OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18342, 27 March 1925, Page 10

OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT.

FARM WORKERS FROM SCOTLAND.

(Ht OM OTTR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, February 11

"The Committee for the Overseas Settlement of the British Troops on the Rhine" is the name given to the organisation which the British Govern- ! ment has formed to deal with. British soldiers who will shortly be demobilised. Every effort ia to be made to prevent them from adding to th<* number of unemployed in this country. The j chairman of the Committse is Oolonel Wallace Wright (Staff Officer with tlio j Army of Occupation.), the Instructional j Officer and the Chief Education Officer, together with the representative of the Y.M.C.A. (Mr Lees). Any of the men who are inclined to go overseas will be given a special course of instruction in agricultural subjects. There are quite a number of men with a slight knowledge of farming, attd it is considered that if they have six months' training; on the Army Training Farm at Catteriok, in _ England, they will then probably qualify as experienced farm labourers without nomination. „ , , Mr F. T. Sandford (New Zealand • Immigration Officer),, who was recently over m Cologne, addressed some 250 men in the large hall attached to the Y.M.C.A. Canteen, and showed a film on the screen, illustrating most of the 'chief- industries in the Dominion. The whole of the following day he spent interviewing those men who are considering going out to New Zealand. Some or these will have friends in New Zealand who will nominate them. The Y.M.C.A. Depot' aiti Cologne, where Mr Sandford lectured, is a very fine institution. It was previously a large cabaret, ond it has a large-dance-hall accommodating 2000 people seated. Pictures and a dance onoe a woek are arranged here for the amusement of the soldiers. No German men are allowed to be present at tho dances, but the British soldiers are allowed to take their German girl friewfc. As a matter of fact, in spite- of discouragement on the part of the authorities, a good many marriages have taken place. Good two-storey houses have been built in blocks i for, the accommodation of married British officers, and the single officers are accommodated at the Kolnerhof Hotel. The men are in barracks in various parte of the city. The Church the Salvation Army, the Catholic Society, in addition to the Y.M.C.A., cater for the troops in various ways. On February 23rd Mr O. B. Burdekin of the Immigration Department is going to Scotland with a view to enrolling farm labourers for the Dominion. He will speak at public meetings at 1 Glasgow and Ayr, and he will visit about twenty smaller centres) in Ayrshire and Kirkcudbright. Miss M. E. Hanlon (Immigration Department) mil also be conducting a campaign with the view of enrolling domestic servants at Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth, Glasgow, Ayr, and Edinburgh.