EMPIRE MIGRATION GIFT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3382, 11 July 1927, Page 2

EMPIRE MIGRATION GIFT.

DQMINiO'N PASSPORT HINDRANCE.

The action of a Scottish supporter of migration within the Empire is just being made public. It is understood that Mr "Leybourne F. Davidson, of Huntly Lodge, a pioneer of the Ceylon rubber plantation industry, has added £20,000 to the £30,000 he gave Sir Robert Horne about a year ago for thfe assistance of schemes of Empire migration. Sir Robert has distributed practically the whole of the original sum through the Salvation Army, for its Canadian schemes; the Scottish Churches’ schemes of training and migration; the Y.M.C.A., and the Canadian Red Cross Society for the assistance of immigrants; the Fairbridge Society, an organisation for the settlement of boys and girls in Western Aus-" tralia; the South African 1814 Memorial Committee and the Scottish Council for Women’s Trades. In each case it has been stipulated that the society receiving fhe grant should raise an equal sum, and that the Government should add an equivalent amount.

All the assisted schemes include an arrangement for giving the migrants at least a rudimentary training before being sent to employment in the Dominions—a point to which the donor and the administrator of the fund attach great importance. It is understood that the further sum now available will be distributed on the same lines as the original gift, and imat in the one case, as to the other, individual cases are bey end its scope. Mr Davidson has long been a firm believer in the importance of Empire migration as a contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem, and about fifteen years ago he financed the sending of some 200 boys to Canada. Only one member of the party proved a failure, and the records show that many of them occupy positions of responsibility.

W r o have noted before that certain of the schemes- now in being have been criticised in some quarters. The subject was ventilated in Glasgow last week when at a Conference of the British Passenger Agents’ Association an attack was made on the policy of the Salvation Army and other religious and philanthropic bodies in acting as agents for the booking of passengers to the British Dominions.

Mr Charles Wright, secretary "of the Association, in dealing with the matter said the Salvation Army and similar bodies which acted as booking agents on commission became what was considered unfair competitors. It should be mentioned however that the Church of England had established an Empire Council which did not accept commissions, and that the Church Army had in this respect come into line with business agents. There was yet much to be desired before a satisfactory co-ordinated effort became an accomplished fact. Now, more than ever before, was the time to co-operate, for the agents to take full responsibility for the purely business side, and for the denominational Churches to back up the agents' work by assuming the after charge of those seeking new homes in the overseas dominions.

At home they retained large numbers of workers unable to be usefully employed, and paid them the dole which pauperised and demoralised them. Would it not be far better to evolve helpful schemes for assisting those thousands of willing workers to form new homes in new lands? If the-Gov-ernment would capitalise the sole payments, with the capital thereby created, the worker would become a useful Empire citizen. The Government should take the lead by removing all passport barriers within the Empire, leaving movements as free as they already were within the United Kingdom,