SETTLING THE EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18050, 27 March 1922, Page 7

SETTLING THE EMPIRE.

CONTINUITY ESSENTIAL.

SUGGESTION TO AUSTRALIA.

NON-PARTY POLICY NEEDED.

By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.

(Received 6.5 p.m.}

A. and N.Z. LONDON. March 24. The Australian and New Zealand Press Association lias interviewed various British Government authorities with reference to tho forthcoming Emigration Bill to provide for financial co-operation with the Dominions in joint schemes of migration and land settlement. There is general concurrence of opinion that the principal difficulty affecting Australia is lack of unanimity among tho political parties regarding immigration. Whatever one party proposes the other opposes. This particularly applies to the State Parliaments which control lands, without which land settlement is impracticable.

The Federal and Provincial Parliaments of Canada have favoured immigration in the past 20 years, and New Zealand has been favourable in recent years. Australia is a conspicuous exception.

The first essentia] of Imperial co-opera-tion in emigration is continuity of policy. This is impossible unless all parties in the Australian Parliaments agree to co-operate. The Imperial Government is able to guarantee continuity, because emigration is a ncn-party question. If the Australian State and Federal Parliaments make immigration a national non-party policy, thereby enlisting the support of Ministerialists and Oppositionists, and ensuring continuity of policy independence of probable chartges of Government, ft would enable the Imperial authorities to formulate a permanent policy both politically and financially.

The Premier of South Australia, Mr. H. N. Barwell, visited Hull this weekend as the guest of the Lord Mayor and the North-Eastern Railway Company. -Speaking at a luncheon, Mr. Barwell said that owing to the necessity of repatriating exsoldiers South Australia was not ready yet to take emigrants in large numbers, but the State was prepared to take nominated immigrants and agricultural labourers. He had organised a scheme to take 6000 boys, the number South Australia had lost in the war. He had already received many thousand letters from boys willing to go.