The Life-Blood oF' the Empire. 



307 



!)igh as 85 per cent. ; in others it tails as low as 10 

 per cent. IJut this very experience will be invaluable 

 lor future developments, and it may be that wb.at 

 rannot be ijot direct can be secure'l indirectly. 



The problem bpforc the Army is plain but immense. 

 \n outlet must be found for forty thousand widows, 

 nearly all able-bodied, with 120,000 children, in 

 receipt of outdoor relief, generally admitted to he 

 quite inadequate. Thousands of those are ready to 

 escape the bondage of crushing poverty and assured 

 of being weK omed abroad. There is also a stand- 

 ing army of at least 500,000 workers suffering 

 continually from under-employment, at least half 

 of them readv and willing to emigrate ; work and 

 opportunities waiting for them across the seas : 

 I ,,^00.000 single women in e.xcess of the male popula- 

 tion. Average earnings of working women about 7s. 

 per week. In our Colonies the male population is in 

 e.vcess of the female by nearly 1,000,000. There are 

 three hundred and fifty thousand unwanted chil- 

 ilren in Britain ; half of them are at least eligible 

 for emigration, while their present cost of main- 

 tenance is /lo.ooo.ooo p(;r annum. I approve of the 

 suggestion that the Council schools should train 

 children for future emigration, and think that school- 

 teachers, having presumably some knowledge of their 

 pupils and their homes, could with advantage be 

 used to pass boys of fourteen who are orphans, or 

 who live in undesirable homes, into the proper emigra- 

 lion channels. These boys — the unwanted here and 

 the needed in the (!olonies— through lack of knowledge 

 and lack of somebody to press their claims, would be 

 likely to miss their opportunities and drift into 

 channels of " blind. alley" labour in this country. 



.MISrSE OF UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN'S ACT. 



The Unemployed Workmen's Act could easily have 

 icen userl to further the emigration of those who 

 wanted to go. But it has simply been made to add t6 

 the congestion of towns, for the countryman, no matter 

 how hard he is pressed, cannot hope to obtain emigra- 

 lioii help til! he has come into a city to add to tin- 

 miserable congestion, and he himself and his famil)' 

 to serve an apprenticeship of at least twelve months' 

 semi-starvation, for all the Local Government Board 

 orders have applied to the larger towns. 



No doubt the Liberal Party hone^•ly believe that 

 these islands can be so organiseil that ihoy can support 



in decent comfort at least double the population they 

 now carry. The Unionist Party are at least theoreti- 

 cally more favourable to emigration, although pre- 

 sumabl)' Tariff Reform would give more work at home. 

 But both parties arc now truly Imperial, and so wc 

 ma)' reasonably e.Kpect them to agree to the treatment 

 of this question outside the sphere of party politics. 

 The State can best do this work by finding the money 

 and leaving responsibility. A pn)[)osal put forward by 

 General Booth some time ago has in it the right idea. 

 '■ Set aside," said the General, " ten millions ot pounds 

 — appoint a small commission whose business it would 

 he to consider schemes put forward, and let the work 

 be done, and grants and loans, free of interest, be made 

 according to the scheme approved." 



JOHN BURNS AND EMIGRATION. 



John Burns probably thinks the Army should be 

 content to prepare people for Heaven and not for 

 better conditions on earth. That is because Burns does 

 not understand the Army, and fails to see that better 

 conditions mean better service, and to the Salvationist 

 that is nearly everything. l"\irthermore, the cheery 

 optimism of the President of the Local Go\ernment 

 Board is apt at times to lead him astray. Again, Burns 

 is afraid of the Labour Party, and the Labour Party 

 afraid of themselves in the Old Country, because it 

 does not appear to be their policy to recognise the 

 necessity or utility of emigration, and, perhaps, because 

 their colleagues in the Colonies are not yet educated 

 up to an immigration policy. 



Courage is wanted at the offices of the Local Govern- 

 ment Board. .\t a conservative estimate, thousands of 

 Poor Law children could have been emigrated where 

 only hundreds have gone abroad during the past three 

 years. It is not that the officials are opposed to emigra- 

 tion ; I believe a great change has come over the Local 

 Government Board in recent years, and that the 

 permanent official is really sympathetic to the idea of 

 emigration. What is wanted now is encouragement. 

 Let the Local Board of Guardians be /yiisluut a little. 

 A contribution of, say, one-third of the cost from the 

 Central Funds would work wonders, for the average 

 Board of Guardians is very susceptible on this score. 

 Never was such waste of lands, opportunities, and 

 human life. Surely the problem confronting the 

 15riiish race to-day is the i tii.isation ok this 



W ASTi:. 



HAND-PICKED EMlCiRANTS : T. W. SIIKKFIKLD.* 



The necessity for some system of selecting immi 

 rants becomes more apparent every year. Many 

 iheories have been advanced and much said on this 

 \ital question, but so far no method has been atlopled 

 that wll render any striking benefits to Canadian or 

 British authorities. The <lif1iculty of assimilating the 

 relatively huge influx becomes appallingly apparent 



• Mr. ShcfTicM h Aclinjj Commissioner in this connlry for 

 lU'gip*. Saskttlclu.-w.in. 



when the numbers, as compared with the number of 

 Canadians, is considered. During the last eleven yeans 

 Canada has received nearly 2,110,000 immigrants, of 

 whom approximately 820,000 were from the United 

 Kingdom and 7^0,000 from the I'nited States. Up to 

 the close of the fiscal year ending .March 31st, l()ri, 

 tin- total was 1,714, .^26 for the decade. Since then 

 nearly too.ooo more have arrived, divided equally 

 between British and .\incri( .m mimigrants. About 



