IMPERIAL MIGRATION.
[To THE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Mr. T. E. Sedgwick is hardly fair to Boards of Guardians in what he says under this heading. Emigration for the Poor Law child, however desirable in itself, is by no means as simple in practice as it would appear to be. First, the medical examination of intending emigrants to Canada is extremely severe ; and very many Poor Law children, coming from poor stock, fail to pass the medical test on account of latent defects in physique. Secondly, numbers of such children have parents alive, who withhold their formal con- sent to emigration. Thirdly, the children themselves, on being taken before the magistrate, not unfrequently (at the instiga- tion of relatives) decline to agree to go. Fourthly, the great demand for the services of Poor Law children, on leaving school, which exists in agricultural and industrial districts in the north, absorbs practically all the spare children. Lastly, educational difficulties in Canada are such that one very experienced Poor Law Guardian of a northern union, after making a prolonged trip to Canada, recently advised his fellow Guardians that it is unwise to emigrate Poor Law children before they are fourteen years of age..—I am, Sir, Bsc.,
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