OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 April 1927, Page 5

OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT

BRITISH EMIGRATION.

YEAR’S ACTIVITY REVIEWED,

INCREASE IN Midi!ANTS

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT LONDON, April 26..

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

The figures for Au-staiia for the respective yeans are 22,527 and 32,732, an increase of 10,205; for New Zealand, 8097 and 11,795; Canada. 8809 and 21,344; South Africa, 126 and 232 respectively. Great Britain’s annual excess of births* and immigration over deaths and emigration has iallen from 383,000 in 1911 to 175,806 in 1926. . The' nett migration movement from Great Britain in 1926 was 115,538, against 84j259 in 1925. j The report stresses the findings of the Imperial Conference sub-committee to the effect that future official acticUi must be biased on a recognition of the fact that, whilst the bulk of the -popular tion here is urban, the settlement of the dominions must be based on agricultural development. The principal results of the sub-committee’s work haH been the grant of free passages to women house-workers to Australia,' which is already operating, and new 1 , schemes for land settlement .in New] Zealand and rural housing in Australia.,: both of which are being arranged. The Australian £34,000,000 loan agreement of 1925 will be modified, in view of the increasing number of schemes for development, many of which already sanctioned involving loans of £3,000,000. The sub-committee welcomes the development of the Migration Conunission, -with which it proposes to keep in closest touch, recognising that developmental research, should be most effective in -accelerating ia redistribution of population. The report concludes by stressing the importance of agricultural training in the three English centres, Ca-tterick, Olaydon, and Cirandon. It is intended to shorten courses and increase accommodation. A residential course in London is being arranged to prepare domiestics for Australia, in; batches of forty.—Sydney Sun Gable.