AN EMPTY EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 150, 26 June 1915, Page 15

AN EMPTY EMPIRE

EMIGRATION AFTER THE WAR. "We may be certain (writes Mr. J. Saxon Mills) that a large proportion of the young men we have sent to the war will strongly object to return to the routine of counting-house and factory. They will have been bitten with the love of adventure and open-air life. Braced by danger and discipline, and in the bloom of youth and health, they will be the finest material the Statebuilder ever had at his disposal, and it will bo surprising if our oversea dominions do not bid strongly for large subventions of this splendid stock. I know well the arguments that are urged against such emigration, and will, no doubt, be repeated when we begin to arrange these large scheme of oversea sttlement. We shall .be told that we are weakening the heart of the Empire and depleting dangerously our island garrison. There has always been force in these pleas. We may, indeed, hope that large numbers of our 'veterani' will be available for the recolonisation of England. We must think of the widow -lands as well as the virgin -lands of the Empire. " But there are one or two considerations worth bearing in mind. The end of the war is likely to see a great shifting of danger-zones and storm-centres in our Empire. These islands, if the war ends as we intend it shall should be free from serious menace for many generations to come. ■ The weakness of the Empire will be found in our vast unoccupied estates, especially in those that border on the Pacific. A great continent like Australia, with its three million square miles and its five million inhabitants, cannot fail to be a temptation to earth-hungry peoples and a source of real weakness to the Empire. It would be a stroke of sound statecraft if we could plant half a million of our disbanded soldiery in the Commonwealth — to strengthen British power in those regions, to remain good customers for British goods and to be availble, themselves or their children, whenever the Empire shall again need their strong right arms."