IMPERIAL PROBLEM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 105, 3 April 1926, Page 9

IMPERIAL PROBLEM.

MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT. MR BRUCE’S SPEECH. COMMENT IN* ENGLAND. LONDON, April 1. Commenting on the Australian Prime Minster’s speech at Sydney, in announcing the appointment of a migration and development commission, the Daily Express says that the speech showed a statesman’s grasp of a great Imperial problem. “Undoubtedly it is sheer lunacy,” says the" paper, “for Australians to oppose the introduction of good settlers on the ground of competition with the existing population, but there is no greater lunacy than the attitude of Britons, who oppose essential redistribution of population on the ground that the best stock is needed in Britain. Both oppositions are parochial. Sensible Australians will rally to Mr Bruce. Australia and the other Dominions and colonies are being starved of the people and capital necessary to develop the gigantic resources of the Empire and settlement as a remedy for unemployment.”—A. and N.Z. cable.

Speaking at the official luncheon in connection with the Royal Agricultural Show at Sydney, Mr Bruce said that the Government had decided to appoint a migration and developmental commission representative of all sections of the community to consider all schemes submitted under the migration agreement with the British Government. The commission would also consider and advise the Government on the whole question of migration, national development, and utilisation of Australia’s national resources. Only' in this way, concluded Mr Bruce, could these questions be removed from the arena of party politics and placed on the higher national plane their importance demanded.