SETTLERS FROM BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18207, 28 September 1922, Page 4

SETTLERS FROM BRITAIN.

THE AUSTRALIAN SCHEME. EXPENDITURE OF £36,000,000. MELBOURNE, Sept. 22. In announcing to-day that an agreement had been signed with the Victorian Government for a joint scheme providing for the introduction of 2000 new land settlers, the Prime Minister, Mr. W. Hughes, stated that this was one section of a comprehensive proposal to expend £36 000.000 on immigration. "The 2000-' new settlers to be introduced to Victoria," he said, "represent the first instalment of 10,000 newcomers who are to b? settled on farms in the State." Mr. Hughes explained that the agreements reached with the British Government at the conference of Prime Ministers he attended last year secured the cc~. operation of the British Treasury in the development of the Empire. The initial cost of settling a new farmer was in pursuance of this agreement to be assumed by three Governments, the British, the Commonwealth, and the State. An arrangement had already been completed with Sir James Mitchell, Premier of Western Australia, under which 6000 new farmers were to be introduced to Western Australia at the joint cost of the three Governments, and at a total loan expenditure of £6,000,000. Realising that this new settlement would mate room for additional population in the sparsely settled areas of the west, Sir James Mitchell had undertaken to introduce within five years 76,000 newcomers. The Western Australian agreement has now been followed by the one mentioned above with the Victorian Government, under which in the first year the Commonwealth Government will raise and lend to the State Government the a um of £3,000 000, to bu devoted to this new settlement- The sum will be increased to £6,000.000 as the settlement proceeds, and new farmers are introduced. The Commonwealth Government will make an annual contribution to the interest charge,, and the British Government will grant a per capita loan to the settler. The Prime ilinister is ready to make similar arrangements with all of the other States the moment their Governments indicate a willingness to proceed with the work of providing farms for migrants. There is thus immediately available for new land settlement operations in Australia the sum of £36,000 000. The shipment of these new farmers arid their dependants, added Mr. Hughes, and the resultant flow of other immigrants are provided for in the passage money agreement signed in July last by the British and the Australian Governments under which the cost of transportation is a joint charge. The migrants are recruited and selected in England by the Federal Popartment of Migration -Mid Settlement at Australia House. A contribution of £12 is made toward the cost of each adult passage, whieh now costa £36 net, and a portion of the balance of the passase money so advanced by instalments when the migrants obtain work in Australia, the work of collection being in the hands of the States. At the present time the flow of misrants to Australia is between 25,000 and 30 000 a year. vVith the new schemes coming into operation and the reported intention of the New South Wales Government to adopt an active policy, it is expected that the inflow of easily absorbable new population will speedily reach about 100,000 per annum.