EMIGRATION POLICY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1910, Page 7

EMIGRATION POLICY.

AUSTRALIAN REQUIREMENTS.

VICTORIAN SETTLEMENTS. A DELEGATION. . ! By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright, (Received June 1, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, 31st May. The Victorian Agent-General, Sir J. W. Taverner, has toured Kent and arranged for the visit of Messrs. M'Kenzie and Mead. [In February last the States' Rivers and Water Supply Commissioners completed their scheme for large irrigation settlements, and now they are lookujf for settlers to fill up the land. The Government decided to send Mr. Elwood MePvd (chairman of the Victorian Water Supply Commission) and Mr. M'Kenzie (Minister for Lands) on an expedition seeking settlers. Mr. Mead insisted on the necessity of a Minister going with him. He looks first to Western America for the backbone of his immigrants. Ho knows this country. He has been in charge of the irrigation schemes of the State of Wyoming. He has applied his Western American experience to Victorian conditions, and he has decided that Victoria, if fully understood by such irrigationibts, would be very attractive to them. The delegation will first spend a month in England, touring the irrigation and agricultural districts. An attempt will be mad© tQ arrange for an immigrants' excursion to leave for Victoria in November or December. Irrigators. will be invited to make the trip at specially low rates in order to inspect areas available for them, and settle here if they like the country and its conditions. Arrangements will probably be made for them to return to England at cheap rates, if they wish to do so. The delegates will then hurry across to America. The idea of the Cabinet isthat lectures should be delivered by Messrs Mead and M'Kenzie, and whatever officers are accompanying them, and that generally their official visit for the avowed purpose of securing immigrants for Victoria should attract public attention.] THE COLONIAL INSTITUTE CONFERENCE. LONDON, 31sfc May. At the Colonial Institute Emigration Conference, Lord Dundonald (who commanded the Canadian Militia from 3902 to 1904) declared that the unemployment difficulty in Britain might best be solved by the great centres ot population acquiring fertile estates in various Dominions and sending the unemployed there in times of depression. He believed such investments would repay themselves. Mr. W. F. Hamilton, of the Church Army, warned societies against sending men without their wives and children, there being many cases of desertion. Miss Mary Gaunt (Mrs. H. Lindsay Miller, the Australian novelist) declared that there was plenty of food, and work, and money in Australia. ; The trouble with Englishmen going to Australia was that they were too much drynursed. Sir Clement Kinloch-Cooke thought that some action ought to be taken in reference to the latest Canadian restriction. It was outrageous that a man's wife and family should not be allowed to join him unless he was working on the land. He sharply criticised the absence of the Agents-General from the conference. Mr. T. A. Coghlan (Agen^Ganeral for New South Wales) and Sir J. W. Taverner (Agent-General for Victoria) state that they were not present at the conference as they considered their offices are qualified to deal with all questions affecting emigration. They also think the intrusion of philanthropic agencies into the field of emigration may lead to a class of persons going to Australia who would compete with existing labour. [Recently interviewed, Sir J. W. Taverner said :—"I: — "I have found that the action of outside bodies, however well-intended, is frequently based ou misconception of colonial conditions, and tends lo defeat the emigration policies formed by the various States upon lessons of experience. Widespread advertising by philanthropic bodies unsettles many boys in good situations in England. The Agents-General and the Government Emigration Offices are already supplying through their own channels the quota, of immigrants actually required by the various colonies. I am sending a batch of carefully-selected boys to positions allotted with practical farmers.'"] SUGGESTED SUBSIDIARY CONFERENCE. LOANS TO WORKPEOPLE GOING TO THE COLONIES. (Received June 1, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, 31st May. The Emigration Conference has asked the Government to hold a subsidiary conference lo formulate proposals for submission to the Imperial Conference of 1911. It has also urged the Board of Trade to grant loans under the Labour Exchanges Act to workpeople going to the colonies to get work. jjord Brassey urged the expediency hi the Government making a beginning by granting £10,000, to bo administered under Government supervision by the existing emigration societies.