PEOPLING THE COLONIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIII, Issue 13714, 3 April 1905, Page 9

PEOPLING THE COLONIES.

THE POSSIBILITIES 'OF ORGANISED EMIGRATION. [Fkom Ocb Coebespokdent.] LONDON, February 10. The over-crowded state of the labour market in tiie Old Country and the growth of the great army of the unemployed, is serving to direct attention here to colonisation schemes, lne immense disparity of population between the United Kingdom and its large selfgoverning dependencies requires uo ernpiiasising. lne colonies want none or toMauu's undesirables, but they readily admit the need of a great increase ot i population in order to develop effective- ! iv their natural resources. JNor will they refuse to concede that under present conditions the population or the United Kingdom is in excess ot its needs. It follows, then, that an overflow of labour from this congested land would relieve the pressure at this end and help to people the vast areas now crying out for settlement in Canada and Australasia, always providing that the | overflow was or the right quality and that its volume was careiully regulated. Unless the transference was or inucual benefit to the Motherland and colonies it could not claim their mutual support. But can such a transference be effected on an imperial scale with due regard to ouality and systematic regulation ot supply? This is the question which Mr David Christie iuurray sets, himself to answer in the current " Referee. He propounds a scheme of organised emigration which he first broached in New Zealand some fourteen years ago, and winch should be of interest to colonial readers as a serious attempt to a solution for an Imperial problem ot tae first magnitude. Mr Christie Murray is careful to insist that no plan for an approach to a comparative equalisation of our populace can be entertained unless it can be shown to be beneficial alike to the colonies and to England. His idea is to develop an overflow which should continue so long as it satisfied the needs of the ease on either side, and should of itself create the labour by which the omigrahts would be supported. There would bo a Board of immigration, consisting of representatives of all the countries interested. This Board would invite reports as to suitable sites for new settlements —the idea being to keep the immigrants out of the colonial towns and make them establish now centres -or" population. A locality having been selected, a band of pioneers would be sent our; to clear the land for those who were to follow. This work completed, the pioneers would move on to clear another area, and their place would be taken by settlers and artisans; but no man would be despatched from the Old Country until his work was ready to hand, while any colonist willing to join the enterprise should be given a lirst chance of employment. If, only the plan were carried out gradually, and tne obvious pitfalls in front of such a scheme were avoided, its author is confident that the whole of the surplus population of these islands could 06 absorbed by tli'e colonies, not merely with safety, out to groat advantage. He favours the formation of a large yeoman class, farming its own land and living in rent-free tenements. How a policy of Crown tenure such as obtains in New Zealand would affect the scheme is a point into which he does not enter. -i A working scheme," says Mr Christie Murray in conclusion, "is only practicable by a union of the forces of the Mother Country and the soil-governing colonies. It would pay us well to give absolutely free passage, in addition to the certainty of immediately remunerative labour, to all eligible persons. , It is essential that we should not exaggerate our ideas of tho early possibilities. A few -, hundred pioneers might be employed over the vast fertile tracts which lie" open to us, and might be employed in perpetuity. A few hundred' artificers might follow them, and their occupation would also be permanent. iJut when once the country was made lit for habitation there would scarcely bo a limit to the demand for new settlers, and we might go on peopling redeemed spaces for generations to Mine. The initial outlay would be so small as to be insignificant, "and it would far more than repay itself in the end by the relief it would afford to our own overcrowded labour market, and its consequent reduction of the numbers of the workless who now live upon the rates or are dependent upon charity." The Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, meanwhile, are following Canada's lead in offering special inducements to desirable immigrants. Sir Gilbert Parker, M.P., returned from South Africa on Saturday after spending four months, as chairman of the South African Association, in perfecting details of a scheme for placing now colonists on the land. He does not think the agricultural possibilities of the new provinces compare, favourably with those of Canada or New Zealand, but they are to be compared with Australia. Under the project Sit Gilbert has in hand the settler will be given twelve months' training in colonial farming, will be assisted in his passage out, and for his first year in the country will be given full board and lodging. At the end of this time he will have the option of purchasing a farm from a thousand to fifteen hundred acres in extent at about £1 per acre, payable in half-yearly instalments. " South Africa," says Sir Gilbert Parker, " has scarcely begun to care for herself scientifically. Except i« certain parts of Cape Colony, agriculture is forty years behind either Australia or Canada-. Farming pure and simple, save for a few districts in Cape Colony, is not well done. It is an extraordinary reflection upon the industry of the country that it does not oven feed itself. South Africa gets tinned fruits and tinned meats and cold storage beef and mutton from Australia, butter from Canada, Denmark and Brittany, and com from Canada; and the trail of civilisation from the Zambesi to Table Bay is marked by empty tin cans."