The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎74v] (153/244)

638
THE NINETEENTH
April
Manitoba or British Columbia would offer a field of industry in wliich
a new social life of comparative comfort could be won in a few years'
time.
The emigration of such settlers would likewise excite less oppo
sition from Trade Unions at home and in Canada. Kightly, and
reasonably enough, the organised workmen of the Canadian cities
object most strongly to the importation of artisans, mechanics, and
labourers (non-agricultural), who would crowd the labour market of the
Dominion, lower wages by competition, and become a disturbing
element in the economic relations between labour and capital. These
objections, however, could not be urged against land-workers, who
might be brought out, or induced to come under plans that would
insure their being located where good land, and plenty of it, would
provide immediate employment to such intending settlers. The
advent of such a class would be hailed as directly advantageous to
the interests of skilled industry in Canada. The more farmers the
country possesses, the more work there necessarily is for the general
mechanic. The emigration of a large number of agricultural
labourers from Grreat Britain should also be viewed with less hos
tility by leaders of the labour movement and radical social re
formers at home. The country worker is the chief disturber of the
labour market of our cities and towns. The causes of his voluntary
or involuntary migration are too well known to need dwelling upon
here. The problem now is how to keep those on the land who have
not yet migrated, and how best to put those back who have. In the
solution of such a problem lies a hope of a better and higher future
for both land and town labour. Legislation is at last moving in the
direction which will facilitate such a reform, though we are not
likely to witness anything like a boom in land labour until public
ownership of the soil replaces that of the landlords. When that day
arrives—and we are moving rapidly towards it—capital in its struggle
with labour will have less of the ' blackleg ' class of competing work
men to fall back upon in such conflicts as may arise, while organised
workmen in cities and towns will have a better chance of winning a
fairer share of the wealth produced by the country than that which
they obtain under existing economic conditions. In the meantime,
however, and pending the radical changes which are in the contem
plation of those ' who dream dreams' which have acquired the habit
of becoming embodied in legislative programmes evolved from com
peting Liberal and Tory parties, the colonisation of the countries of
the North-West by such past and present victims of landlord mono
poly as would be willing to go from wage-slavery to practical social
independence, would work on parallel lines to the ' back to the land'
movement in Grreat Britain and Ireland.
I visited two of the crofter settlements during my tour—one at
Glenboro, and the other at Pelican Lake, both in Manitoba. The