Adventurers And Exiles_The Great Scottish Exodus
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Brown sailed from Halifax to Liverpool, and almost immediately travelled north to Glasgow and Dundee, where he visited relatives as well as delivering twelve lectures in the county of Angus, and a further two in Glasgow and Ayr. His meetings in Glasgow and Arbroath drew audiences of 1,000 and 750 respectively, larger numbers than he was to encounter elsewhere, particularly in England, where at some venues the turnout was no more than fifty. After a tempestuous two-month sojourn in Ireland, he returned to Scotland, lecturing in Edinburgh, Fife, the Lothians, the north-east, Perthshire, Arran and the south-west before going south. Brown drew heavily on his own experiences as a farmer, emphasized the intellectual progress of New Brunswick and wherever possible tried to tailor his message to his audience by citing examples of local emigrants who had done well. But although the number of emigrants to New Brunswick rose briefly from 1861 to 1863, Brown’s effectiveness was hampered by the lack of an ‘advance man’ to book venues, find a chairman and negotiate favourable publicity with local newspaper editors, and by competition from other destinations, notably Queensland, which at that time was being heavily canvassed by Henry Jordan. Brown was particularly handicapped by being forbidden to make any arrangements with shipping companies to subsidize passages to New Brunswick, or indeed to incur any liabilities on behalf of the provincial government. By no means all newspaper editors could be manipulated as he wished, and the organizational difficulties of an itinerant lecturer, without a base or administrative support, clearly militated against him. By the end of his tour he had wearied of the ‘continual care, fear and anxiety … with cost wholly beyond my expectation’, but his most lasting regret was that the work he had begun did not lay the foundations for a longer-term strategy of professional promotion. 46
Such a strategy was to be set in motion after Confederation, and by the end of the nineteenth century an army of professional Canadian agents had extended its tentacles into even the remotest corners of the British Isles, Europe and the United States. In 1867 the federal and provincial departments of agriculture were given concurrent responsibility for immigration, although in practice most of the promotional work was done by the federal department. In 1893 the headed notepaper changed, when responsibility was transferred to the department of the interior, but policy remained fairly consistent, irrespective of which office had its hand on the tiller. Resident agents were stationed in ports and other strategic towns throughout the British Isles to promote Canada as a destination and to inspect passengers as they embarked. The work was coordinated by a head office in London which after 1899 became both physically and functionally removed from the day-to-day control of the High Commissioner, with separate offices at Charing Cross (rather than Canada House in Trafalgar Square) and its focus on the world of business rather than diplomacy.
The ever-growing head of steam behind Canadian agency activity was partly the result of the concern of the federal government and the transcontinental railway companies to populate the vast prairie provinces for reasons of, respectively, national unity and economic viability. Between 1896 and 1906 an injection of C$4 million by the federal government gave the work an even higher profile, at the same time as an upsurge of imperialist sentiment in Britain fuelled enthusiasm for all things Canadian. Recruitment was targeted primarily on the farming community, not only because farmers were needed to fill up the west but also because the prolonged depression in British agriculture was likely to make them particularly susceptible to the promise of homestead land, and, as we have seen, booking agents could after 1893 claim a bonus on each farm worker recruited. When W. J. Patterson had investigated prospects for emigration from Britain and Europe in 1872 his report on Scotland was comprehensive and generally optimistic:
Extensive inquiries in North Britain among mechanics, farmers, and gentlemen who know the condition of the people, convince me that a large emigration to Canada can be promoted — but in Scotland as in England, there is a remarkable lack of information as to the advantages offered to emigrants to the Dominion. There is a class of farm laborers (or hinds, as they are sometimes designated) in the Lothians, who, I am informed, would make good settlers. There are also the tenant-farmers in Kincardineshire, Aberdeenshire, and other north-eastern counties, among whom there is a growing desire to better their condition, while the disposition to emigrate is on the increase in most of the northern shires. The people of Shetland are very poor, and said to be unambitious, in consequence of their patient toil and endurance, but they might be stimulated to try to help themselves, if it were demonstrated that they could effectually do it by emigrating. The question of emigration is also not unknown in Orkney, and I am informed by a gentleman who has recently travelled there, that the Orcadians would make good settlers in any country where they had a fair chance to better their condition. 47
The real linchpins of the network were the resident agents and their helpers. The number of agencies varied according to budgets and demand, but there were always offices in Liverpool, Glasgow and Bristol, and several special agents were appointed from year to year for temporary work in a wide range of locations. They were carefully chosen with reference to local needs and connections, so that virtually all the lecturers who visited the north of Scotland were Gaelic-speaking. They were generally either emigrants themselves, first generation Canadians who had roots in the areas to which they were sent, or men such as H. M. Murray, the Glasgow agent, who had some specialist knowledge of emigration procedure, in Murray’s case as a purser with one of the transatlantic shipping companies. These men were responsible both for generating interest themselves and for coordinating the activities of temporary helpers, visiting delegates and the mixed bag of ticket agents. They exploited every promotional tool available to them. Written advertising was the easiest method of blanket publicity and was reckoned to be the first step in alerting public interest, at least in the view of William Dixon, who in 1866 announced his appointment to the Liverpool office in 114 newspapers. His example was followed with great enthusiasm by counterparts all over the country, who, in addition to regular press advertising, also displayed colourful posters and handbills in libraries, post offices, railway stations, hotels and farmers’ clubs. They also ensured that government- sponsored pamphlets were mailed to many of these institutions, as well as to individual farmers, clergymen and teachers. Essay competitions were organized for children and schools were given atlases, wall maps and other literature.
