EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 3

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

GROWING PUBLIC INTEREST REMARKABLE IGNORANCE ON THE QUESTION LORD STBATHSPEY AT,A STRANGE CONFERENCE. (rROH OUR OTVN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 15th June. When one is constantly in touch with the High Commissioner's departments and with the Overseas Settlement Com- 1 mittee, and is conversant with -what Is being done in the matter of migration from this country, it comes almost as a shock to find how very ignorant are many representatives of public bodies in this country of this all-important question. At a conference at the Guildhall, of -what has been called the Empire League' for Training and Overseas Settlement this week, at which Lord Strathspey presided, there were delegates from board of guardians, county councils, municipal boroughs, education' committees, and urban and rural district councils, beside a sprinkling of members of Parliament and Dominion representatives. A good many of the speakers ignored the fact that an Empire Settlement Act had been passed, and that the Government and the Dominion .authorities were push- | ing steadily on <ith schemes which could not be hurried. One gathered from the conference, however, that a steadily-increasing body of people who hitherto had had but a vague idea of the overseas Dominions and the question of migration were now interesting themselves in a subject which in the end ■would mean relief in taxation and reduction, of unemployment. SURPRISING IGNORANCE. It was only "natural that a large body of people with such varied interests, and with the instinct for public declaration, should waste time with side issues and the explanation of their own particular relation to the immigration question, and Lord Strathspey found the position of chairman a bewildering and onerous one. When occasionally someone . rose to speak who knew what had been done and what was being done it was a great relief. For those who were possessed of the "tread on the tail of my.coat" spirit there was the query : "Why should ■we send our people overseas until the alien population of' this country were turned out?" This kept cropping up at intervals throughout the proceedings, and once led to a statement which came near to being a personal recrimination. Then it was evident that many delegates gained much of their information from Socialistic journals, for the inevitable references were made to the reception meted out to migrants when they arrived in the Dominions. j The Bey. P. S. G. Propert and Miss Ji- bt. John Wileman. the joint honorary secretaries, and a number of others present were thoroughly conversant with their subject, and when these addressed the meeting, and when Dominion representatives on occasions corrected false impressions, there was a decided feel--*?f °f relief. air. Propert, who is president of the Association of Poor Law Unions in England and Wales, had written an. excellent'"paper ■ on T"Erripire: Settlement and Employment in''Relation to the Problem of Unemployment in the .Homeland. This ran into many pa^es, and he proceeded to read it, but as everybody present was supplied with a copy of the, discourse, he was asked to take the greater portion of its as read. Mr. ■T. W. , Attwood (New Zealand fruitgrowers' Federation) was' well launched on the evils of "dumping" American apples on the English market, .•which had no b'earinj; on the resolution, when he was. told his time was up. LORD STRATHSPEY^' PESSIMISM. Lord Strathspey is very earnest in his desire to consolidate the Empire but he errs seriously on the side of pessimism Moreover, one cannot help feeling tnat he is not entirely conversant with what is actually being done. At no time, ne said, m ,his opening" remarks, was such a work as the league had in hand more needed, for while it was possible to get the Government to spend millions on European complications it was next to impossible to get any attention to what he considered the most important of allconsolidating the Empire by seeing that there was a constant flow of money and men to every one of the colonies. It was easier to get a debate in Westminster on any other nation in the world than to get one upon the colonies. It was for that reason that he advocated in the House of Lords the other day that colonial representatives should be invited immediately to sit in an Imperial Parliament and in the House of Lords. The response to this, which he had in the shape of leading articUs and cuttings from newspapers all over the Empire convinced him that in drawing the attention of the Mother Country to this crying need, he had hit the nail on the head. Unless this question got the support it deserved, and unless it was carried out with enthusiasm, Australia might cease to be a white man's country, and Canada might cease to be, financially at least, a British Dominion. They could still avoid all the dangers if they handled the problem of emigration large-hearted-ly, for it was the only problem the answer to which stared them in the face like _ the noonday sun. Were he Prime Minister he would veto every discussion on any European matter in Parliament till the problem was solved and the remedy working. Since the war the Government had spent over ICOO millions on mad adventure, or enough to settle nearly every unemployed man with a £1000 capital in one of the colonies, to say no-' thing of giving him as much land as he could cultivate. If the Empire was really a partnership, then the Dominions should be brought into the board meetings to share the running of the concern. Unce the Dominion representatives were there they would see to it that the Empire's money was not poured out into the desert sands. They would see that British, capital went primarily to the British Empire. ■ SOME USEFUL RESOLUTIONS. There emerged from prolonged and irrelevant . discussion the following resolutions: "In face of national congestion, economic dislocation, and the requirements of Empire, this conference desire* in every way to support His Majesty* Government in its efforts to adopt immediate constructive measures pn a joint Imperial and overseas coioperative basis." "In the interests of Empire, productive employment, and successful settlement it is- necessary to prepare and test prospective migrants in a rudimentary manner for agricultural and kindred occupations within the Empire." "To offer outlook and outlet for the rising generation and furnish fresh avenues for productive careers within the Empire, it is necessary to provide facilities for practical rudimentary instruction and training in agricultural and put-of-aoor occupations in the national curriculum of education from universities and public schools downwards." "This conference of representatives of all sections of public authorities, educa- '

tiomsts, and business men assembled at the Guildhall, calls upon the Government at once to take the necessary action authorising boards of guardians to use their financial resources for the purpose _of preparing suitable persons at training depots for overseas settlement and employment, and to legalise commutation of the uncovenanted benefit into short-period maintenance training grants for the same object. The Government is also called upon to co-operate with overseas Governments by making necessary financial grants on a fifty-fifty basis."