“My sojourn here, though not pleasant and not profitable from a business point of view, has opened an extensive field of thought. Of my companions the most interesting was the lumberman whose wife was sick, and who as a result was leaving the woods. I was quite interested by his ideas of human life, although they were not given in a scientific way. He was evidently a man of energy; one who took life seriously and who had his share of troubles. It was pathetic to hear the way he spoke of how his wife’s family usually died at about twenty-four years of age, how his wife was now at that age and was sick. In fact, there are worse places than the lumber woods for the study of man.”
In the spring of 1898 he was rejoiced at having the opportunity of conducting a more or less extended inquiry into the conditions of working men in the several trades.
“The Mail,” he writes, “intends, during the coming summer, to publish a series of articles concerning the conditions, social, moral and economic, governing each of the various trades, the facts to be gathered by personal observation and enquiry from journeymen, apprentices, employers and employees. The work is to be a feature of each day’s paper, and, mirabile dictu, the entire charge of the matter, design and detail, has been handed over to me. I need not say that I am pleased. I have at once an opportunity of examining into the industrial and sociological conditions of the city and province, and possibly of doing good to my fellow men as the result of these observations. Incidentally, also, I have an opportunity of strengthening myself in my own profession, although that is a thing that one can do in journalism no matter what line of work one is pursuing. Roughly described, the aim of the series of sketches is to indicate to the parent what qualifications are required for, and what returns are to be expected from, the several vocations, in order that he may the better decide what to do with his boy or girl. I appreciate the responsibility which the work places upon me, and pray that I may be able to meet it.”
The articles which were written by Harper, then twenty-four years of age, and which appeared under the caption “What to do with your boy or girl,” were continued in the Mail from day to day for several months, and attracted very considerable attention at the time. They disclose a remarkable ability to get at facts, and the strongest sympathy with the end in view, and constitute a not unimportant contribution to the scanty literature which has thus far appeared, having to do with industrial and labour conditions in the Dominion.
The human interest which made even the dry language of statutes to glow with animation for him, is abundantly apparent from the following passages in reference to some of his work in the department of labour:
“I spent most of the day in the Library of Parliament, reading up the provincial acts concerning mining. The thing which impressed me, as I read, was the uninviting nature of the task of the miner, cut off from the light of day, hewing away in the bowels of the earth, exposed to the danger of cave-ins, explosions, and a living entombment, as the result of carelessness on the part of his employers, or his associates, or the will of nature. How can such men, if they are crowded down almost to the margin of subsistence, develop a roseate view of life! Ever facing almost terrorizing conditions, they must become brave, sturdy, self-reliant and earnest enough, but how can they fail to be out of sympathy with the shams, hypocrisies and dilettantisms of modern society!”
And again:
“At the office, I have been much interested in working upon the article on the Fisheries of Canada, inasmuch as it has shown to me a sturdy class of men toiling under conditions of hardship and danger for what is comparatively a small return. Doubtless the isolation of the fishing villages, the system of part proprietorship, and the passion for a sea-faring life, account for the relative immobility of the population.
“I am becoming more and more convinced daily of the fact that this country is going through a transition stage which must influence it to the bottom. The use of machinery, the weakening of the artisan by removing the rewards of skill, the work and wages of girls, the prevalence of piece work and its results, the effects of pauper and convict labour, and a thousand other problems are brought daily before my notice in terms of flesh and blood.
“It is important to know and understand all sorts and conditions of men if society as a whole is to be led towards what is better. Certainly the ‘better class of people’ need leading as well as the others, for with them the opportunity offered by leisure is too often wasted in dilettantism and folly.”