The written word was reinforced by a strong emphasis on visual and verbal promotion. Displays of Canadian produce were mounted at agricultural shows and markets, and also in the windows of the agents’ offices, which were usually strategically located in city centres. During the summer, two travelling horse-drawn exhibition wagons toured the rural areas of Scotland and Ireland, and two motorcars were sent round England on the same mission. Lectures were generally illustrated by lantern slides, before the improvement of technology in the twentieth century gave rise to promotional movies. The agents set a particular premium on lecture tours, encompassing not only the urban hinterland but also the most remote parts of their districts, usually in the winter months. The resident agents themselves were assiduous lecturers, and they were frequently joined on the circuit by temporary assistants, provincial agents and railway company representatives. Delegations of journalists and tenant farmers were invited to tour Canada at government expense, in the hope that they would themselves promote settlement opportunities on their return home, while, reversing the process, successful settlers were also brought back at government expense to lecture on their experiences. Personal contact went beyond the formal lecture, for the agents spent a great deal of time interviewing interested parties individually, in their own offices, at regional booking agencies and on their frequent trips to agricultural fairs and markets. The personal touch was taken further by those who, like some of the more enthusiastic booking agents, also accompanied their recruits across the Atlantic, securing employment and helping them to settle in, at the same time as t
hey collected fresh material for their winter campaigns.
7. Advertising for immigration to Canada by the federal authorities, 1905. A wagon pulled by horses, heavily laden with agricultural produce.
What impact did these agents make on Scotland? From 1869 to 1907 the whole of Scotland, along with the north of England, was under the control of one agent, based in Glasgow. From time to time he was assisted by a variety of special lecturers, the first being Angus Nicholson, who was based in the Highlands from 1872 to 1875. In his first year he sent out 670 emigrants, and found the Hebrides his most promising area, as he indicated in his annual report:
I made appointments and delivered addresses in Glasgow, Greenock, Rothesay, Perth and other towns. My meetings were generally well attended, and as I was able to address the people in their native tongue, the language many of them best understood, the enthusiasm created by, and the general interest taken inmywork and the cause which I had to advocate, was all I could desire; but owing to the prosperous condition of those districts, which are principally occupied by large farmers and stock raisers, I was not able to do quite as much as I anticipated.
In the latter end of May I went to the Northern Hebrides and visited the islands of Skye, Lewis, Harris and Uist; I soon learned that more could be done there than in the Southern parts of the Highlands. On my arrival, I found the people in the height of an emigration excitement, not to Canada, however, but to New Zealand and Nebraska, and from the many agents representing these countries, I have met with considerable opposition; but I believe I have generally come out the victor, having sent most of those they had engaged at the time, to Canada, and I think, turned the current here for some time, if properly followed up.
