EMIGRATION BILL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 27 March 1922, Page 5

EMIGRATION BILL.

CO-OPERATION WITH DOMINIONS.

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT LONDON, March 24. The Australian Press Association has interviewed various British Government authorities in reference to the forthcoming Emigration Bill, providing for financial co-opeartion with the Dominions under joint schemes of migration and land settlement.

The interviewer found a general concurrence of opinion that the principal difficulty affecting Australia was the lack of unanimity amongst political parties regarding immigration, for whatever one party proposed the other opposed. This particularly applied to the State Parliaments, who controlled lands, without which land settlement is impracticable.

The Canadian Federal and Provincial Parliaments have favoured immigration for the past twenty years. New Zealand was preponderatingly favourable in recent years, and Australia was a conspicuous exception. The. first essential to Imperial cooperation in emigration is continuity, of policy. This is impossible unless all parties in the Australian Parliaments agree to co-operate with the Imperial Governments and are able to guarantee continuity, because emigration is a non-party question. If the Australian Parliaments agree to co-operate ..with the Imperial Government and are* able to guarantee continuity, because emigration is a non-party question. If the Australian and Federal Parliaments made immigration a non-party but national question, thereby enlisting the support of all parties, also ensuring continuity of policy independent of probable changes of Government, it would enable the Imperial authorities to formulate a permanent policy, both politically and financially.