CHAPTER IX

LEAVING THE OLD COUNTRY

When a man has made up his mind to seek his fortune in Canada he naturally wants to know the steps to be taken. The Dominion Government is more than willing to assist him in every possible way. It regards every man able and willing to work, with a good character, as a valuable asset to Canada. Not only the Dominion Government, but the various Provincial Governments have established agencies and offices in this country to supply intending emigrants with all the information they desire. It will be useful to give here a list of the Dominion offices and agencies:—

England and Wales.

Mr. J. Obed Smith, Assistant Superintendent of Emigration, 11—12, Charing Cross, London, S.W.

Branch offices:—48, Lord Street, Liverpool.
139, Corporation Street, Birmingham.
81, Queen Street, Exeter.
16, Parliament Street, York.
Scotland.
107, Hope Street, Glasgow.
26, Guild Street, Aberdeen.
Ireland.
17—19, Victoria Street, Belfast.
44, Dawson Street, Dublin.

No fees are charged at these offices for the information given. Inquirers should write, stating what they want to know, and they will receive replies to their inquiries and literature which will further inform their minds. A large number of booking agents are appointed in various towns throughout the country by the Canadian Immigration Department. These local agents are also commissioned and required to give all necessary information and to arrange for the transportation of emigrants by the various steamship lines. It is forbidden to such agents to charge fees for letters of introduction to officials on the Canadian side and for other services that fall within the duties for which they are paid commission. The spring is far and away the best time of the year to arrive in Canada. It is when agricultural operations are commencing that the demand for labour invariably exceeds the supply and the activity in industries other than agricultural is also at its greatest. Through the winter there is a general slackening both on the land and in the cities. Farmers, farm labourers, and female domestic servants are the classes who are most encouraged by the Canadian Immigration Department to go out. All others are advised to get definite assurance of employment in Canada before leaving home. They should be provided with a few pounds for use on the other side after all the expenses of going out have been paid. As has been indicated in an earlier chapter, there are usually a large number of Canadian farmers willing to advance the passage money if necessary to well-recommended men. Lists of such farmers are kept in the Departments of Agriculture in the various Provinces. The Dominion immigration agents on this side would tell intending emigrants desiring such assistance to whom to apply. The various Canadian railway companies and their shipping lines, with the great Cunard line, which specialises in the emigrant business, are also well furnished with information of value to emigrants. At the offices of these lines information with regard to employment and getting the money for the passage advanced to selected men, if that is absolutely necessary, is also given.

As to the cost of going out, it may be put down for those going steerage at from £6 10s. and £10 to £12 for second class. On the other side the railway companies convey settlers at very cheap rates, and there are special freightage rates for settlers’ goods. A steerage passenger will be conveyed third class to Winnipeg or Regina, for instance, involving nearly 2,000 miles of land travel, for £10 or £12 from Great Britain. The steerage accommodation, as a rule, is necessarily somewhat crowded, for the fares have been cut down to such a low level that it is a wonder it can be done at the price at all. A very great improvement, however, has been effected as compared with the emigrants’ accommodation given only a dozen years ago. A steerage emigrant must not mind a little roughing it on board. He is assured, any way, of a plentiful supply of wholesome and varied food, and the ship’s doctor and stewards and stewardesses are there to see that there is proper attendance in case of sickness and that the sanitary conditions are all right. I have been through the steerage quarters of several emigrant ships and seen the steerage passengers at their meals. They seemed cheerful enough provided the sea was moderately quiet. Of course, in a gale or when the sea is swelling in long rollers, even first-class passengers on the most luxurious of modern ships are bowled over and tempted to wish that they had never left land. During the first two or three days there is usually a good percentage unable to take any interest in meals. When they have found their sea-legs, however, and the appetite for food returns, it is surprising how cheerful the steerage passengers become. There are games on the deck, sports are arranged, boxing-gloves are produced, the combatants being surrounded by a ring of interested spectators. The young women work off their exuberant vitality with the skipping rope. The children of families going out romp as freely as if they were in the streets or in fields. In the evening sing-songs are got up.

Great is the excitement when, on the sixth day or so, land comes in sight, and when the ship enters the Gulf of the St. Lawrence the “steerage” during the daylight is all on deck, scanning the scenery on either side. No scenery can give a more favourable first impression of the country. The ranges of wooded hills, the towns and villages, each with its church spire in the centre, the fishing boats, are all objects of never-failing interest. Quebec is the landing place for the immigrants. There is no more picturesque approach to any city than the approach up the river to Quebec, the old capital of French Canada. The cliffs rise sheer from the water’s edge, crowned by the buildings of the Old Town. If the approach is by night the lights of Quebec give it a most picturesque appearance. It is always the effort of the pilot who takes the boat in to reach Quebec by six in the evening, otherwise the immigrants have to remain on board till the morning. The ship by which I travelled, the Royal George of the Canadian Northern Royal Line, did not reach Quebec until two in the morning, when all but a few of the passengers were sound asleep. They could not be landed until the immigration officials were at their duty at the immigration landing stage. Breakfast was served at five o’clock, and by half-past five the party of a thousand or so steerage passengers were waiting on the deck with their belongings to go ashore. It was a dramatic and a pathetic sight to see them crossing the gangway. A large number of them were young fellows, some well-dressed, educated-looking men of the clerk or shop assistant type. They were well set-up athletic fellows who had found the competitive conditions of London and the provincial cities and towns of the Old Country such as gave them little, if any, hope of rising above the earning of 30s. or £2 a week. In Canada the world was before them, and they landed with hope in their hearts, though no doubt with heart pangs as they thought of those they had left behind them. Then there was a rougher class, the class that dispenses with collars, wears a cap and very likely corduroy trousers, labourers from the villages, unskilled men from the towns, muscular fellows—the men who rely upon their brawn rather than their brains to make their way. The young fellows of the clerk and shop assistant type had trunks and portmanteaux—“grips,” as the Canadians call them. The men of the labourer type carried their scanty belongings usually done up in a bundle or a rough box. There were older men with wife and sometimes children. These were the most pathetic to watch as they crossed the gangway—the man with the heaviest trunk, the woman very often with a bundle or a big cardboard box tied with string, the elder children also carrying bundles, sometimes a baby warmly wrapped up in a shawl—these also had found the Old Country too hard for them, and they had come to a country where, in most cases, a situation was awaiting the man and it would depend largely upon himself whether, having got his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, he should climb up to the highest. A large number of the skilled artisans had had situations secured for them before they left England—thirty joiners, for instance, were going to situations at one town in Ontario. Then there were a number of rough-looking fellows on whom a master-builder or an engineer’s ganger would have had his eye at home. For this class there is plenty of work in Canada, for railway construction takes in an endless supply of labour. Building is going on all over the Dominion at an incredible rate, and the factories that are springing up in the Eastern Provinces, especially in Ontario, are taking on every year thousands of additional employés.