COLONIAL FARM-PUPILS.
It would be a matter of considerable interest if statistics could be obtained showing the number of parents who at the present time find themselves under the necessity of answering that much-debated question, ‘What shall I do with my sons?’ The comparatively narrow paths which lead to fame and prosperity are now so densely crowded by youths of good breeding and education, that but few parents are able to decide, without much anxious consideration, which is the best one for their sons to start life’s journey upon. Some parents choose the learned professions; others select a commercial career; while not a few decide upon a colonial life for their sons. The wisdom, or otherwise, of this last decision we do not here propose to discuss. We accept the plain fact that many well-bred and carefully nurtured young men annually leave these shores as emigrants, bound for the British colonies or the United States. The object of our remarks is to present to the fathers of these young emigrants what the writer—who has seen much, both of emigrants and emigration, on both sides of the Atlantic—regards as a piece of sorely needed advice upon one point of the great question of emigration, as it affects the sons of English gentlemen and ‘blue-blooded boys’ in general.
The average British parent is, as a rule, very ignorant of everything connected with life and labour in the colonies. He is perhaps a fairly successful man of business, or has risen in his profession; but in attaining this success, he has probably been so engrossed with his own occupations, that he has found but little opportunity of turning his attention to matters concerning him less closely. It is not indeed to be expected that any one man should be intimately acquainted with many different subjects. In these days of competition, the division of knowledge is as necessary as the division of labour; and it is the duty of those who are practically acquainted with emigration or any other subject to advise those who are not so well informed. This is what we now propose to do. We desire that our remarks upon the farm-pupil system in the British colonies be understood to apply equally to the Western States of America, which, so far as this article is concerned, are to all intents and purposes British colonies.
To the youth who has been brought up in a comfortable English home, under the care of watchful parents, emigration to any of the colonies brings a very rude and abrupt change of life. Thenceforth, parental oversight will be no longer obtainable, and the young emigrant will have to seek his own living among strangers in a strange land, where evil influences are generally numerous, where the ordinary mode of life is often very rough, and where no one need hope for success unless he is willing and able actually to perform hard manual labour. Under these circumstances, it naturally appears desirable to most parents to do all that lies within their power to obtain for their sons some training to fit them for their future life. This desire has called into existence the system under which many moderately well-to-do young emigrants, on first leaving England, agree to pay a premium to some colonist who is already established on a farm of his own, in order that they may be taught colonial farming.
The system is not in any way essentially a bad one; but it is open to great abuses, and in too many cases leads to fraud. No detailed rules for the guidance of the parents of young emigrants in this matter can be laid down. The necessities vary according to the circumstances of each particular case. But, in a general way, it may be stated that, when the parents of a youth can afford to pay a premium for his instruction, and have ascertained that the settler with whom they are placing their son is in a position faithfully to exercise that amount of oversight which they desire for him, there cannot be any very great abuse of the system. At the same time, it must be admitted that there is seldom any necessity why a premium should be paid. If the young emigrant be steady and of average push and intelligence, there is certainly little or nothing to prevent him obtaining all the experience he requires without paying any premium. Nevertheless, a youth of weak character, easily led away, and of indolent habits, may of course be benefited by a certain amount of care and oversight.
Farming, as practised in the colonies and in the Western States of America, is of the most elementary kind. A person of limited abilities may very easily acquire a knowledge of all its details. Moreover, in these thinly peopled countries, labourers are in great demand. It may be safely asserted that, in those colonies and in those portions of the west of America to which emigration is now chiefly directed, any young man, willing and able to perform ordinary farm-work, will find little difficulty in obtaining employment, at least during the summer months, in spite of the large number of men who are almost always in want of work in large cities. A perfect novice may find it necessary to work for a time for his board and lodging merely; but after a while, he will probably find himself in a position to demand at least sufficient wages, in addition to his board and keep, to maintain himself respectably. If the young emigrant follows the course thus suggested, he may not find his path quite so smooth as that of the young man who has paid his premium; but he will have a better chance of obtaining practical experience of farming. He will live in his master’s house, board at his table, and be treated very much as a member of the family—indeed, the premiumed pupil could hardly be better off; but he will be compelled to learn in a way which he who pays a premium can hardly be, and he will actually be paid for gaining the experience he requires, instead of paying for it!
The eagerness on the part of colonial farmers to obtain farm-pupils is capable of a very simple explanation. In most cases, these men know well enough that there is no real need for the system to be followed; but if they can succeed in obtaining a pupil, they are hardly to be blamed for so doing, as it is no slight advantage to themselves. In the colonies, the harvest usually is plentiful, while the labourers are few, and labour, consequently, is expensive. Obviously, therefore, a pupil who will pay to work and who will not be constantly wanting to leave, is a very great boon to any settler. It should be clearly recognised that, in most cases, if the pupil works in such a way as he must do if he is to obtain a useful practical knowledge of his occupation, his labour alone will amply remunerate the farmer, even if the latter has to find both board and lodging. Clearly, therefore, if a substantial premium be added, the advantage to the settler is considerable. The pupil-system often affords a good deal of amusement to keen-sighted Americans who are in a position to see its weak points. Not unfrequently the writer has had said to him on the other side of the Atlantic: ‘How uncommonly stupid you English people must be to be willing to pay to work!’ This expression not inaptly sums up the whole case.
The abuses to which the system is open are many. In the first place, an exorbitant sum—sometimes as much as one hundred pounds—is asked. Considering that the pupil could in most cases obtain the necessary experience without paying any premium, and that he actually remunerates the settler by working for him, we consider that, under all ordinary circumstances, ten pounds paid to the settler is ample. In the next place, an agent of some kind is necessary to mediate between the parents of a youth and the colonial settler; and either this agent or the settler, or both, may be dishonest, and fail to fulfil their contracts; indeed, the difficulty which a parent would meet with in attempting to compel a defaulting settler to carry out his agreement, is a great incentive to fraud. Only a short time ago it was reported in the daily papers that a number of youths who had paid premiums to an agent in England to be placed with farmers in California, found, on their arrival there, that no arrangements whatever had been made for their reception—in short, that they had been swindled. Similar cases have been heard of before. At the same time, we do not wish to say that there are not honest agencies.
Those who have seen most of the hap-hazard way in which emigration, not only of the poorer, but also of the better classes, is carried on from this country, often express amazement at the injudicious acts which are constantly being committed by ill-advised young emigrants and their blind though well-meaning parents. The needless paying of premiums by parents who can ill afford to spare the money is but one of these indiscretions. Passing over without comment the practice of shipping ‘ne’er-do-wells’ off to the colonies in the vain hope that they will do better there than at home, we cannot help remarking that numbers of promising young men, who are utterly unfitted for the life of an emigrant, are constantly being sent out, and either they, or the country to which they are sent, subsequently get blamed for an almost inevitable failure. Nothing, too, could be more injudicious than the placing of capital in the hands of inexperienced young emigrants at the outset of their career. In a large number of cases it is wholly lost; indeed, it is a common saying in America that but few young Englishmen commence to make headway in their new home until they have either lost or spent all they originally brought out with them and have had to buckle-to in sober earnest. As recommended in a late number (No. 95) of this Journal, those who are intended for a colonial career should go through a course of school-training especially intended to fit them for it.