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NOTES ON VISIT TO CANADA. 1909.

I left Euston for the "Empress of Britain" by the noon train on Friday, the 30th of July. The interest of the journey began at once. My neighbour in the train and at luncheon turned out to be Mrs. Close. She was on her way to visit her farm near Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she has placed some 20 pauper boys and girls. She talked to me a great deal about the theory underlying this experiment. She believes that emigration work conducted on the lines of Dr. Barnardo's Homes and similar institutions makes the capital mistake of sending the children out too old. At 14 or 16 years of age, she believes, a child has acquired a certain bent from which it never wholly frees itself. The bent may not be bad in itself; but, if it is only the mental outlook engendered by life institution," as it is almost bound to be, it is something which marks the child off from ordinary children, and eventually from ordinary men and women. Mrs. Close is far from denying the excellence of the work done by Dr. Barnardo's Homes. But she points out that they emigrate "the flower of the flock," and maintains that what she believes to be the fault of the system would be easily seen if the average inmate of this and similar institutions were sent to Canada. For her own system she claims that it is entirely applicable to the average inmate of a workhouse. She is prepared to take any child from any workhouse, subject to the exception of specific disease or mental deficiency, up to the age of nine or ten, and turn the boy or girl into a healthy, useful member of an agricultural community as the result of life on a farm in Canada run on her lines. Being applicable to the average child, her system, she claims, indicates the proper solu tion of the problem of dealing with pauper children, whereas other systems, which contemplate emigration at a later age, afford the means of dealing only with the best of such children. She glories in the extent to which her children before emigration fall short of normal standards of height, weight, and appearance. In the course of our conversations on board ship she showed me photographs of some of her children before emigration and at different times after their arrival in Canada. After a period of even six months the improvement in physique and intelligence of look was so marked as to be almost startling. She had with her a little fellow of 11 years of age, stunted, pallid, and miserable in appearance. He was some eight inches below the height of the normal child of his age, and some 15 lbs. below the normal weight. On the strength of her past experience, she was confident of transforming him into a well-grown, capable, self-reliant boy in a short space of time.

So far she has only one farm. The number of children on a farm should, she holds, not exceed twenty, in order that the home feeling, to which she attaches enormous importance, may not be swamped, and that the feeling of being a member of an institution may be impossible. Some of the earlier members of her home have already embarked on life on their own account, as farm labourers or servants in the neighbourhood. They continue, she says, to regard her farm as "home," and foregather there periodically with great delight.

Her present visit is partly in order to confer with the New Brunswick Govern ment as to the establishment of more farms. I gather that they are ready to give land for the purpose, but Mrs. Close is in doubt how much further she can carry her schemes without financial aid.

She is very eager to see it adopted comprehensively as a means of dealing with the 65,000 pauper children now in England and Wales. She points out that the cost is lower. The capital cost of her scheme, including all initial cost of land and buildings, is about £80 "per bed" às against the £275 "per bed" of the system

in the United Kingdom, the latter figure including no agricultural land such as is included in the figure of Mrs. Close's farm. The annual cost of maintenance is £15 a head as against £34 in the United Kingdom. This advantage is altogether apart from the fact that the one system, its author claims, turns out healthy and useful men and women, while it is a question whether the other system does not, on the whole, simply swell the class out of which come the unemployed and the unemployable in this country.

understood from Mrs. Close that some years ago the Canadian Government offered 600 acres in the neighbourhood of Calgary with a view to the system being tried on an extensive scale, but that advantage was not taken of the opportunity owing to slackness of opinion in this country. Mrs. Close has recently seen

Mr. John Burns on the subject, but he still sees objections to the Guardians being empowered to spend their funds on these purposes outside the United Kingdom.

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Andrews Home, The

Arrow Lakes, The

Banff

Barnardo's Homes Bell, Mr.

14

Jacks, Professor

37

Jackson, Mr. C. F.

Jarvis, Colonel

Bernard, Mr. W.

Blake Robertson, Mr.

Bockus, Mr. F.

Bogue Smart, Mr.

Bonus System

Brandon

British Welcome League

Burke, Mr.

Calgary

Clark, Mr. F. H.

Clement, Mr.

Close, Mrs.

Cory, Mr.

Cosmopolitan Winnipeg

Day, Professor

Dennis, Mr.

Deportations

Dominion Emigration Depôt (Winnipeg)

Edmonton

Elworthy, Mr.

Endorsed Letters of Invitation

Experimental Farm (Brandon)

FitzGibbon, Miss

Fortier, Mr.

Francis, Mrs.

Free Employment Bureau

Fruit District (Hamilton)

Gelley, Mr.

Girls' Home of Welcome

Golden, Mr.

Gray, Dr.

Grigg, Mr.

Guelph

Hall, Mr. J. T.

Ham, Mr. George

Hamilton

Hamilton Relieving Officer

Harrison, Mr. A. G....

Harwood, Mr. O. L.

Hoodless, Mr.

Hoolahan, Mr.

Immigration Officer and Building (Quebec)

Inspector (on boat)

33882333** ===*==-28 2727 8RER BRENA 283288 FRANCE

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Lawson, Mr. H. C.

Le Bel, Captain

33

Lewis, Mr. R. H.

28

Leighton, Mr. C. F Lockman, Mr.

MacGill, Mr. J. H.

28

Maclaren, Mr. John

23

Marquette, Mr.

McNab, Mr.

Canadian Pacific Railway Irrigated Lands Canadian Pacific Railway Workshops

Central Experimental Farm (Ottawa)

Child Emigration

Medical expenses of detained emigrants Medicine flat

Milne, Dr. H. G.

Montreal

Motherwell, Mr. Muldoon, Misa Murray, Mr. J. Murton, Mr. C. A.

13,39

Newcomers' Inn

Oshawa and Deseronto Deportations

Ottawa...

Owen, Mr. Alfred B.

Pagé, Dr.

! Quebec

Regina...

Rowley, Mr. Rutherford, Mr.

Scott, Mr. W. D. Skene, Mr. Skinner, Mrs. Smith, Mr. E. D.

Stanford, Mr.

...

Steerage Passengers... Stewart, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Sutherland, Mr. D.

Toronto

Vancouver

Victoria

Webster, Mr. C. H.

Webster, Mr. W. J. Winn, Mr. James Winnipeg Wirth, Mr. W. M.

::

Women's Domestic Guild, The

::

Women's National Immigration Society

Women's Welcome Hostel

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12

Zavitz, Professor

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