Recipes for failure : British boys' farm training and land settlement schemes in Canada under the Empire settlement Act, 1922-31
Date
2001
Authors
Duke, William Lees
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Abstract
For various periods between 1924 and 193 I, each Canadian province, except Prince Edward Island, participated in British Boys' Farm Training Schemes in an effort to attract a 'better type' of young immigrant onto the Canadian land. Just over 8,000 provincial boys came to work as farm helpers under the terms of agreements between the provinces and the dominion and imperial governments. Most were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen and, except for Alberta's boys, received free passage. All were placed with farmers chosen by the provinces and promised three years of provincial aftercare. To encourage the boys to stay on the land several provinces also participated in British Boys' Land Settlement Schemes which promised the boys government loans to buy their own farms.
All of the schemes failed. Even before the Depression provided the knockout blow, they were in various stages of collapse. Poor selection, careless placement, and negligent aftercare combined to produce failure rates of up to fifty percent, as boys returned home voluntarily or by expulsion, drifted into urban centres or simply disappeared. Of those who remained on the land, none received a penny of the promised loans. What had seemed like a good idea turned out, in the hands of the federal and provincial governments, to be a recipe for failure.