CANADA

[1] The Emigrant

During the nineteenth century emigration of the surplus population took place to New Zealand, Australia, the U.S. of America, and to Canada, from the British Isles, the reasons being economic and financial. There always seemed to be a surplus of laborers to do the work that had to be done. This condition played into the hands of the employers who paid what wages they liked, which was not much. Farm laborers were paid as little as ten shillings per week and, on that amount, a man and his wife and two children had to be fed and clothed, after the rent had been paid. Often there were more children and, for the sake of Canadian readers, that ten shillings was less than two-and-a-half dollars. One can only guess or imagine how people lived and survived then.

There was advertised the opportunities open to immigrants. [2] One of the popular songs ran thus:

To the West, to the West, to the land of the Free

Where the mighty Missouri flows down to the sea;

Where a man is a man if he's willing to toil,

And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil.

That, of course, was the United States. Then the advertisements of the C.P.R. or Canadian Government ran like this:

160 acres of land free:

Roads, Schools, Churches,

and no taxes.

All of which looked pretty good especially to an overcrowded, underpaid labor market.

In the mining industry, I need not make any great statement. Sufficient to quote the case of the South Wales coal fields, where the miners were housed in hovels, wages paid none too grand for the work done and the risk to life and limb daily, the owners making huge fortunes and being honored by knighthood and leaving behind them hundreds of unemployed, rows of tumble down [3] hovels, and mountains of slag, having skipped out of the country millions of tons of coal and iron.

Take shipping: I've seen hundreds of men around the dock gates in London, hungry half-starved men clamoring for work at unloading a ship that had just docked. Perhaps 100 men would be taken on out of 300, and that at 6d equal to 13 cents an hour. And when the job was finished, no more work until another ship came in, or they would go away to other dock gates to swell the crowds already there.

Take the retail trades, and you will find a species of white slavery, hard work, long hours, low wages and even the handicrafts, until Trade Unions were formed, were not well paid and the Government did little or nothing until obliged. I know that Lord Shaftesbury brought forward and caused to [4] be passed in Parliament laws against many of the outstanding abuses such as child labor and the worst conditions, but all this through a super abundance of cheap labor.

Consider the conditions in Scotland where about three noble (?) lairds owned a half of Scotland, and the men who worked for them or rented their farms could scarce get a living off the land and were thus forced to emigrate.

In Ireland, too, the Irish emigrant was well known, and in their thousands they went to the States (U.S.A.).

And the Church, so called, taught them to obey their Pastors and Masters, and to make themselves content. "In that state of life it had pleased God to call them."

In the manufacturing trades, conditions were not what they should have been. Too much profit to the shareholders of the big concerns; [5] too much interest on money invested; too much luxury amongst those who could get the most money; while those who were employed were paid what the employers thought fit. No Trade Unions, no arbitration.

In the matter of education, until 1870 when Mr. Torsher's Education Bill was passed, there was no Government control. The Church, so called, was supposed to educate the children of the parish which consisted of the teaching of what is termed the 3 R's: 'readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic, but only the elements were taught. The pupils had to learn and, if considered slow or incompetent, were told, "I'll learn you!" And were given a dressing down with a stick an inch thick. I had it! I know!

[6] But why labor the matter? Charles Dickens has exposed the system and the school master pretty well. It may be overdrawn in cases, but without exaggeration. No notice is usually taken but Dickens sets forth in his writings the conditions existing in England at the time of writing.

The Tory lords and masters were apparently appointed by Providence to rule over the lower orders, hence the state of affairs until Labor members were admitted to Parliament, and not till then were any particular considerations given to the working class. John Newton is said to have had sweet communion with God on his quarter deck while hundreds of Negroes were below decks half suffocated and half starved, whom he was going to sell to the slave owners and drivers of the Western Hemisphere. [7] Do you wonder why people emigrated?

But most of this happened during the most prosperous times in England - the days of free trade, when her ships carried 60 per cent of the world's merchandise, and she was the world's banker. Yet her own nationals were largely uncared for. Conservatism ruled; only property owners had a vote. Farm laborers had no vote and therefore no voice in the government of the country.

So the franchise was extended after the cry had reached high heaven and co-operative societies formed. Rochdale in Lancashire was the leader in this, and still retains that lead. Trade Unions were formed and wages and working conditions were improved. A new industrial world emerged, and still there was need of emigration. The population of the British Isles when I went to school was twenty million. [8] Notwithstanding the fact that, during the latter half of the nineteenth century many millions of persons emigrated, during the century or less the population exceeded forty-five million.

I could cite many more cases. Dickens, in his books, exposed many abuses. Wilkie Collins, especially the tailoring trade in his book, Alton Locke. These have answered the question, Why emigrate? And so Uncle Arthur, Leonard and Harold, Uncle Sam and Aunt Maggie had gone to Canada in 1904 or 1905. Eustace and I followed in 1906.

Link to next section, or back to the part 2 index.