A MILLION FARMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17843, 26 July 1921, Page 6

A MILLION FARMERS.

BIG SCHEME OUTLINED.

TO POPULATE AUSTRALIA.

MONEY AND MEN NEEDED.

In a striking speech at a National Club luncheon in Sydney on July 19 Sir Joseph Carruthers propounded a. scheme for settling a million fanners on the land in Australia. He said if America can maintain 12.400.000 persons actually engaged in agriculture, of whom probably one-half are interested as owners, and the other halt as hired workers, and can do this on 879.000,000 acres of cultivated land and grass land, an average of one to every 70 acres, is it not a fair thing to believe that Australia can at least aim at placing additional men on the land to secure 1.000.000 farm owners, with a fair quota of labourers, either hired or of their own families''

" You will need money, and then men. It will probably take many, very many, millions of pounds, but not all at once. Money expended on such a scheme—for such it must become—will be an investment with a-ssets to represent it.

" I tuigge.-t that a fund of at least £30,000.000 should be named, and that this fund should from time to time be raised as required by Australia and Great Britain in equal proportions, with a joint backing.

" The administration of that fund should be entrusted to a joint and representative body, which would supervise the carrying out of all the details of the scheme, and which should have power to make its contracts and arrangements with States or with either of the two greater Governments concerned.

" Just as any development company proceeds to utilise new land and to settle it, so the proposed joint bodv can proceed. Why should England be asked to join in? She has a surplus population that must emigrate, and it is to her interest to direct the tide to one of her own Dominions rather than to see population lost to the Empire. Australians trade very largely with England, and she benefits by it as much as' we do. The advantage of any increase in our population is hers as well as ours.

Then look at the matter of defence. Pother wo or England must maintain an army and fleet sufficient to beat off any possible enemy, with a. base and a strong fleet in the Pacific. It is a better proposition for Great Britain to jcjjri in financing and controlling such a scheme as I propoae than to have to continue alone the building of battleships costing £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 each, and it it a better proposition than to continue to develop Egypt and Mesopotamia for Arabs and Egyptians. The trust or joint body would own the public works and the lAid and a .large part of the expenditure would be directly productive and represented by a permanent asset. It may take each country the price of a battleship or a cruiser each year, for a few years, to make up its contribution. If we can have another 10,000,000 people added to our population, our debt will be less than that of England at the close of the Napoleonic wars per head of population. The only ,way to pay off our public debt is to increase the numbers working t Q produce wealth from our soil—which is the only original source of wealth. To-day the right atmosphere exists for a practical outcome to the proposals I have set before you. The ok} world of the white races in Europe is disorganised and overpeopled. There must be great emigration. Large numbers want to emigrate to escape conditions that are insufferable or, to setk at least a better outlook in life. " If Mr. Hughes and Mr. Lloyd George were t a annouce that they had agreed upon a scheme similar to what I have suggested, imagine the immediate effect it would have. The public mind would seize upon the idea, and men in all parts of tho Empire who now think of Australia as an empty continent would reconstruct their views and picture it as a great and growing country, taking a new and greater place in the world's affairs." \