SURPLUS POPULATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18062, 10 April 1922, Page 7

SURPLUS POPULATION.

PROBLEM BEFORE BRITAIN. EMIGRATION AS SOLUTION. CONTRARY VIEWS EXPRESSED By Telesraph—Ptosa Association— CoDjrizhl (Received 6.5 p.m.) A. and N Z. LONDON, April 7. The Overseas Settlement Bill to provide for financial co-operation the Dominions in joint schemes of migration and land settlement was read a first time in the House of Commons to-day. The Morning Post, in a leader warmly supporting an inter-Imperial emigration scheme wherein the British Government and the Commonwealth and State Governments will co-operate, advocates the division of Britain into regions for propaganda, each regional centre being the headquarters of local centres and communicating with Australia House " The working classes of Britain, states the newspaper, " taught by a period of unusual distress, are beginning to perceive that thore are more men in Britain than her industry can support even in times of prosperity. It is of first importance that every measure should be taken to ensure the success of the scheme from the beginning. Such a system of interImperial emigration, which eventually will include all the self-governing Dominions, will begin a new epoch in the history of the British Empire, we hope, a prosperity Hitherto unknown." On the othor hand, Mr. Harold Cox, in an article in the Sunday Times, asserts that iter-Imperial emigration cannot solve the over-population of England, where the population is increasing at the rate of 100Q daily. He contends that birth control is the only solution. Unfortunately, be asserts, the State, by a lavish system of doles, is encouraging the least desirable classes to multiply indefinitely. He points out that the Dominions demand agricultural workers, which are the very people that England is least willing to part with; also, Australia and Canada, while increasing tho local output of manufactured goods, are buying mors largely from tho United States, instead of restricting purchases to Britain. "These considerations," states Mr. Cox, " are put forward, not with the idea of discouraging any voluntary scheme of emi--1 gration, but in the hope of destroying ' the illusion that there is much to be expected from the scheme of State-aided ' emigration, now loudly advocated. The colonies have grown into great States, ' strong enough to be self-dependent. They have no right to beg us to tax ourselves in order to supply them with our best people. Doles to emigrants, which Mr. Emery advocates, will not effectively diminish doles to unemployed, which Mr. | Emery rightly denounces. They will only add to the burdens of the English tax--3 payer.''