FLIGHT FROM BRITAIN.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1732, 24 April 1913, Page 5

FLIGHT FROM BRITAIN.

EMIGRATION INCREASING.

EFFECT OF TRADE "BOOM."

SAVINGS TO PAY FARES. London, April 8. 'Ibis is our year of record prosperity. It is also going (o be our year of record emigration. lS'sver has the United Kingdom onjoved a time ot (Mich good trade. Never has tlio percentage of unemployed been «i small or tho average rate of wages so liigu. Mr. Lloyd-Georgo said not Jong since, and with reason, "Trade has been sa prosperous that there has never been, within living memory, a time when it has been so difficult to find men." They can nnd them, however, to emigrate.Tlio shipping companies report that they cannot accommodate the applicants for berths. About a hundred people nro turned away disappointed every day from tho offices of the- Canadian Pacific Kailway. This has been going on for a month past. Every third-class berth is Ixjokcd up until Juno 10, second c 1 as.-; until May 15. 'l'ho Allan Line is fully booked far ahead. Other lines report the same. Yet thero were never so many companies, or such fine shins, catering i'or tlio Canadian passenger trade.. Tour years ago 52,000 English peoplo went to Canada. Last year tho total was 138,121. This year it will be probably IGO.OOO. I'or every ono man who went out four years ago three aro leaving now. 'Australia doeS not, of course, touch tho Canadian figure, but the boom in emigration to Australia reached a great height during the latter part of last year. It was for a long time impossible to obtain a second or third-class berth to the Commonwealth. Tho main centre from which tho emigrants avo drawn is Scotland. Here tho exodus is beginning to cause some uneasiness. "I was talking with a largo employer of labour here," a Dundee emigration agent wrote recently. "Ho told mo that thero was no reason for peoplo to leave lo find work. They could emnloy two thousand more hands in the mills if they could get them. Wages have gono up 12| por cent." Tho Dundee mill hands have been notably emigrating i'or soiuo years. The Best Men Going. Why, when trade is at its apex and employment eo abundant, should so many emigrate ? One of tho most experienced shipping agents supplied the answer, aud his views wero continued by others. "A time of good trade is always a good time for emigration," he said. "'.Thereare large numbers of people—young, strong, and ambitious—longing to go to the Dominions, but never able, at ordinary times, to save tlio money. Their wages are too low for them to save „CIO or il2 for faro and personal funds; all their friends are as poor as themselves, and so they cannot borrow. When good trade comes along they can save enough to go. "This applies specially to workers in towns. But the marked feature of the emigration this year is not so much the townsmen who are leaving England as tho largo proportion ( of countrymen. Tho prosperity in British manufactures does not apply to tho land. Multitudes of small farmers have boon ruined by tho two bad seasons; l'Jll was too dry, and 1912 was too wet. These men have Iwon sold up, oi liavo had to quit. They do not want to become townsmen. Those who can afford it aro making their way to Canada or Australia, and'they are ]ust tho kint; o; men we want. —

'jli met one of this type at Grantham last. w«l;. Hs was a fine, upstanding young farmer, in tho prime of life. The two bad yours iiad broken him and had not even left him enough lo pay his rare out West. Ito had been brokeit in the gamble with British weather.

"There is still another reason why peoplo are going in linereasiug numbers this year. Most of the old emigrants have made good. The farm labourer from Dorset has a farm of his own in Alberta now. Ho is saving money. He sends homo something to help tho old folk along, and ho nays the fare of his brother to come and help him. This kind of thing is t going on to an enormous extent. In Canada, at least, we aro getting u finer type of Englishman than ever before. The standard of emigrants is going up all tho time. ■ "Five years ago Canada used to smile at the British emigrant as a weedy derelict. Wo no longer smile. You don't fiend us your derelicts now, 'hut your picked young' people."—"Daily Mail."