Homes and Careers in Canada

by Harry Jeffs

EMIGRANTS LANDED AT QUEBEC.

From Quebec the steerage passengers are despatched by the various railways to their destinations. There are representatives of the immigration departments of the railway and steamship companies to convoy parties westward as far as Winnipeg, the great distributing centre for the Prairie Provinces.

In addition to the Dominion, the Provincial Governments’, and the railway and shipping companies’ emigration agencies in Great Britain, there are plenty of societies, institutions, and religious organisations which have organised emigration work. The Salvation Army, for instance, sends out a large number every year. Those men do best who have received some preliminary training on a farm colony at home. The Dominion and Provincial Governments are much more exacting than they formerly were with regard to the quality of emigrants sent out. Canada does not want the human refuse for which the Old Country can find no use at home dumped on its shores. A prospective immigrant has to run the gauntlet of strict inquiry and examination with regard to his health and habits. This is as it should be, for it is no kindness to send out men whose physique is unequal to the climate and conditions of the country or whose morals and intelligence unfit them to become useful citizens. In the East of London and elsewhere there are self-help emigration societies through which a man is enabled to save up the money requisite to go out and otherwise prepare to become a successful colonist. The Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, and other Churches have organised means to assist emigrants to go out and to be received and helped at the ports of landing and the chief centres of distribution.

Latterly, the Brotherhood Movement of England and Wales has undertaken the work of assisting emigrants belonging to Brotherhoods and Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Societies by giving them reliable information and by arranging for them to be assisted by representatives of the Brotherhood Movement in Canada when they land. It is a very great advantage for a man going out to find somebody willing to take a disinterested and friendly interest in him on his arrival. He naturally feels lonely on landing in a new country, and if he arrives with only a pound or two in his pocket and no situation awaiting him and does not immediately get employment he is distressed and humiliated. Mr. R. J. Harry, hon. secretary of the International Committee of the Brotherhood Movement, is willing to give such advice as he has at his disposal to members of Brotherhood, P.S.A. and Sisterhood Societies who communicate with him at the National Brotherhood Offices, 37, Norfolk Street, Strand, London, W.C. The Brotherhood Movement has arranged with influential men in the principal Canadian cities to act as counsellors of Brotherhood men accredited to them, assisting them to obtain situations and lodgings and introducing them to Churches and Brotherhoods where such exist. I found that in Winnipeg, Vancouver, and other Canadian cities the Brotherhoods have devised the happy institution of Sunday afternoon tea to which the new-comers are invited. I was present at two such teas, and heard from recently arrived immigrants how their friendly reception at this pleasant function and the fraternisation with them of Canadians had made them feel at once at home.

Let it be impressed on all emigrants to Canada that the sooner they get into friendly touch with Churches, Brotherhoods, the splendid Y.M.C.A.’s, and other institutions of the Dominion, the better it will be for them. Canada is no more than any other country a paradise without a serpent. There are temptations, moral dangers, land sharks on the look out for easy victims. The members of the Canadian Churches, Brotherhoods and Y.M.C.A.’s are willing and eager to safeguard immigrants from the moment of their arrival from all such dangers.

It will not be long after arriving in Canada before homesickness makes itself felt. A young man or a young woman never realises how much home and relatives mean to them until they find themselves 4,000 to 5,000 miles away from them. There is sure to be a sinking of heart and a longing to be back amid the old scenes and with the old friends, and it may take months or a year before they settle down with a fair amount of contentedness to the new and strange conditions. The best cure for homesickness is to take the coat off and plunge at once into work with all the physical and mental energy that one commands. The work, the companionships that will be formed, the social connections of Church, Brotherhood or Y.M.C.A. membership, will soon give the new-comer an interest in the country. If he is made of the right stuff it will not be long before, in the Canadian phrase, he “makes good.” When he begins to make good and to feel that he did well in emigrating, and that there is a future for him in his adopted country, the homesickness will gradually wear away. A considerable number of the young men leave the Old Country with the idea as soon as possible of sending for a wife. The prospect of making a home for the girl he has left behind him is one of the best inducements to “make good” in Canada. On the train by which I travelled from Montreal there were three prospective brides who at different points of the route were to meet their bridegrooms and be immediately married. This is a romance of daily occurrence in Canada. A minister told me that he had often married couples on the bride’s arrival at midnight or in the small hours of the morning, for a girl coming out as an immigrant bride of course knows nobody in the town she is going to but her young man, and it is best on every ground that the wedding should be celebrated without delay.

On the subject of woman emigrants I heard a great deal from many Canadian men and women. The girl willing to engage in domestic service is regarded in Canada as having a price far above rubies. She will find in any town of considerable size most flattering competition for her services. The domestic servant is, indeed, so rare that, as has been indicated, Canadian families of high position often have to contrive to do without female help. Where a girl is willing to engage in domestic service, however, she has the best of good times. She is tempted, indeed, to lose her head on finding what a jewel she is. She enters Canada with the Old Country ideas of dutiful submission to her mistress. When she has been a month in her first situation her mistress must not be surprised if she asks for her wages to be doubled, for every Sunday off, and for time off each evening of the week. She does not expect to polish boots, to carry coals, or to perform other duties which the English domestic takes as a matter of course. No domestic servant need hesitate about going to Canada through fear of not finding employment.

With regard to other young women I was told that there is the keenest demand for clever needlewomen who can earn usually $10 to $15 a week by plain sewing.

Canada, especially the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia, is very largely a men’s country, and the men will give almost any price to a clever needlewoman for making and mending their things. Laundry work in Canada is done almost exclusively by Chinese. They make plenty of work for a woman who can mend shirts and the like, for the Chinese methods of washing things are simply disastrous to the things washed. The clever typewriter is in the greatest demand in the Canadian towns. She works short hours, she receives high wages, and is a particularly clever young person. Then the great departmental stores employ girl “clerks”—that is, shop assistants—by the hundred and the thousand. These work under conditions such as might well excite the envy of their sisters in similar establishments in the Old Country. The hours are short, the business day usually closing at five o’clock. It is one of the sights of Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, to see the street cars between five and six o’clock simply swarming with young women returning to their homes, all remarkably well-dressed, looking as if they got the maximum amount of enjoyment out of life.