SETTLEMENT IN THE EMPIRE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22592, 23 December 1938, Page 9

SETTLEMENT IN THE EMPIRE

BRITAIN READY TO HELP DOMINIONS

“SECONDARY INDUSTRIES MUST BE DEVELOPED”

(Received December 22, 2.15 p.m.)

LONDON, December 21

The House of Commons, without a division, accepted a motion urging the Government, in conjunction with the Dominions, to consider all practicable plans for promoting the settlement of people from Britain and affirming readiness to co-oper-ate in approved schemes. Mr J. F. E. Crowder (Conservative), in moving the motion, asked the Government to increase its financial assistance for migration. He hoped that the Government would, at an early date, invite the Dominions to consider a composite, well-thought-out plan. Experience showed that an increase in production, employment, and wages had resulted from an increase in population.

Sir Henry Page Croft suggested the formation of an Empire development company, the original directors of which would be approved by the Prime Minister and be financial and agricultural experts. The money advanced to the company by the State would be an investment to be repaid, probably within 23 years. Only £ 10,000,000 would be necessary for a small experiment in British Columbia.

Resolution Accepted

The Secretary of State for the Dominions (Mr Malcolm Mac Donald), in announcing that the Government had accepted the terms of the resolution, said that if the British people did not develop the new and young countries they were open to the reproach of sitting on a vast area of the earth’s surface and preventing its beneficial use. Moreover, the increased prosperity and power of the Dominions was perhaps the best way of augmenting the strength of Britain itself. (Cheers.) Mr Mac Donald said that he was thinking, not only of the Empire’s physical security, but its moral influence throughout the world. The Empire Settlement Board would discuss Sir Henry Page Croft’s scheme with him. He assured the House that if £150,000 was insufficient for settlement schemes the Government would ask for more. The Government contemplated much larger populations being settled in the Dominions and anticipated the time when millions of additional settlers would get a livelihood there.

“That is the scale on which we are thinking as our ultimate objective,” he declared. He did not wish to minimise the importance of land settlement, but if the House was thinking in terms of millions of settlers, it must accept the fact that such settlement was only possible by the steady development of secondary industries.

- “It seems to me, not merely essential, but the principal part of the policy of Dominion development that secondary industries in the Dominions should be steadily expanded. If we are not going to allow the steady expansion of secondary industries do not let us talk about developing the Empire overseas, because it cannot be done on any other conditions.”