THE GREAT EIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 31, 7 February 1927, Page 9

THE GREAT EIGHT

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

TO PEOPLE AUSTRALIA

MIGRATION" ON\ BIG SCALE

(United Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, oth February.

General speculation is indulged in as to who the "four best financial and business brains", may bo that have been selected, according to Mr. Bruce's speech, cabled from Sydney, to go to Australia and study and confer on the problems of .ucreasing the power to absorb immigration. In this connection the names of Lords Weir and Lovat and Commander Hilton-Young, M.P., are mentioned.

The "Morning Post" says: "Four men must be found who are accustomed to spending millions, and able to visualise vast industries in a wilderness, who are also familiar with economics and railroad building. When selected, they will go to Australia to act as an advisory, not an executive, body. ■Their work will be to make Australia receive and absorb a gigantic population. They will collaborate with the existing Big Four in Australia, namely, the Migration Commission (Messrs. Gepp, Naylor, Fleming, and Gunn)_. Together these bodies will form Australia's Great Eight. Their deliberations will mark a now era. It will be the task of the Great Eight to take Australia in hand and lay it out to the best advantage. It' is town-planning on a vast scale. Nothing ]ike ib has evGr been attempted before. Obviously, men" of this calibre cannot bo found in Whitehall. /They must be drawn from the leaders of industry."

The "Morning Post" says editorially that if, as proposed, 450,000 British men and women are to be assisted to settle in Australia during the next ten ■ years, some clear plan will be essen- • tial.

Official quarters have no knowledge of the details of Mr. Bruce's migration delegation, which they say he merely mentioned here as an idea with the intention of working out details later.