EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18950, 23 February 1925, Page 8

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

A return of operations under the Empire Settlement Act, for the year ended March 31 last, has just been published. It is not an inspiring story revealed by the accounts. The Act, passed in 1922, allows the expenditure, by Britain, of £3,000,000 a year for 15 years on Empire migration or settlement. The money may be spent on land settlement schemes or devoted to assistance in passages, initial allowances, or training'for would be immigrants. The record for the year under review, therefore, is that a sum of £3,000,000 could have been expended; £1,206,000 was voted; £456,000 was spent. The larger schemes visualised when the Act Was passed have fallen to the ground almost entirely. The expenditure has been virtually confined to assistance with passage money. This is useful, but it does little to systematise migration. It is axiomatic that the capacity of any country to absorb new citizens without disturbance to its economic and social life must be the factor limiting immigration into it. It must be obvious that a little organisation, a certain degree of management, would increase that capacity enormously. The Dominions have the empty spaces; theoretically the capital for development and the suitability of the migrants to settle are the two principal desiderata. Britain offers to provide the capital for direct application to the land, and to train the prospective migrants. Both offers have been made largely in vain because the Dominions have not displayed any real energy in co-operation. Meanwhile migrants from other countries are pouring into Canada and knocking at the door of Australia. It is no thanks to what is done by New Zealand that the same thing is not being experienced here. The moral is that a paramount need exists for a more aggressive sentiment for, and a more practical interest in, the question of settling the British Empire by British people, so that the existing machinery for effective systematised migration may not be left to rust in idleness.