The Life-Blood of the Empire. 



THE GUARDIANS AND THE CHILDREN. 



By COLONEL H. E. RAWSON, Chairman of the R.C.L Commission 



on Child Emigration 



ALF 



began 



a century ago Miss Rye 

 her labour of love in the 

 field of emigration by selecting- and 

 sending out waifs and strays to 

 Canada, and about the same time 

 a philanthropist despatched a ship- 

 load of some four hundred and fifty emigrants, 

 a large number of whom were children, to a 

 colony in the Southern Hemisphere. Such 

 enterprises were regarded in those days in much 

 the same light as the efforts of the Home Oflfice 

 to " emigrate " individuals to Botany Bay for 

 their own good in particular and for that of this 

 country in general. Hence the tradition that 

 emigration was a means of getting rid of our 

 failures, which is recognisable to-day in the 

 suspicion with which our Dominions look upon 

 any scheme to move part of the surplus popula- 

 tion of the United Kingdom into them. The 

 word is now altogether a misnomer, and its use 

 should be discontinued in connection with move- 

 ments of the population within the Empire. 



In the pages of this journal for July, August, 

 and October articles have appeared on the 

 general question of Imperial emigration, and 

 in this we shall confine our remarks to child 

 emigration, and as briefly as possible outline the 

 regulations which stand in its way and the most 

 constructive method of arriving at a co-ordina- 

 tion of these regulations with the needs of the 

 Empire. The subject is of special interest at 

 the present moment, when a joint Royal Com- 

 mission representing the United Kingdom and 

 the self-governing Dominions is sitting to take 

 evidence regarding it. 



Canada is the only Dominion in which any 

 scheme for child emigration is organised and 

 officially recognised, and it is the first to show 

 a wish to expand such a scheme and to co- 

 operate with the Home Government in doing so. 

 Through its Government Inspector it has 

 emphatically pronounced upon the value of the 

 juvenile immigration movement to the farmers, 

 and stated that there have been fewer com- 

 plaints concerning the character and industry of 

 this class of new comer than of any other. . The 

 Dominion's Special Commissioner, who investi- 

 gated the problem on both sides of the A-tlantic, 

 has declared in his recent report that there is a 

 wide scope for child immigrants generally ; that 

 New Brunswick alone is ready to absorb 500 



boys yearly of the class who in England drift 

 into "blind alley" occupations; and that it 

 would be well to utilise the machinery provided 

 by the emigration societies of the United King- 

 dom for obtaining them. 



On the other hand, a circular letter was 

 addressed in 1910 by the Local Government 

 Board to Boards of Guardians in England and 

 Wales respecting children under the Poor Law, 

 pointing out that " emigration afforded one of 

 the surest means of extricating children from 

 pauperism and the influence of evil surround- 

 ings," and giving it as the Board's opinion that 

 Guardians " would do well in further exercising 

 their powers of emigrating children." 



It would appear that with Canada ready to re- 

 ceive and the Guardians in a position to supply, 

 with great advantage to the children themselves, 

 thousands of both sexes, there should be no 

 difficulty in effecting the transfer. It is esti- 

 mated that there are about 20,000 children in 

 certified industrial schools who have been taken 

 from unsatisfactory surroundings, but form a 

 most suitable class from which to select children. 

 There are also some 30,000 orphan, deserted, 

 and adopted children under the complete control 

 of the Guardians ; while there are many destitute 

 and neglected children who but for philanthropic 

 agencies would come under the care of the 

 Guardians. 



Many Guardians have the interests of the 

 Poor Law child really at heart, and would 

 warmly welcome a scheme which would carry 

 the children at an early age far from their pre- 

 sent hopeless and fatal surroundings, set them 

 on an equal footing with other boys and girls, 

 and give them the chance of a future in a new 

 country. But the regulations which bind them 

 had their origin in the old biassed views regard- 

 ing emigration, and until they are modified or 

 swept away altogether a Guardian finds himself 

 hampered at every turn. A young child before 

 he or she can be " emigrated " must be taken 

 before the magistrates, and in open court reply 

 to the question, Do you wish to go? What can 

 be more absurd, when little or nothing has been 

 done to teach the child in the schools what the 

 new home would be like ! Surely some other 

 authority but the child should have a voice in the 

 matter, and part of the school education should 

 consist in planting a knowledge of the empire 



