EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1927, Page 5

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT

FIVE YEARS’ RESULTS*

MIGRATION INCREASING

(Australian & N.Z. Cable Assn.) (By Cable—Press Assn. —Copyright.)

LONDON, April 26.

The Overseas Settlement Committee’s report for 1926, marking the close of the first five years’ administration of the Empire Settlement Act, announces that the improving conditions overseas and the further facilities for assisted passages resulted in the increase of assisted migrants under the Act from 39,559 in 1925 to 66,103 in 1926, of whom 25,999 were children.

The figures for Australia are 22,527 and 32,732, increase 10,205; New Zealand 8097—11,795; Canada 8809— 21,344, 12,535; South Africa 126—132. Great Britain’s annual excess of births and immigration over deaths and emigration has fallen from 383,000 in 1911 to 175,806 in 1926. The net migration movement from Great Britain in 19'26 was 115,538 against 84,259 in 1925.

-The report stresses'the findings of the Imperial Conference sub-committ?e to the effect that future official action must be based on recognition of the fact that whilst the bulk of the population here is urban the dominions’ settlement must be based on agricultural development. Principal results of the sub-committee’s work have been the grant of free passages to women houseworkers to Australia which is already operating, and the new scheme for land settlement in New Zealand, and rural housing in Australia, both of which are being arranged. The Australian thirty-four million loan agreement of 1925 will be modified in view of the increasing number of schemes, the development of many of which is already sanctioned involving loans of three million sterling.

The sub-committee welcomes the development of the Migration Commission with which it proposes to keep in closest touch, recognising that developmental research will be most effective in accelerating re-distribution of population. The report /concludes by stressing the importance of agricultural training in the three English centres, Catterick, Claydon, and Crandon. It is intended -to shorten the courses, and increase the accommodation at the residential course in London.