WHY YOUNG MEN REFUSE TO EMIGRATE [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is probable that certain business firms -will accord to Sir Edwin Stockton's observations the respect which they too commonly deny, for example, to those of their disgruntled employees abroad.
During many years of commercial service in tropical countries I found precisely the faults and shortcomings to which Sir Edwin makes reference ; and I was fortunate, personally, in being able to adopt a widely different profession by way of escape. It seems to be supposed that the young man who goes abroad for a British house should be content with the literal fruits of his contractual engagement. When that expires, he may go, cap in hand, and petition for a renewal of it ; or (and especially if he is becoming more expensive) he may resign, or be asked to resign, under one of the numerous hard-skinned clauses in which the " employer and servant " type of contract abounds. His colleague, meanwhile, in the British Head Office, is for some unexplained reason looked upon—without a contract—as having a job for life.
The exiled one, again, comes frequently under a diversity of local " managements " or " general managements " (with corresponding discrepancies in the assessment of his worth). whilst the stay-at-home is secure, month in and month out' in the right of personal approach to a constant directorate. The broad consequence is that the " experience acquired under quite different conditions in tropical climes " is more a handicap than an advantage ; especially if, for one of a hundred excellent reasons, the individual from abroad should ask to be allowed to put in a spell of work in England, for a change. Incidentally, a request of this kind will be made at peril of his job itself.
It is bewilderingly illogical ; and the offending employers are many. If I am prejudiced in the cause of the servant, it is because I have been one, and I have seen too many of my kind going, going—gone—to the " demnition bow-wows." Now, self-respecting Englishmen don't go all the way there without a world of provocation. And the provocation— particularly in West Africa, the Far East, and South America —is the want of human sympathy- and consideration from Head Offices at home. It is a lack which makes the servants see themselves as items in a contract, with a further vista of unending probation and enforced circumspection.
Naturally, as Sir Edwin points out, information is passed on, or the disillusionment of the returned servant is manifest, as the ease may be ; hence the reinforcements of " young men of the highest type" are difficult to get.—I am, Sir, &c.,
WARREN HENRY.
Dudley House, Cranleigh, Surrey.
Previous page
