UNSUITABLE MIGRANTS

Northern Advocate, 21 June 1926, Page 8

UNSUITABLE MIGRANTS

RESORT TO MENDICANCY CHARITY OFFICER’S EVIDENCE. MELBOURNE, This Day. Giving evidence before the Royal Commission on National Insurance, the Rev A. E. P. Young, of the Mission of St. James and St. John, Melbourne, stated that of 1675 single nonunionist employed who had been allotted to the mission by the central committee 17 per cent wore migrants who had come to Australia during the last four years, and 48 per cent had come from other states or migrated. Sixty of the migrants in this list were assisted by the State immigration Bureau, and more than 200 worked their passages or were helped out under various schemes. The chairman: And they have failed to make good. V Witness: There arc men cadging in the streets of Melbourne today who have arrived in Australia in the last gix months. They were selected migrants, but they arc physically unfit, undersized; and lacking in initiative. Many of them have not a strong mentality.

In answer to a question, the witness said that the men referred to were unable to got work, principally on account of their disabilities.

The Rev. J. EL Cain said that a large number of migrants found their way to the office of the Methodist Mission. He was of the opinion that a largo percentage of the migrants should never have left England. He did not think they were the right type of men. Some were physically, and a few mentally defective. The physically unfit constituted a problem to be dealt with apart from unemployment.