As a field for emigration, the Highlands of Scotland is for various reasons, perhaps the most important district in Great Britain; there are many who need to benefit their condition by emigrating, many parts of the country being much over-peopled, owing to the large tracts cleared for sheep, deer and English pleasure grounds, and the inhabitants are generally admitted to be as desirable a class for the settlement of Canada as any we can get, but owing to the absence of any Canadian Emigration Agent there for many years back, and the false representations of parties interested in emigration to other countries, this field would have been lost to us, had it not been for the timely action of the Government in sending an agent there this year. Once the current of Highland emigration is started in any direction, it is hard to change it; hence the importance of keeping at least one agent permanently located in the North of Scotland. 48
Nicholson’s technique was to hold public meetings in the main centres of population, and to remain in the area for a short time so that people could consult him privately. He would then revisit the area at subsequent — well-advertised — intervals. He also made use of favourable letters from emigrants who had used his services, and in 1875 he had the help of the Reverend Lachlan Taylor, another Gaelic speaker, seconded from Devon, who encouraged better-off emigrants to go to Manitoba and the North West Territories. Nicholson was convinced that more generous subsidies would have paid dividends in the recruitment of poorer emigrants:
At some of the meetings large numbers of the people got up and offered to leave at once if we could provide the means to pay their passage, which they were unable to do themselves. These people, used to hardships and rough living at home, are well adapted to Canadian pioneer life, with its future prospects of independence. Those who had emigrated have not remained about the towns and cities, waiting for something to turn up, or complaining of the want of work. Two or three hundred people could be at once got to proceed from here to Manitoba if free passage could be granted, as is offered by New Zealand. Knowing the people and their characteristics so well, I could personally guarantee that nearly every one of them would stay in Canada, and prove a first-class settler. 49
Although that suggestion fell on deaf ears, in 1879 the Canadian government recruited all but four of its first batch of fourteen farmer delegates from Scotland, and in 1892 appointed W. G. Stuart and Peter Fleming to assist the Glasgow agent by covering the north of Scotland and the Lowlands respectively. Stuart and Fleming delivered between them an average of 320 lectures per year during the 1890s, and both men emphasized the importance of this propaganda tool. In his report to Ottawa in 1896, Stuart wrote:
The people like to see, as well as hear, and in country districts, by far the most profitable field for emigration work, an illustrated lecture is a never failing attraction; and a crowded meeting means enthusiasm, rivetted attention, eager inquiry, and sometimes public discussion. After the lecture is over pamphlets are distributed which are carried home and read. People talk about Canada at their own firesides, and often write for further and fuller information. If at all practicable a personal visit is arranged and a decided impetus is given to emigration from that district, for the experience of the past four years has clearly demonstrated that it is only by earnest concentration of effort that a desirable class of emigrants can be secured. The Scotch are proverbially cautious; and they will not leave their homes nor change their mode of life until they have looked at the matter carefully in all its bearings, and come to the conscientious conviction that it is to their advantage to do so. 50
Fleming confirmed the value of the personal approach. In an attempt to ensure interested agricultural audiences, he used the valuation rolls to write in advance to all farmers paying rents of less than £70 per annum, sending to each household a selection of Canadian literature, along with a handbill listing the places and times when he was to deliver lectures. Also writing in 1896, he described his approach to his employers:
I invariably adopt the conversational style of lecture, and at the outset invite my audience to put any question to me even during the course of my address, and in this way get facts driven home to them and give information and advice on points they are specially desirous of being enlightened upon, in a way which is not possible in a formal lecture with the usual paraphernalia of chairman and other accompaniments. The people are quite at their ease, feel quite at home, and judging from the intelligent questions which are put to me, they are as eager for information and as interested as if I were sitting vis a vis with each individual in my own office. At the conclusion of each meeting numbers of my audience invariably remain behind and an interesting and effective chat with them is the result. This method, after many years’ experience in dealing with this class, I have found to be the most effective. 51
Fleming was indeed a seasoned agent, having represented the Queensland government in Scotland in the 1880s, and having also worked as a travelling selecting agent for Western Australia at an earlier date. When his Antipodean employment ended with the cessation of assisted passages to Queensland in 1891, he turned his attention to Canada, familiarized himself with the country during a two-month tour in 1892 and then, armed with glowing testimonials from his previous employer, successfully offered his services to the immigration authorities. Stuart, based first in Nethy Bridge and later in Elgin, was an Inverness town councillor and a fluent Gaelic speaker who firmly believed that emigration was the only solution to continuing poverty in the Highlands. He had come to the Canadian government’s notice during a six-month visit to the Dominion in winter 1891—2, as a result of which he was first appointed as a temporary agent at the Highland and Agricultural Society Show in summer 1892, and then as a supplementary agent for the north of Scotland in December.
By 1897 the Canadian government had located five agents north of the border, compared with three in Ireland, two in England and one in Wales. Chief agent, H. M. Murray, who had replaced Thomas Grahame in July 1897, was assisted not only by Stuart and Fleming, but also by John Grant of Dum-fries, covering southern Scotland, and Thomas Duncan, a Scottish-born farmer and Member of the Provincial Parliament of Manitoba, who was based in Carnoustie but had a roving commission. When Fleming retired in 1898, Stuart extended his jurisdiction further south and east, with continuing help from Dun
can and the use of a tent (supplied by the Glasgow office) which housed an exhibition of Canadian produce. After Stuart’s death in April 1899, Duncan devoted most of his time to the north of Scotland until 1902, when he was transferred to London, and the withdrawal of Grant from agency activity in the same year meant that Canadian recruitment efforts became confined to the Glasgow office.