SURPLUS PEOPLE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 10, 12 July 1922, Page 5

SURPLUS PEOPLE

MIGRATION ESSENTIAL PRAISE FOR COLONEL AMERY THE VAST BRITISH ESTATE. (UNITED ?_IB3 ASSOCIATION,—COr.RIfIHT.) (AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CABIE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 10th July. The Empire Producers' organisation gave n luncheon to Colonel Sir L. C. M. S. Amery at the Hotel Victoria to mark appreciation of his work for Empire settlement, especially in connection with the passago of the Empire Settlement i Bill. ! Mr. Benjamin H. Morgan; chairman, in eulogising Colonel Amery, said he | could see no hope of full employment in . this country. At the present rate of increase of the . population, therefore, they must take in hand seriously the better distribution of the surplus population. Colonel Aniery's Act, the first I definite step to this end, wai a great achievement. Sir Joseph Cook, in supporting the toast, said Colonel Amery had recognised one or two thing 3 that were fundamental. One was the recognition that this country had no right to leave its ex-service men to want when there I was room overseas for them to live in plenty and comfort. He believed there was a real disposition on the part of the authorities here to distribute the surplus within the Empire. Ho regarded Colonel Amery as the pioneer of the new movement. Sir James Allen said Colonel Amery was a man to whom we owed much, and we would owe more to him in the future. MISDntECTED EFFORTS. Colonel Amery, in reply, said the most elementary fact was that the Empire occupied something like a quarter of the earth, its territories comprising every variety of soil, every raw material, and every mineral which civilised life required. A visitor from another planet would imagine that its possessors wero concentrating on the whole of this estate. Yet he would be surprised to find the bulk of its population crowded on a fifth of the estate. Less than a quarter of its people were thinly ' scattered over its wide domain. Our visitor would find us wasting far more time considering credit for the tottering fabric of Europe, and that, instead of developing our Empire, our chief preoccupation today was whether, if we imposed 33 per cent, on German fabric gloves, the Germans would cease purchaeing our yarns, and buy cheaper and inferior material elsewhere.

What we must do, he said, was to abandon insular prejudices and see the Empire as a whole, and see to. its development. This must be our conception. It was in co-operation for the better distribution of our people that we had now made a beginning. That large nuiribers had gone to the Domin- j ions was not due to anything done by the Imperial Government, but to the earnest work of the Dominions them- | selves. The war put an end to the flow of people, and we were now confronted with conditions that made resumption j difficult, one factor being the cost of transportation. We -must, however, see that whatever .flow-took place, it would be for the benefit of the Dominions and the Motherland. The new Act empowered the Secretary for the Colonies, in conjunction with the Dominions, to secure better distribution. PROBLEMS OF EMIGRATION. The first problem of transportation, Colonel Amery continued, was that thousands were ready to go, but could not afford the cost. He hoped very shortly to conclude an "agreement witAustralia. The next problem was to fit square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes. They must concentrate primarily on land settlement and train men in that pursuit. But the best training would be that which a man got under a practical farmer, before risking everything upon a holding lof his own. There was something to be stid for a short training in Britain, in order to weed out those who would never be a success on land. He advocated juvenile migration as the most promising, particularly if the youngsters went under the care of parents. Migration of women was also important. It was a great policy of social regeneration for those who lacked opportunity in this overcrowded country. * The pre-war flow of migrant, had strengthened this1 country's markets, Colonel Amery continued. The Dominions were our best markets in the world, reckoned by purchasing power per head. We could not altogether ignore that economic value. The question depended on our pursuing an Imperial economic policy with the Dominions. The preference policy grew up in fifteen or twenty years before the war, and had grown steadily since. It Was now being embodied in England's policy, and he believed it was a vital contribution, to our settlement problems. We should give preference in the widest possible sense; not merely through the Customs, but-in other ways—for instance, in the investment of capital, to make it easy for capital to flow within the Empire instead of to foreign countries. He hoped in the near future to see shipping by air as par-t of our transportation services.