NEW PROPOSALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 16

NEW PROPOSALS.

RESTART FLOW OF SETTLERS.

FROM BRITAIN TO DOMINIONS. LONDON. A £10,000,000 scheme to restart the flow of British settlers to the Dominions and colonies is now being studied by the Prime Minister. Mr: Neville Chamberlain, and his Cabinet.

It proposes to put Empire emigration on a business basis, financed by the Government or a fund raised by public subscription. Grants made to settlers, it is pointed out, eventually will result in considerable saving in dole payments here. If the Government agrees to finance the plan, the formation of a British Empire development company is suggested. A Treasury representative would be permanent director of the board, and the chairman would be ap- j pointed by the Prime Minister. I

Sponsors of the scheme, BrigadierGeneral Sir Henry Page-Croft, Conservative M.P., and JMr. R. S. Dalgliesh, Newcastle shipowner, went to British Columbia, Canada, last year to study immigration possibilities.

! In their report to the Cabinet they said there was an opportunity for the settlement of 10,000 British families there on free land which has been offered by the provincial Government. They advocated building special townships, provided with community halls, schools, churches and co-operative "community stores for the settlers.

[ By the' careful selection ot emigrants, and with the assurance of good soil, adequate capital assistance and properly planned social life, it is maintained that the chief causes of past failures would be obviated. The authors of the report said the settlement eventually would become self-supporting and create, rather than compete for, employment in Canada, while at the same time lessening the drain on Britain's own unemployment fund.

The report points to the fact that the British Government has for many years set aside £3,700,000 annually to aid migration schemes. Recently, howeyeiy the trend of migration has been inward instead of outward, and last year the appropriation was cut down to ;£1,800,000. Unemployment in the Dominions themselves has been a bar to the ab> sorption of workers from Britain, and community settlement on the scale now proposed has never found sufficient financial backing. ' " " 3? Save Dole Payment. .The experiment, it .is estimated, would save Britain about £18,000,000 in' dole payment in 20 years. y Furthermore, supporter* of the sehemedeclare, nifist of : the' £12,000;000 ' needed to settle 10,000 emigrant families in British 'Columbia - would. bfc repaid over a period of years, and the same system could be " !

It is proposed that. all' lan£s, houses, farm buildings, machinery and live stock acquired by settlers under the scheme shoiild remain the property of the development company until the emigrant has ; j»aid pff his indebtedness to it. Fixed charges of interest and linking fund, spread over 23 years if necessary, would become - payable as jfrom t&e end of the second year of the settler'* occupation, ''v * i-

If the Cabinet refuses - to finance the plan, its sponsors urge that the money •hould be raised by public subscription. In this case the Government would be •Shed to contribute only enough to pay J? transport, two years' work allowance, and an allowance for training. s&The report protests against "those ideas which have permeated the Dominions Office^ 1 for several years, which insist upon what is called the 60-50 basis Of contributions on any settlement scheme." ■ , ''fi"' '■ "However Jjnuch it may be true tHfct we are; parting with valuable in human ;>migrjintel," the reiwrt says, fofcing 'Canadians, ;however much ">ey prefer British settlers, to consider whether it it worth putting up £60 for every £60 spent by Great Britain when ttay can get an excellent Dane, Swede, German, or Swiss without any such price."M- 1;, / * ' -