Following for Pearson from Robertson. Reference my despatch No. 310 of March 19th,† and your telegram No. 503 of March 22nd.†

In the short run, which may last for another 18 months or rather longer, the possibilities of emigration from this country will be rigidly limited by the shortage of passenger shipping.⁶⁴ For the balance of this year there appear to be only 19,000 westbound passages from the United Kingdom to Canada to cover all business, official and tourist travel, as well as any emigration which may take place. Given the present shipping facilities and the high cost of travel, liberalization of Canadian immigration policy could not be expected to show itself in any substantial increase of immigrants during the next year at any rate.

The announcement of a more liberal immigration policy would at once focus interest and attention on the shipping situation, and though it is generally known that world passenger shipping is in very short supply, nobody quite knows how such shipping as there is is allocated among competing routes. The fact that there will be only 19,000 passages from the United Kingdom to Canada, as against 117,000 from the United Kingdom to the United States during the same period, would probably provoke surprise and some criticism of the United Kingdom Government for sanctioning this allocation of tonnage, and of the Canadian Government for not making vigorous representations against it. It is well known here that the Australian Government has been making strenuous efforts to secure additional passenger tonnage, even to the extent of giving special subsidies, and people would, I think, be inclined to ask why, if Canada is prepared to welcome settlers, as a more liberal immigration policy would appear to imply, does it not attempt to implement this new attitude by making immigration possible?

I should think it would be necessary to recognize the relevance of the shipping situation in any public statement which the Prime Minister makes about immigration, and suggest, for your consideration, that I might he allowed to discuss with the Ministry of Transport the possibility of encouraging some diversion of passenger ships from the United States to Canadian ports during this summer season. The addition of two or three ships to the Canadian North Atlantic service would greatly improve the statistical position set forth in my despatch under reference, and would take a good deal of local pressure off the Canadian Immigration and shipping offices in the United Kingdom. What I have in mind is simply a little pressure on the Cunard White Star to rearrange their current commercial schedules without encouraging them to expect anything in the nature of subsidy or special charter.

The long run prospects of emigration from this country are very hard to assess. Records maintained by the London immigration offices of various overseas countries are a doubtful basis for any quantitative estimate, since they must contain many cases of double or triple counting, and are not in any case "live registers". There is undoubtedly a fairly widespread postwar restlessness and belief that the individual can better his prospects and those of his children by emigrating. These feelings have probably been strengthened by the discouragements of this past winter, and by longer worries about the general social, political and economic future of these islands. My own guess, however, is that these various hopes and fears would not produce any mass exodus overseas; even if shipping was available and passage cheap, for the Englishman's propensity to emigrate is kept in check by more things than Canadian immigration policy.

In the first place, England too is in the throes of full employment, with more jobs than workers, so that even the T.U.C. and the National Union of Miners are now reconciled to the admission of foreign labour at a rate per month greater than we are likely to take in twelve. This recognition of the nation's need for labour is reflected in the individual's ability to find a job here, and in his feeling that he is doing his duty by his country by working at a job at home. The emigrant, under present conditions and from some points of view, would almost be regarded as an emigrant.

A second consideration, which makes comparison with previous periods of large emigration difficult, is the highly developed system of social security which attaches the individual to his employment and community in a score of ways which never operated before. This is a new stabilizing clement which must powerfully reinforce the natural conservatism of most Englishmen, and restrain them from lightly leaving for overseas.

A third fact which limits the mobility of a much smaller class in the community is the restriction of capital export under the Foreign Exchange Control Act. This again is a special postwar limitation, which seems likely to last our time.

For all these reasons I am inclined to expect a much lower emigration from this country, both in the short run and in the long run, than some observers, and to feel there is not much risk or hope of our being flooded with emigrants from the United Kingdom even if our present immigration restrictions were completely removed.

⁶⁴Voir le document 196./See Document 196.