OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16962, 11 October 1920, Page 9

OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT.

CHH,I> EMIGRANTS,

(prom oun owx correspondent.) LONDON, August"26

There are at the present time on the lists of the Emigration. Department at the High Commissioner's office the panics of several thousand people who are awaiting accommodation on vessels bound for New Zoaland. In addition to these there are hundreds of farmers, farm labourers, and skilled mechanics, who have been approved for passages at reduced rates, and there are 7000 ex-Service men who havo applied for passages under tho Imperial Overseas Settlement scheme, whoso oaaes have been s approved and who are also awaiting accommodation. JSx-Servico men who aro provided with tho equivalent to passage money have to make their own arrangements with tho shipping companies. . . The now population for the Dominion is ready and eager to sot out from this country, but tho lack of ships will necessarily mako tho process of settlement a slow one during the next year or two. "Wo could iill tho available ships sis times over," said one of tho officials of tho Emigration Department hero, "with the best typo of settlors. As it is they must needs harden their hearts, for the hope they can hold out of any early passage to tho numerous enquirers is a small one. The now scheme of the Salvation Army for settling children in Australia and "New Zealand provides mainly for children between the ages of five to twelve years, although it is intended to transport a number of youths from lo to 17 years of ago. Commissioner Lamb, who is in charge of the emigration work of tho Army, told me that on tho same morning on which the notice of the scheme appeared, fifteen boys were waiting on the doorstep when the Salvation Army's emigration office opened, all eager to start life in the new lands. ' The intention is to send out 100U children, boys and girls from five to twelvo years to the farm school near Cambridge, m the- Auckland district. While orphans -of men who have fallen iu tho war will have preference, others jirc not debarred from tho benefats ot the schpmo. Tho transportation will !>p carried through in close co-opera-tion with tho New Zealand Government. The children will bo trained on the farm, and in due course situations will bo found for them. Those who show special aptitude will bo settled or farms of their own, and ...» e financed out of Army funds, a liability which they will, in due course, pay oft. Mere ni?ain tho question is one of shippin" space. Biit Commissioner Lamb is at present- -engaged in Reeling tho first 3"of> children. The absorption of the KVJO, ho thinks;, will take at least four vears. "Whatever arrangements ore subsequently madv for co-operation with the .New Zealand Government, it is the intention of the Salvation Army authorities to get tho Jirsfc 100 -out as boon as accommodation can bo proi Cl 'of the 250 children the Commissioner i b-iii en his bonks at present, lo # per i 4nt are orphans, ]«i per cent, are illegitimate, Hi per cent, aro deserted children, and the rest may be classi.ied i* overflowing population. A care.hil selection v.ill be made. In giving instances of tho percentage and circumstances of the typo of child which wj! hv ..elects, tht- Commissioner snowed that whittever tho morn} lapses of lJic -rarrnt" the children will/bo a thoroughly healthy type., botli physically a, \t intended to link up the scheme w)i!i a scheme for sending out domestic servants, who will be obliged In helt> in t-ie care oi tho children as one of the conditions of emigration.