Recruiting Tour

George Alexander Drew, Premier of Ontario, suddenly turned up (via Trans-Canada Air Lines) in London. He bustled around to see Cabinet members, assorted lords and M.P.s. At the Savoy Hotel, he gave a party for about 400 of the U.K.'s biggest bigwigs. He spent a good deal of time at Ontario House.

Why was he there? He was shopping for manpower. Ontario farms, said he, can absorb 10,000 new workers. The forest industry needs 40,000, mining several thousand more. He wants to get Ontario's workers from the British Isles for the same reason that French Canada always prefers immigrants from Latin countries: "It is Ontario's desire that in the increase of [Canadian] population there should be as high a proportion as possible of British stock." An office has already been set up in Toronto to funnel immigrants to waiting jobs. The big problem, George Drew admits, is shipping. He was in London to do something about it.

Eggs & Butter. Ontario's Government has been tooting its trumpet in the British Isles for years. In Ontario House files are dossiers on some 125,000 applicants who have signed up to go to Ontario; about 30 hopefuls a day are still coming in. Just last week, 35-year-old William Dent, a tailor who is tired of tailoring, and his 33-year-old wife applied. Said Dent: "We hear they want farm laborers out there and we thought it would be a wonderful chance for us. We don't expect anything like you see in the movies. We just want a home and enough to live on in pleasant surroundings." Added Mrs. Dent: "It will be wonderful for the child too. All that eggs and butter. I hope we'll be able to go."

George Drew was doing his best. He kept telling the British that it is wiser to send their people to a country that can produce food which Britain urgently needs than to keep them home. At week's end, he felt there was "a fair chance" of getting 5,000 Britons to Ontario in time for the fall harvest.

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