CHILD EMIGRATION

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 20, 24 July 1934, Page 4

CHILD EMIGRATION

FAIRBRIDGE SCHEME

NEW FARM SCHOOLS

(From "The Poot's" Representative.) LONDON, June 12.

~'Two days hence the Prince of Wales is to attend a meeting called for the purpose'- of making an appeal for £100,000 on behalf of the Child Emigration Society. This society, which is responsible for the control of the Fairbridge Farm School, at Pinjarra, Western Australia, now considers that the tinio is ripe to set up additional farm schools on the same lines in other parts of the Empire. AVith £100,000 in hand it is suggested that farm schools be established in British Columbia, in Victoria, and ill Queensland, at a cost of about £30,000 each. -, A luncheon was given today to interest the Press in, the scheme and in the-, meeting at which .the Prince of Wales will speak. The rchairman, Captain. L. R. Lumley, M.P:,'- spoke of the wonderful-results of the Pairbridge Parm School in Western Australia. Out of the thousand children who had passed through it and weTe still at the school only six had been sent back as. failures. /:'Of the 700 who had left the school: ibt one was out of work. In tho years 1922-23 about 100 children left the school' and 1000 applications for their services were received from farmers. - - \ ■ -.' If new schools1 were established the children attending- them would ,not be on the labour market;-for another five years, and by that time..the Dominions should certainly bo.; able to absorb ;them. '" - ; The Secretary. of State for the Dominions, said Captain Lumley, was wholeheartedly in support, of the scheme, and the society hoped it might be possible to obtain financial assistance from both the Homo Government and the Dominion Governments, Mr. J. J. Virgo, ~0.8. E., who also, spoke from personal knowledge of thefarm school, said that the farmers of Australia sent their sons to the cities to be educated, and many remained there. As.', a result it was still difficult to obtain labour for the farms. His own son, who ha'S. land in Queensland, was continually harassed by this lack of labour. '; -• The Rev. A. G. B. West, vicar of St. Dunstah-in-tho-East, quoted the late Lord Burnham, who maintained that this type of migration should be going on all over tho world. Mr. West's own opinion was, that this was the one type .of Empire settlement that was going to save this old country.