Milne consented to act as a local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office. He took me a drive in a motor car for some miles into the country, and gave me some idea of the manner in which Victoria is spreading out, and the forest, which covers the whole island, is being cleared for cultivation near the town.
I called on Mr. Elworthy, the Secretary of the Board of Trade. He was much interested in the work of the Emigrants' Information Office, and, from a cursory inspection of the section of the "Canada Handbook" relating to British Columbia, thought the information given sound and impartial. He could not see his way to become a local correspondent of the Emigrants' Information Office in the ordinary sense, as the form of enquiry related to the demand for labour in particular occupations, and this question was outside the functions of the Board. But he said he would be glad to look through the "Circular" and "Handbook" at any time and make suggestions, or to answer any specific enquiry which the Emigrants' Information Office might make to him.
I also had an interesting conversation with the lift-man in the Board of Trade Buildings. He was an Englishman who went to Canada at the age of 23 and landed with about 25s. in his pocket. He had known something of horses in England, and immediately got work as a coachman. Then somehow he drifted west, and had a pretty bad time of it. But he took casual labour of every kind
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