May and June 1888

While it is difficult to follow the different ways in which the Canadian government and the emigration societies dealt with the growing volume of opposition to child immigration that developed during the 1880s and 1890s, the nature of these responses becomes more apparent if the pattern is reconstructed for a limited period when the opposition was at its height, namely, during the months of May and June 1888.

The Select Standing Committee on Agriculture and Colonisation, whose deliberations were discussed in chapter 9, met at the beginning of May 1888. It was inevitable that the sensational character of some of the assertions made during the hearing should be widely reported in the press. The Toronto Mail, in particular, devoted considerable space to the matter. The hostile nature of its report prompted Rye to write at length to the editor in defence of her work and in particular regarding the health of the children whom she brought to Canada. If, she argued, ‘it has taken twenty years to discover such a deplorable state of affairs, surely the matter cannot be very apparent’. She also wrote to Lowe (the Deputy Minister) at the Department of Agriculture in order to draw his attention to her letter. Did he approve? ‘Certainly’, she told him, ‘no one has been here, no one has even written me – the whole attack is from the Knights of Labour – we curse the “lazy louts”. ’ Lowe replied saying that he had seen her letter and ‘found the points to be very good. In fact I have cut the letter out as a pièce pour servir…. I quite agree with you also that the whole of this attack comes from the Knights of Labour.’

In its response The Toronto Mail maintained that Rye had misunderstood the nature of the complaint. It was not that the children in the Homes were diseased or even that they became diseased when placed out; rather their point, and that of the doctors on the select committee, was that: