FEMALE EMTGRATION TO CANADA.

Southland Times, Issue 1025, 21 September 1868, Page 3

FEMALE EMTGRATION TO CANADA.

The success of Mips Eye's expedition to Canada with a hundred servant girls will doubtless lead to a repetition of the experiment, as it indicates a means of disposing of pnrt of our surplus female population. Within a fortnight from the day she left Liverpool she had disposed of every one of them "most satisfactorily ;" and she says that if she had three hundred more, she believes they could all have, been equally well placed. '' We had a most, hearty welcome at i Montreal," she writes, "where excellent arrangements had been made for my people, and where, in a few hours, I easily placed about forty women."' Toronto surpassed Monti'eal. "It has given us," | she says,. " if possible, a heartier welcome, ! and my only fear is that we are receiving too much attention and kindness. However, my visit has more than confirmed my belief that hundreds of situations here may be happily filled by some of our poor, under-paid, half-stai'ved women in England, and I see every prospect of the work which has just been commenced for Canada being again and again repeated with equal success." This- is a most gratifying statement ; but we believe that Miss Eye might have given a much more glowing picture of her success had she allowed herself to dwell upon it. to the extent to which the truth would have warranted. A local journal fills in the picture of which she has given us only the outline. According to this authority, the only difficulty she had to contend against. was to get time to make her own selection of persons to whom she could entrust her proteges. When she arrived at the Toronto Station she found that the news of her mission had. gone before her, and that a large crowd of citizens were waiting eager' to possess themselves of a " help." The scer>e was not a little extraordinary. Forty girls had been disposed of at Montreal, and only sixty remained to be apportioned to 360 applicants. ' Miss Eye was thus enabled to make her own terms, and they appear to have been very advantageous. She. took care that the work as .veil as the wages should be distinctly defined; and in a very short time she concluded the task she had undertaken with a success which perfectly justified her greatest expectations. Women of the class - she took out with her are wanted in the New World. Of the want which exists for them in the "United States we need not speak, so well is the fact known. But in Canada it is. if not quite as great, .at all events sufficient to warrant the belief that the New World may .be called ;to redress the balance of the Old, and that there are " hundreds of situations there which' " may be happily filled by some of our poor, underpaid, .^half-starved women in England.' ; It cannot be doubted that if Canada has the want, England has the means of supplying it. From London alone we -could easily supply the human material requisite to enable Miss, Eye to repeat her happy experiment, to use her own words, " again and again." But individual exertion is not sufficient. Mrs Chisholin did a great deal of good. But what are a hundred women carried across the Atlantic, and transferred from poverty to comfort, compared to the thonsands who remain behind in equal need of such a blessing ? All that philanthropists of this noble stamp can do is to lead- the way. They are pioneers. They show what can be done. It is for others to follow their example. Here, then, we have the fact demonstrated, that there is room for women in Canada for, whom there is no room in England. Miss Eye, who brought to the performance of her task every requisite for success, took her hundred emigrants across the Atlantic without any In a few hours she placed them in the midst of comfort and plenty. That the authorities were alive to the importance of her mission is clear from the fact that at the Toronto Station she was received as the guest of the citizens, and was provided with rooms at the hotel at the public expense. Need we say more upon this subject ? We should hope not. It has beeu shown that there is work in Canada for a considerable portion of our surplus female population. That fact should be sufficient. Miss Eye has shown what can be done, not only to • mitigate the suflerings of our half-starved Englishwomen, but to place them in the midst of comfort and plenty. It is for us to follow her lead. — English papei\