BRITISH EMIGRANTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 11

BRITISH EMIGRANTS.

XO THE JSDITOK. ■Sir, — With reforonco to remarks in >your issue of 21st and your footnote to a Press Association cablegram of tho 24th inst., concerning British emigrants, I would be glad if ypu could now find space for portion of a striking article published in June last in a London paper, by Mr. F. A. M'Kenzie, the wellknown writer and war correspondent, who gives a graphic description of the departure of the Vancouver with a thousand emigrants on board, wherein ho expresses his warm admiration for the organisation which the- SalvatioD Army" has brought to bear upon the great problem of unemployment and over-population. — I am, etc., j X Wellington, 25th Sept. Mr. M'Kenzib writes :— "I went en the lower deck, mixing with the out^oers. Thero were many interesting characters among them. One was a baby of two. Her father had gono abroad, leaving her in the workhouse. Unable to pay his way at Home, he found enough and ,to spare in the West, and he had sent back money for the keep of his child, and for, its fare, and asking the Salvation Army to bring it out to him. As a contrast to the child was an old lady, ''eighty-two next June," as sho assured me proudly, also from the workhousb. Her son, now earning a fair living in Canada, had sent for her to comu from the workhouse, to his Dome. "If it wasn't for the rhoumatiz in my feet, I could dance with any of the young folk," she said to me. Beneath her little black bonnet one could see a, smooth old forehead and bright, twinkling eyes. The silver hair, the neat clothes, and the gentleness of the old lady went to my heart. Those old arms of yours were made to hold and fondle children, Granny, and those old eyes of yours were made soft to exchange looks of love with the infant eyes of your son's babes. All we have been able tv give you, as to many like you, has been the whitewashed walls, the official bed, and the soul-crushing life of the home of public charity. Never mind, Granny, better days are ahead! "My boy has eight children of his own," Granny says, proudly. "Ho's a good boy, ne is, just the kind to get on. But he never had a chance hers; he had to go across the water to have a chance. He nas not been out there very long, but now he's earning plenty, and he's a garden full of flowers and trees, and he has a nice house, and he never forgot his old mother at Home. God bless him ; he wanted me, and I'm soin<* to him." _° "There's no chance for me herci" You hear the same story from man after man in. this throng. Now it is the countryman : 'How can you earn a living on the land at Home? I am .going to try Canada: It may bs better; it can't be worse." Now it is the labourer: Eighteen shillings a week was all I could earn here. v Who can keep a family in London on eighteen shillings a week? I couldn't. They tell mo that I can make good money there." It is hard for some to realise that in a short time the Salvation 'Army should have become the most considerable Imperial emigration agency in existence, one of the great forces for the consolidation of Empire. Yesterday the man in the red guernsey, preaching at the street corner and offending mo susceptibilities of the fastidious in many ways, was ranked by those who judged merely by surface appearance as the narrowest and poorest of sectarians. To day his influence is felt in every land, and he himself has grown, with his widening sphere. No one can examine the Salvation Army emigration work without discovering the reasons for Its 'success. Much is due to the character of tho men at the head, to the discipline in their ranks, and to the wide-reaching nature of their organisation. Other agencies have often chosen emigrants wisely, but they have had insufficient means for dealing with them all over a great, continent like America. The Salvation Army has its officers everywhere. The emigrant goes to an out-of-the-way cornet of British Columbia. There is an army captain there who knows of his coming. He helps hiril to find work ; he lets him have his bed if necessary; and he acts as the adviser on the spot, the friend in a strange land. Then the Salvation Army advances money to suitable cases. The town labourer with eifjht children would make splendid material for Canada, but how is he to get there? So far as it can, the army, lends him part or all of his passage money, on trust, to be repaid as soon as may bp. It picks "its' men carefully, and with greater funds it could send many more. As it is, it uses the agent's commission on each passage. to this end. •The young pfeople- do well to go. Some will fail, most will succeed. All will have what few of them could have found at horne — a chance to live. There arc tears now, but to-morrow thero will be laughter."