Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – Friday 09 October 1908
Emigration to Canada.
Strange Experience Denaby Miners.
“I Was an Hungered, a Stranger, Sick
To the Editor of the Yorkshire Post, Leeds.
Sir,—l wish to bring to your attention the following facts, which not reflect very much credit on the immigration authorities of Canada.
A considerable number of miners from the Midlands of England have settled with their families the mining district of Glace Bay, the Island Cape Breton, Canada, and for the last three years these men have been sending for their families, their relatives, end friends to join them, which is sufficient proof that the conditions life and the rate of wages here are attractive. This immigration has been favoured end assisted by the Dominion Coal Company, who realise the importance of having a settled and resident population.
One family in particular settled here in 1106, consisting of man and wife and two grown-up youths who are nephews of the woman. These people did well, and in conjunction they arranged to bring out the whole family of the youths in question, consisting their father, mother, and four children.
The cost of the fares was partly advanced by the Dominion Coal Company, to be deducted from the wages of the combined workers in small fortnightly instalments. The family in England consisted of Richard Wheeliker, his wife, three small children, and a young man. Job Wheeliker, aged 25, who was a cripple. Their home was Denaby, South Yorkshire, where they were fairly comfortable for working people.
Before finally deciding leave for Canada they had an interview with Mr. Jury, the Canadian Agent in Liverpool, with reference the admission of Job Wheeliker. Mr. Jury is said to have assured these people that there would be difficulty about the boy’s admission into Canada on account of his defectiveness. The parents signed bonds making themselves responsible for the youth in Canada, as required the immigration law, promising that the boy should not become a charge upon the Dominion in any case. The boy was also examined the doctor of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company and the port physician of Liverpool. It may stated that this boy was born a cripple, and that he was somewhat “simple” because he had been kept at home to assist in the house work.
His mother stated that he practically did the whole of her house work, nursed the children, and that he had an excellent memory.
In these circumstances, and after having taken what one would consider all reasonable precautions, these people sold out their home, and paid £2O in cash on account of their steamship and railway fares, which absorbed all their resources. On arrival at Quebec, the Immigration Medical refused to pass Job Wheeliker, and retained his father for purpose of deporting both them; the mother three , small children were despatched to Glace Bay, which is distant about a thousand miles from Quebec. The woman had a small baby, and no funds except the railway, tickets required to take the family to Glace Bay. Fortunately Mrs. Wheeliker had her married sister in Glace Bay, who was able give her lodging and food, otherwise the woman with her three small children would have been thrown to the mercy of the town of Glace Bay when she arrived there.
Strenuous efforts were made to convince the Immigration Department of the harshness and injustice their action, and representations were made to Ottawa through the local members Parliament; nothing was left undone that could done by the friends of the Wheeliker family and the officials of the Dominion Coal Company. The Superintendent of Immigration, Mr. W. D. Scott, absolutely refused to allow the boy to proceed, stating he was both epileptic and idiotic, neither which statements is wholly correct. The result has been that the whole of the Wheeliker family have been obliged to return to having lost their home, their work, and all their possessions.
The action of the Canadian Immigration authorities means that the Dominion, have lost, not only the services this one family, but those also at least three families of miners who were preparing to emigrate to Glace Bay had the Wheelikers been able to settle down.
Considering that the family had cared for this boy for twenty-three years, and that he had not become a public charge, that the parents bad made full inquiries from the representatives of the Canadian Government in England, that they had complied with all the formalities and undertakings required by the Canadian Immigration authorities, that the authorities in Quebec refused to consider the case all, and deported not only the boy, but the father, who was the bread-winner and the support of his family, that the woman with her baby and three small children was practically sent adrift, and sent on a journey of 1,000 miles without funds, and without knowledge of the country to which had come, the case resolves itself into one of egregious and heartless cruelty, and it should be the duty of somebody in England to bring this matter to the attention the British and Canadian Governments. Further comment seems superfluous.
Yours, etc.
- W. GRAY.
The Dominion Coal Co., Glace Bay, N.S. Canada,