MIGRATION ON A LARGE SCALE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1926, Page 7

MIGRATION ON A LARGE SCALE

TO SOLVE BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT

AN EXPEDITIONARY LABOUR FORCE

BRITISH M.P.'S PROPOSAL ANTICIPATED

(Written for "The Post" by "Miles T^dux.")

According to a cable message, which appeared in the late news of the "Evening Post" on Saturday, Captain the Right Hon. F. E. Guest, M.P., has elaborated, as a means for solving British unemployraent, the idea of temporary migration'in the form of an Expeditionary Labour Force on the analogy of wartime. The scheme, he says, would ensure larger Empire production and benefit shipping. It is curious that an almost identical proposal was made by the present writer in an articlo published by "Tho Post" on 19th December, 1922, under the heading "Imperial Pioneers." Early in the following year under the same heading, the "Manchester Guardian" gave further publicity to tho idea, and later in the year tho writer furnished the late Mr. Masscy with a copy of that paper on his departure for the last Imperial Conference. The failure of the group settlement system of migration in Western Australia, and tho almost desperate efforts in Britain to induce the overseas Dominions to take more migrants, lend renewed interest to a proposal which, on tho face of it, would seem to safeguard tho interests of both the parties concerned in the migration. Following is thj article:—

Whatever may bo said of immigration before the war, it seems to be quite a general opinion that since the war it has be-n a failure. From the point of view of the Old Country emigration has done very little to relieve tho widespread unemployment in Britain during tho last two years, while at this end there is the complaint that the few thousand of new arrivals cannot properly be absorbed under existing labour conditions. Yet many more thousands are waiting to get passages some way. or other out of the overcrowded Mother Country and try their fortunes overseas. Every Dominion is almost as fearful as is America of the flood of migrants, once the gates are opened. What, then, is to be done? Britain is certainly as over-populated as the Dominions are short of population for their own development and security. The aim should therefore be, on the face. of things, to transfer as large a number of people as is possible from the Old Country to the Dominions in the shortest possible time. It is admitted that Australia and New Zealand can never really feel secure until their joint population is many times larger than it is to-day. To cope with the natural increase of population in the Motherland, emigration should be at the rate of not less than half a million a year. In 1913, when trade was better than usual at Home, the total number of emigrants from the British Isles was 479,640, of whom 331,450 went to the Dominions, and the rest to other countries. In 1920, when the need was greater, only 246,630 went to the Dominions, and 105,799 elsewhere. Practically to-day, to relieve the Old j Country of some of her burden, the emigration should bo for a few years at the rate of a million a year. Such a transfer of population under existing conditions and with the present methods of individual and unorganised migration is quite unthinkable. Thus, how could New Zealand under her quota, according to present population, receive not fewer than 50,000 immigrants a year? Normally she can hardly absorb ten thousand a year. Not only is there a difficulty amounting to a practical impossibility in taking many more immigrants, but there is also the very heavy cost of transporta-" tiori on present'linesiiwhieh would hamper greatly any extension of the regular eystem of assisted immigration. ESSENCE OF THE PROBLEM. The essence of the problem, then, is to increase the numbers coming here greatlyj to cheapen the cost of transportation per head, and to prevent the new arrivals from swamping tho labour market in the country of destination. Cheap transportation of a large number of men at once suggests tho troopship system, which transported millions of Imperial soldiers from all parts of the world and back again during the four, years or so of tho war. Tha New Zealand Government should have ample data to determine the cost of such migration on a largo- scale. It must be far cheaper per head than the normal system of assisted passages. One has next to consider the object of migration on a .large scale from the standpoint of the Dominions and particularly of New Zealand. The object is certainly not to supply a labour market .already full. It is rather to push on with the greatest'possible speed the development of the Dominions. Only en these lines can xooai b3 made for many more people. The situation in New Zealand is quite clear. The rate of progress in developing this country is, and has been for a generation past, seriously retarded by a shortage both of labour and capital. Thus it took nearly twenty years to complete tho Main Trunk railway between Wellington and Auckland over a gap of about a hundred and twenty miles. Four or five years would have sufficed had there been ample labour and. capital. The Otira Tunnel has taken some fifteen years to finish, and the same sort of thing may be said more or less of most public works in New Zealand in recent times. It is notable that far more rapid progress was made in an earlier period from 1870 on, when money was plentiful under the Public Works scheme of Sir Julius "Vogel, and labour was introduced wholesale under an immigration system that doubled the population in ten years. It may truthfully be said that the foundations of modern New Zealand were laid in those ten years or so. FOE SERVICE OVERSEAS. Whit tho writer suggests is this:— Most of the men desiring to emigrate are ex-service men, veterans of the Great War. They have been accustomed to military conditions and travelling by troopship. They have also'been used to the sort of co-operative work on big lines done by such bodies in the army as the Engineers and the other corps of equipment and supply—the working part of an army. They work better as a body than as individuals. Let thero be organised in the Old Country, then, a corps of Imperial Pioneers for service overseas in tho development of the Dominions. The Royal Engineers, the Army Service Corps, and tho Army Ordnance Corps would furnish a model of the sort of organisation suggested. Army standards of bodily fitness would suffice for enlistment in the Imperial Pioneer Corps, and the different trades could be utilised as they actually were in the war. Each unit would be complete in itself, and from an assembly camp in Britain could bo shipped as required. Each Dominion would have its schedule of urgent development works, with some sort of estimate of the cost and tho order of urgency. For New Zealand, for instance, one might mention tho various railways requiring completion, such ns the East Coast line, the

