NEW LIFE IN CANADA

Taranaki Daily News, 27 December 1929, Page 13

NEW LIFE IN CANADA

MIGRATION EXPERIMENT:, . Vancouver, Nov. 27. In tho autumn of 1926 the British Empire Ex-Servicemen’s League selected 26 families for settlement on the land in Canada. /To fit them for their new life they were sent to Brandon, Sussex, where they were trained in farm conditions similar to what they would encounter in Canada. The men were taught the rudiments of 'handling livestock, milking, cultivation, etc., and the wives were given instructions in the care of the farm home, how to make bread and butter and rearing poultry. On their arrival in Canada the families were met by officers of the Canadian Legion and supplied with creature comforts for their 3000-miles train journey westward. At all the principal stopping places this personal service was repeated. At the journey’s end they experienced hocjitality that reaches its highest expression in the Canadian West, “where the handclasp’s a little stronger.” Where are those 20 families now? Ten arc still on the land making good, five ar-'-- going along nicely in industrial occupations, five families have been returned to England. Canada has gained 15 families —50 per cent, agriculture, 25 per cent, industrial —and regards it as ~ a good investment. That is one side of the picture. Of the fiv; families returned to England, the failure of three of them is attributed to the inability of the wife to fit into her new environment. Of the ten families not successfully settled on the land in three cases the failure was due to the inability of the man to assimilate Canadian conditions. In two other cases progress was made impossible by the recurrence of war disability. It is interesting to note that in one of the cases where the wife- was the cause of the family’s return to England she has since written begging another chance in Canada. — Auckland Herald Correspondent.