EMPIRE'S NEED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 237, 6 October 1936, Page 8

EMPIRE'S NEED.

A MIGRATION POLICY. FILLING EMPTY SPACES. ABSORPTION OP UNEMPLOYED (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Commerce Congress to-day dealt with a resolution 011 migration, which was a compromise of resolutions which were originally to have been submitted by Britain, Australia and New Zealand. It affirmed the vital importance of the early reinforcement of the populations of the overseas Dominions by organised and substantial migration from Great Britain, made recommendations to that end and recommended that the Governments concerned should co-operate in arranging schemes to ensure that any surplus population leaving Great Britain should settle within the Empire. The resolution was moved by Mr. J. E. Emlyn Jones, Cardiff and Newport, j whose speech was vigorous and was a strong advocacy of filling up the vacant spaces of the oversea Dominions with British people. He said he thought the truth' about the Dominions' failure to increase their population was that there had developed an ill-balanced economy. There was far too much concentration on industrial activities and too little on agrarian. There was only one way to increase the wealth of the Dominions and the whole world, added Mr. Emlyn Jones, was by the application of idle labour to fertile land. By so creating wealth they would he able to absorb the unemployed in their own countries and in the Homeland. It was not a problem of overproduction, but in reality a crisis of under consumption and the maldistribution of primary products throughout the world. The Dominion Viewpoint. Mr. R. M. Clark, Sydney, in seconding the resolution, said Jie was i:« hearty agreement with the object in view, though he was not in agreement with all of Mr. Emlyn Jonjs' statements. Mr. Clark said a migrant from Brit.iin might put someone cut of work oversea. What was wanted waj migraHon 011 a large scale. A large population overseas woulil enal>le Britain to carry a much larger population thin she did, and with large populations abroad and at home would make Britain invincible. Mr. Russell, of Brisbane, said they •could not accept the view that ilie Dominions should merely be Britain's supplier of primary products. What they were aiming at ill Australia was a balanced economy. The discussion is proceeding.