Eimutaka deviation, the Stratford-Ok-ahukura line, the North Auckland Main Trunk, and in ths South Island the Midland lino from Glenhopc to the "West Coast, and the linking up of Marlborough with the South Island l.'am Trunk. There is also the great arterial road scheme, which could furnish work for thousands of men for many years. Add to this the numerous hydro-clectrio projects, the improvement of harbours, and tho reconstruction of canals, in the Auckland province especially, and the draining of marshes and the opening up of mines and mineral deposits, and it was easily be seen that there is plenty of work for many years ahead if the labour and the capital were available. As to the effect of such %vorks of development, one has only to look to the King Country as opened up by the Main. Trunk railway in the last fourteen years. A NEW ZEAIiAND "DIVISION." Let us suppose that New Zealand has work of this kind for, say, at a modest estimate, twenty thousand men a year. A "division" would be mustered from the Imperial Pioneer Corps in the Old Country, composed of men suitable for tho work contemplated. These would bo organised in units for the different jobs—road making, bridge building, railway construction, or whatever it might be—equipped for overseas, and embarked. The efficiency of the transport Bervice during the war was obvious to all men who came under it. On arrival in New Zealand the Pioneers would move to r, camp like Trentham, from which they could be dis- i patched in their units to the public works awaiting them. The term of service would be for so many years, two years, for instance, and during that time the Pioneeis would be in charge and under the discipline of their offieI ers and would not directly enter into the social system here. At the end of their term of service they might elect to take their discharge in the Dominion and settle down here, or they might decide to return Homo again. In thi3 case they would get free transport back. Thus there might be some qualification necessary for settlement in tho Dominion—so many places open for men, as it were, to re-enter civil life in a new country. Or the Pioneers might decide to enlist for a further period in the corps and thus, carry on the good work of Empire development. There would similarly be chances of transfer to other Dominions to do pioneering development work there. During their, period of service the Pioneers would have their uniform, as they had in the late war, and incidentally their presence in any Dominion would add greatly to the sense of security. The pay would be on the scale, say, of the N.Z. E.F. in the war, with so much for allowances and so much deferred pay for a little capital to start civil life with at the end of service. The army system worked quite well in that respect. The Bcheme, of course, would provide for the inclusion in the Pioneer Corps of qualified representatives of the Dominion to which the corps for the time being was attached. The catering for the Pioneers would be on army lines. POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS. Certain questions naturally rise in criticism. In the first place, would men in the Old Country be prepared to enlist for such a service under such conditions? The writer can speak with J some experience both as an ex-service man of the British Army in the war and as an emigrant to New Zealand. The chief dread of the emigrant is of not finding work in the new country. of being a stranger stranded in a strange land. It is from such stranded strangers that the doleful descriptions of the Dominions with their advice and warning to others contemplating emigration chiefly emanate. If the fear of unemployment and loneliness could be removed, emigration would be much easier. The suggested formation of an Imperial Pioneer Corps would meet this difficulty. Furthermore, the British "Tommy" is far more gregarious by nature than was the Anzac soldier in the war. He likes moving with the crowd and to a certain extent dislikes individual respo(pibility. Here again the corps system fills the bill. Then, again, enlistment and service in an Imperial Pioneer Corps would give the emigrant some standing and some' assurance of the future. He need not go overseas as a failure in his own country. Though the system' proposed might not appeal so much to the New Zealander with his much stronger individualism, it would, in the writer's opinion, backed by experience, certainly take the fancy of the averago Englishman, who loves a uniform and discipline and a certain regularity and order of things. Thus, during the war all tho numerous auxiliary corps of men and women in the Old Country seemed to have a uniform and to work better for it. Witness the Land Girls, who had a uniform costume to do work which the New Zealand girls did in their old clothes. QUESTION OF COST. Then' there is the question of cost. Would the scheme do the work as efficiently as the present system oi: immigration and public works? Far more efficiently, in the writer's opinion. Properly organised and supervised, military engineering did work in the war in quantity and quality and at a rate of speed and at a low cost that have never been surpassed by' private enterprise on a large scale. There are opportunities for rivalry and esprit do corps which do not exist in private enterprise. The Tunnelling Corps in Prance could give points, perhaps, even to Mr. Somple's team of experts at Orongorongo. It all depends on the men in charge. In any case the costs could be cheeked as the work progressed and comparisons made with similar work done previously. Who would find tho money1? Admittedly this is a main difficulty, but with such a close organisation especially de- i

signed for Dominion development for the benefit of tho Empire generally, it should be possible to borrow or to arrange for the money on better terms than at present. There is ample experience of wartime to guide in this respect. Tho present British Government seems well disposed to make any experiment on favourable terms that might work relief of the prevailing unemployment in Britain. WOMEN AS PIONEERS TOO? The last point is also very important. For large bodies of men to emigrate without an equal number of women is rightly deemed bad both for the old and for the new country. Without going into details one can suggest a similar Pioneer Auxiliary Corps for women on . the lines of the various women's auxiliary corps which did such great work during the war and richly justified their establishment. There is equally great work waiting for women in the Dominions on similar lines — some as auxiliary to the Imperial Pioneers in their catering and canteen departments in the construction camps, and others as a body of domestic helpers to our over-worked, worried, and harassed womenfolk here. It would take too long to go thoroughly into this side of the question here, but room could undoubtedly be found for them on organised lines. It is a pity that the great organisations of the war were ever allowed to die. Their work in war may be done, but in peace and in the development of the Empire there is still a place and scope for them.