EVOLUTION OF EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 171, 21 July 1922, Page 5

EVOLUTION OF EMPIRE.

THE NEW POLICY. SUBSIDISED MIGRATION. (By Cable. —i-rcss Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, July 20. The Higli Commissioner for Australia. Sir Joseph Cook, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Mr. Winston Churchill, signed to-day a migration agreement which commits the Commonwealth and Britain to a joint expenditure of £400.000 on passages for emigrants to Australia for a period to end on March 31, 1023. when the agreement will be renewable at the option of Australia. Reference to the agreement was made by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Birkenhead, in a speech at a luncheon tendered to him by the Australian and New Zealand Club. Lord Birkenhead paid a tribute to the movement to send to the Dominions men qualified to help in the development of what Sir Joseph Cook had described as the great fabric of civilisation known as the British Empire. He congratulated Sir Joseph Cook upon having signed at the Colonial Office that day a document under the scheme by which Britain and the Dominions were committed to an expenditure of £3.000.000 per annum upon migration, of which Britain had undertaken the responsibility of half. This was a remarkable instance of the strength of the new policy in the evolution of the Empire. For the first time Britain and the Dominions had joined in an organised endeavour to regulate migration as part of the process of correlating the industrial problems of the Empire. It marked a most representative development and a most significant step forward. The Migration Department of Austra : lia House issued a notification to the Press last week-end setting out the general conditions of the Western Australia south-western land settlement scheme. Over 10,000 applications have already been received.— (A. and N.Z. Cable.)