IMMIGRATION AND DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 130, 2 June 1923, Page 7

IMMIGRATION AND DEFENCE.

THE EMPIRE POLICY. I ORDERED SYSTEM OF MOVEMENT. DEVELOPING RESOURCES. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) • Received 11.30 a.m.. LONDON, June 1. Lord St. John Bletsoe, presiding at a meeting at the Mansion House organised by the British Dominions' Emigration Society, said that within 41 years the society had assisted 28,724 people to emigrate to the Dominions. The Duke of Devonshire, Colonial Secretary, pointed out that although Empire settlement had developed since the war. the movement still needed the cooperation of existing societies. The Overseas Settlement Committee, which was operating under the Empire Settlement Act. was most anxious to work in the closest harmony and co-operation with such societies. He desired to emphasise that the Government's Empire policy, which he believed the majority of thinking people supported, was not an expedient or an attempt to grapple with a pressing temporary problem: it was a carefully thought-out plan looking forward to the_ future in the hope and belief that it would prove beneficial for generations to come. The Government believed that a well-ordered system of movement within the Empire would develop the great resources of the Dominions. In the course of the discussion ?ir Joseph Cook (High Commissioner for Australia) said tbat the Dominions were not advocating migration because of un- j employment in Britain. They would advocate it if there were no unemployment there for the purpose of developing, peopling, and the defence of the empty Dominions.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)