EMPIRE MIGRATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1929, Page 5

EMPIRE MIGRATION

HOMELAND GOVT.’S POLICY.

Australian Press Assn. —United Service.) (By Cable—Press Assn.—Copyright.)

(Recd. Feb. 12, 2.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 11. Mr Betterton, in the Commons, submitting a supplementary estimate of £366,000 for industrial training and transference, said that whereas last year, only 2024 persons went from the training centres to Canada and Australia, there were now 6000 training for Canada. It cost a man nothing till he reached Canada. They were prepared to train as many as it was anticipated Australia would take. Mr Apsley inquired the value of the Imperial preference given to the. Dominions for the latest available year ; also the amount given by the Dominions to Britain. Mr Hacking said that to March 31 last year- British preference approximately was £6,289,000. The latest complete figures of the Dominion’s preference to Britain was in 1925, when Canada gave £2,470,000, Australia £7,80,000, New Zealand £2,860,000, South Africa £643,000. Later figures for the year ended June, 1927, were: Australia £8,480,000, Africa £421,000. Sir Hilton Young said it was a mistake to think that the policy of emigration amounted to a confession of failure. Emigration was most prevalent in the most vigorous periods of Britain’s life. It was tragic to think that the Dominions were being peopled by foreigners instead of Britishers. Mr Lunn said that tens of thousands were anxious and willing to emigrate, but the conditions in the Dominions were not encouraging. Mr Amery replying, said the Government in nowise desired to shift the burden of unemployment to the shoulders of the Dominions. The migration policy must be based on co-opera-tion between Britain and the Dominions, but the Government believed that migration, if persistently carried out, with this co-operation, would help the growth of the Dominion’s trade and the welfare of the whole Empire. The test of the migrant should not be his unemployment but his fitness. If he is likely to succeed and wishes to migrate, he should be encouraged, but if unfit and unwilling, he should be discouraged.