IMMIGRATION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 3 April 1923, Page 8

IMMIGRATION.

V.M.C.A. SCHEME.

(BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLIN GTON, March 31. Mr Cyril Bavin, resident" general secretary qf/the Migration Department of iiheTNational Council of the Young Men's Christian Association, set out from London some months ago on a mission to Canada, Australia and New Zealand with certain proposals, designed to enlist the cc-operatioh of the churches and other bodies in the, migration movement. "•■.-- In the course of an interview here yesterday, he said: "I wish to emphasise particularly that the work I am here to do is with the full approbation of the Immigration Department. . I have had a long interview with the Un-der-Secretary, who realises that if the proposals 1 am here to make to the churches are acceptable they will greatly facilitate his own work and fall into line with his own policy. "There are 7.50,000 boys leaving school every year at Home," said Mr Bavin. "Among them is .'the ' finest material for prospective New Zealanders. We are working in clos-q- co-operation with the Overseas Settlement Committee, and both of us would like to see something more definite done by New Zealand to promote boy immigration from Britain. We wanted 6000 boys for South Australia and had 80,000 applicants within four weeks. If we can get an assurance for the parents that the boys are going out under proper care' arid control it will make all the difference in the type of boy sent but.'7 "We propose to transport, a little bit of Derbyshire into Taranaki," said Mr Bavin, in explaining that the V.M.C.A. aimed at, taking a group of boys from a particular county to send to a particular district in one of the Dominions. They would be near to each other, as they were at Home. In that propinquity lay, he said, much of the success they hoped to attain with their scheme in New Zealand. In pursuit of his missioii, Mr Bavin goes to Palmerston North on Monday, subsectuentlv visiting Christchurch. Dunedin, and Auckland, where he will seek to rouse the interest of the church authorities