The Star. MONDAY, APRIL 11, 1910. YOUTHFUL IMMIGRANTS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVII, Issue LVII, 11 April 1910, Page 4

The Star.

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 1910. YOUTHFUL IMMIGRANTS.

Delivered every evening by 6 o'clook in Ifawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Upuiiake, Otakebo, Manufcahi, Alton, Hurleyvilla. Paiea. and Waverley.

Quite a warm controversy has run its course during the past month in connection with English emigration to ,the colonies. It has been complained that couples with "encumbrances" are not wanted by employers, and in reply the Australian. representatives have sought to show that the very thing the Commonwealth particularly wants is a stream of youthful immigrants. Of course Australia, as a country, wants that stream, but it is wasting time to pretend that individual farmers have no objection to children accompanying the married couples they wish to engage. When a man and wife are engaged the domestic duties of the latter are generally so exacting that she cannot discharge them satisfactorily if she has a family of her own to look after. Besides, the former doesn't want to keep the family. Bp& because certain employers want "unencumbered" employees it does not follow that other immigrants are unwelcome. All it means is that men with families should make other arrangements regarding employment. We quite agree with Sir G. H. Reid that the youthful immigrant is most desirable and there is little doubt that the training farms which are now being established to receive the young people from England will prove a source of ultimate profit to the Commonwealth. At the heart of the Empire the population is much too dense; this side of the line we have great blank land spaces which need filling up. At Home the question of relieving the populous and congested centres in Great Britain by assisted emigration to the Overseas Dominions is rapidly becoming an Imperial problem, one in which fthe Mother Country and the colonies will have to co-operate if there is to be a satisfactory solution forthcoming. One proposal, which is receiving considerable attention at Home just now, is to establish training farms in the colonies, to which youths who have not much chance of an assured future in this country can be transferred and trained to agricultural pursuits. The Rev. R. L. Gwynne, the secretary of the Central Emigration 'Board, who has only recently returned to England after a lengthy stay in New Zealand, has this matter in liand. In the course of an interview, Mr Gwynne said he only wanted to send out the best available boys. U L want the colonies," he said, in the course of an interview, "to have the best that we have available, the exmessenger boy or the lad who has been given a good education. Many public school boys at the age of seventeen or eighteen — boys who in this country have had high-class scholastic advantages — look round and there is nothing much for them to do here. Why not give them the chance of becoming farmers? Why not give them six months' training and a good moral discipline, and then let them be apprenticed to the farmers? I take that age because it is the age of adaptability. After that age if you pitchfork a town boy into the country he comes back to the lights. It would pay the Government of New Zealand to have a better class of boy than they are having now, to admit them free and give them six months' training. Most of these bet/ter-class boys have a little money. They are not paupers. They are simply the lowermiddle class, the best class of England, which has not been tapped yet." Mr Gwynne points out that the New Zealand Government is shy of his scheme because of the Labor party's strong objection to immigration.