MIGRATION PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 119, 23 May 1925, Page 13

MIGRATION PROBLEMS

BRITAIN AND THE DOMINIONS

DR. CHAPPLE AND THE PRIMARY PRODUCER

(BI mtORAPH.—PRBSE ASSOCIATION.) GISBOBNE, This Day. In ths course of an interview with a "Gisborne Times" representative, Dr. W. A. Chappie dealt in an interesting minner with tho migration problems of the Empire. Dr. Chappie opened by calling attention to a cable item of yesterday, to the effect that only £500,----000 of the £3,000,000 earmarked by the British Government for the purposes of emigration to the Dominions had been used. This £3.000,000, said Dr." Chap, pie, is part of the £46,000,000 which the British Parliament has committed itself, to, by which for fifteen yeari it makes provision for emigration in the Old Country. Surprise is constantly expressed that so little use appears to be made by tha Dominions of the generous provision. If it ia the settled belief of statesmen of all parties at Home that Britain's' population is increasing, and must continue to increase in a greater number than can be absorbed in the industries, and if this surplus is not directed to the great empty spaces in our far-flung Empire, it will find its way to foreign countries, and we will miss a great opportunity of strengthening this reply to the fertile and more ambitious races, "We are full up; there is no room for you," here. The pressure of surplus population in Britain is evidenced by the persistence of the apparently irreducible unemployed figures of 1,300,000, all kept by the earnings of those who are at work.

This earmarked sum of £45,000,000, continued Dr. Chappie, is not the only sum that Britain has put at the disposal of her sons abroad.... The Trades Facilities Act of 1920, with its subsequent amendments, has set aside credits to the extent of some £70,000,000, all of which is available for private and publio enterprise in the Dominions, for loan on developmental work that requires British manufactured articles. Add to this the millions that are now being made available for the purchase of lands and their preparation for settlement (an example of which was recently shown by the arrangement with Australia for the raising of £34,000,000, and it can be seen how much the Old Land is willing and anxious -to do in order that the double-barrelled advantage of lessened pressure at Homo and stimulating more rapid development abroad may come to the Empire as a whole.

Dr. Chappla further commented on the cabled statement of ths Earl of Balfour, that the Government was setting up a committeo to advise how' even still further the Dominions may be nelpDd in settlement and production, and, inter alia, Empire commerce and trade more easily developed. Dr. Chappie wanted to know whether Now Zealand was alive to the urgent necessity of making further and more immediate drafti on these amazing resources. He said that the 10,000 immigrants a year ratio that New Zealand imposed upon herself was now much too small, if British capital was to bo ex-' portedj too, as well as British emigrants. ... '..'•. He expressed surprise at the report of; the recent commission, to the effeot that settlers had waited for fifteen years for roads to their homes and farms. Whatever excuse, he said, might have justißed this delay in development in the past, there could be none now in the face of Britain's demonstration that her men and money were ready for the asking. The primary producer in New Zealand, said Dr. Chappie, was the very salt of the earth. He had no strikes, no goslow, no peremptory demand for ham and eggs twice a week, but he had a patient, persistent endeavour upon which alone the whole prosperity of tho Dominions depended. He thought that hardly too much could be done for the primary producer, and a false move now and then, and a failure now and again, were but a drop in the ocean of his success, and the success he brough to his country.