BRITISH MIGRATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 150, 22 December 1938, Page 10

BRITISH MIGRATION

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

RESOLUTION IN COMMONS

GOVERNMENT URGED

TO ACT

(By" Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.!. (Received December 22, 2 p.m.)

LONDON, December 21.

The House of Commons, without a division, accepted a motion urging the Government, in conjunction with the Dominions, to consider all practicable plans for promoting the settlement of people from Britain, and affirming readiness to co-operate in approved schemes.

-The mover, Mr. J. F. E. Crowder (Conservative), asked the Government to increase its financial assistance for migration and expressed the hope that the Government would early invite the Dominions to consider a composite and well-thought-out plan. Experience showed that an increase in production, employment, and wages resulted from an increase in population, Brigadier-General Sir Henry Page Croft suggested the formation of an Empire Development Company, the original directors of which would be approved by the Prime Minister and would be financial and agricultural experts. Money advanced to the company by the State would be an investment and would be repaid probably within twenty-three years. Only £10,000,000 would be necessary for a small experiment in British Columbia. INCREASING BRITAIN'S STRENGTH. The Dominions and Colonial Secre* tary, Mr. Malcolm MacDohald,. in announcing that the Government accepted the terms of the resolution, said that if the British people did not develop new. young countries they would be open to the reproach of sitting on a vast area of the earth's surface and preventing its beneficial use. Moreover, increased prosperity and power in the Dominions were perhaps the best wsy of augmenting the strength of Britain itself. (Cheers.) Mr. Mac Donald indicated that he was thinking hot only of the Empire's physical security but of its moral influence throughout the world. The Empire Settlement Board would discuss Sir Henry Page Croft's scheme with him, and he assured the House that if £15,000,000 was insufficient for settlement schemes the Government would ask for more. . . ' The Government contemplated much larger populations being settled in the Dominions, and anticipated the time when millipns of additional people would get their livelihood there. "That's the scale on which we, are thinking as our ultimate objective," he said. He did not wish to minimise the importance of land settlement^ but if the House was thinking in terms of millions of settlers it must accept the fact that such settlement was, only possible by steady development of secondary industries. He would like to see manufacturers in Britain and the Dominions produce simpler forms and * goods, taking additional population to help in their production, thus .increasing the army of consumers for the more complicated forms of -manufacture which Britain was still able:? to send in under preference. He was not convinced that the development ■! of secondary industries in the Dominions would mean a decrease in British exports. . % EXPANSION OF SECONDARY INDUSTRIES. "It seems to me not merely essential but a principal part of the policy of Dominion development," he said, "that secondary industries in the Dominions should be steadily expanded. If we are not going to allow steady expansion of secondary industries don't let us talk about developing the lEmpire overseas, because it cannot be done on any other condition."

Mr. Ellis Smith (Labour) said that the statement issued by the Federatioa of British Industries had done more to undermine confidence in New Zealand's relations with Britain than anything else during the past few months.