THE NEW EMIGRANT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3142, 6 November 1922, Page 2

THE NEW EMIGRANT.

That blessed 1 word "Settlement'' is in the air, writes a contributor to the London Daily Chronicle. Turn where one will it seems to crop up with a regularity which is positively haunthig. To some minds it includes the traditional consolations of that other soothing phrase ''Mesopotamia''—that is before "Mespot" was invented. But the one particular form of "settler" or "settlement" which is really most appealing is that of themigrant overseas. Though so many Britons advise others to "get out" just now. or something to that effect, it is not really fashionable to "emigrate" as in the disgi untied days of old. in the best circles now people' "migrate." or "go for ;. trip to the Dominions." Therefore Ave have no emigrant* in these days, though we learn on the authority of the publicists that these islands are over-popu-lated.

This being admitted', it seems a pity that the older types should have diminished—the breed that built the Colonies before they grew into Dominions; the old-fashioned, sturdy emigrant win shouldered his pack, took his courage in both bands', and thrust his: personality into the wilderness as a conqueror. These were the men —and women, too —whose "settlements" have resisted the ravaging hand of time. The would-be "settler" or migrant of to-day is bewildered before he can make a start. He is confused with colossal buildings and gaily decorated windows illustrating the various attractions of milk and honey—and other things, of coursewhich each Land of Promise offers. The lure of the "Overseas" greets one with panoramic monotony. Tn the days of the "emigrant" and the mobile scallywag—"the legion that never was listed" —there was at least little or no self-deception. They were :i people who knew not the joys ol cinemas or the pleasures of monev-ior-nothing in the shape of doles. Not for them the assured profits of the readymade farm for the ready-made farmer. They knew they had to face a life of hardship and some danger, with a spice—and only a spice—of romance and adventure. As a consequence they braced themselves up and toiled, and toiled—and they alone knew how bard tbev toiled —until they had established 'themselves or fell by the rough track they had blazed in the wilderness. To-day there is no wilderness and no rough track to blaze. It is largely "settlements" with cheap suburban villa residences, and motor roads —or something very much like it. That is if one is to judge by the illustrations. Emigrants were, even in the late seventies, packed away on the lower decks of sailing ships like cattle in loose boxes. Beneath them the bold was filled with railway metals and other material, which provided so many of them with their first "job" on landing. They had to "rough it" in every sense of the term, and this training hardened thorn for the tasks ahead.' But in those days ]>coplc "emigrated." The difference really seems to be that those who emigrated went, to make permanent homes for themselvesand their descendants; and they did so for the very good and sufficient reason that very few could afford to return. The idea of the modem "migrant" seems to be to "go out." to "make a pile." and get back again; or if ho cannot "make a pile," still to return as soon as possible. The loadstone of the kinema and, the loaves and fishes of the dole are evidently powerful attractions. The old-fashion-ed emigrant had little beyond a stout heart and his thews and sinews, and ho "made good." Shall we be able to say the same of his latter-day prototypes '•'