FACTS OF MIGRATION

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1925, Page 4

FACTS OF MIGRATION

The Press of the Empire can give good service to the cause of overseas settlement, more particularly by concentrating attention upon the main facts, and helping to dispel the cloud of misconception which still hangs over this question. It is pleasing to note, therefore, that Viscount Burnham proposes that overseas settlement should'have a prominent place on the Australian Conference programme, and that addresses should ,be given by people qualified to speak for both Australia and New Zealand. If good is to come of this the delegates must be prepared to take as read the usual generalities of after-dinner speeches on Empire settlement, and get down at once . to a discussion of what is practical. Viscount Burnham has already given a lead for 'such a discussion. The brief interview which we published yesterday is not padded out with pious platitudes, biit refers particularly to two aspects of migration which are now calling for attention. The settlement of youths has hitherto been highly successful, and that success can be continued if work at the New Zealand end is well done. Viscount Burnham approves the nomination system, but he suggests its.extension so that Church bodies may make themselves responsible for hfiruigvanis recommended by their related bodies ad Home. 'Hitherto iidlle lias b.eeu dove in tiiis direu-

tion here; but the proposal is one that has been enthusiastically received in England. It cannot be tried here on a larger scale unless the churches are prepared to undertake the reception and settlement of people sent to them. Until we know whether they are readyto do this it is impossible to discuss what may be undertaken.