THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1923. EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18297, 13 January 1923, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1923. EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

The news that "there were nearly a million and a-half workers on the registers of the unemployment agencies in Britain on January 1 of this year reasserts the importance of Imperial settlement overseas. That total was swelled by the addition occasioned by the temporary closing of factories for the Christmas and New Year holidays but, as allowance for that increase still leaves about 1,360,000 registered as unemployed, the position is one of gravity. This is not the total of the unemployed* in Britain, by any means. It represents the number at present seeking employment through the special agencies ; beyond that are others out of work of whom the returns know nothing. From the point of view of the Homeland the position is sufficiently serious to justify amply all that has been done there to initiate organised 'emigration. It. is idle to attribute the position to the war. There was unemployment before the war. The route-marchings of the workless were familiar sights in Britain in the 'eighties and 'nineties of last century. In the last generation or so Britain has suffered seriously from over-population. Froude, more than fifty years ago, called attention to the " floating tide of humanity which surges and eddies round the London suburbs" as furnishing one of tho symptoms of what he called "the enormous festering crowd" that was even then beginning to impress observers ominously. Since Froude's day that festering crowd has increased by sixteen millions. London itself represents a serious problem in this congestion: one out of every seven in the British Isles lives in the metropolis. Yet, although centred there, the problem of surplus population affects the whole of Britain. • The average density of population in Europe is 123 per square mile. The density in the United Kingdom is 394; taking England alone, it is 650 per square mile . For some time it has been realised, more or less clearly, that the congestion was * growing beyond the safety line.

A view of the Empire as a whole suggests the most hopeful direction in which a remedy for the Homeland's trouble may be sought. I Taking the temperate regions of tho Empire overseas— tropical areas, although extensive, do not present suitable climatic conditions— are about eight million square miles of territory in which white men can dwell in health and comfort. Those regions are in need of population, their density of occupation b,y white people is in startling contrast to. the position in the United Kingdom. In Canada it is 2.5 to the square mile, in Newfoundland 1.5, in South Africa 1.8, in Australia 1.8, and in New Zealand 11.9. The possibilities of these regions absorbing the surplus population are enormous, and the advantage all * round would be incalculably great. /Britain would be relieved of a burden that has already become too ponderous to be safely borne. There, despite post-war conditions of dislocated industries and a rising cost of living, the population has been recently advancing by a million gross and half a million net increase per annumj while nearly two millions of needy workers have been doing nothing—largely at the public expense. In the overseas portions of the Empire development has tarried for lack of settlement. A great English statesman once described these areas as "that ample appanage which God and Nature havb set aside in the New World for those whose lot has assigned them ah insufficient portion in the Old." The appanage has-been neglected through lack of practical statesmanship. Now, at length, the requisite statesmanship has been forthcoming in part. Pressed by necessity, the British Parliament has approved "a policy of co-operation in Empire settlement and migration," to quote the Speech from the Throne that foreshadowed the legislation now in being. An Oversea Settlement Committee has been strenuously af. work under Government direction, and the sum ;of : ,000,060 has been earmarked for expenditure during the next fifteen years in assisting' to place emigrants in the dominions overseas. No compulsion is to be exercised; indeed, none is possible. The prospects of the outlying portions of Greater Britain are to make their appeal,, and the choice between emigration and staying in the Homeland rests absolutely with those to whom the information is made available. This should disarm the shallow and selfish opposition that has been raised by Labour in some of the overseas dominions, who ignore the fact that every capable immigrant is a consumer as well as a potential producer, and is able to do more than provide for himself in a land with natural resources not yet fully exploited. The response by the overseas Governments is necessary for the complete success of the scheme. Canada has maintained an active immigration policy. In the Commonwealth, there has been eager participation by Victoria and Western Australia. New South Wales is reported to be making available thousands of new holdings and preparing for 400,000 immigrants its Prime Minister goes Home to arrange, as he puts it, "for men, not money," and its Government is seeking expert advice from abroad as to land settlement , and development generally. New Zealand's response so far has been pitifully meagre : a little correspondence with the Home authorities, an instruction to the High Commissioner in London; but here, in practical participation in the scheme— ally nothing. It is high time for organised co-operation to be afoot.