EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19235, 26 January 1926, Page 9

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

NEW LEGISLATION URGED. COLONIAL INSTITUTE MOVING. A. and N.Z. LONDON. Jan. 24 The Colonial Institute requested the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, to receive a deputation on the subject of the promotion of emigration. Mr. Baldwin delegated the matter to the Secretary of State for the Dominions. Mr. L. C. M. S. Amery, who will receive the deputation on Monday. The institute stated in its letter to the Prime Minister that the Overseas Settle- > ment Act is entirely inadequate, and that a new Act is urgently necessary, firstly, because the stipulation in the existing Act that the oversea Government must pay equal shares with the Imperial Government of the cost of / any approved scheme, although it is excellent in theory must break down in practice. The small populations of the Dominions were finding it impossible to provide the money to finance a migration scheme on such a comprehensive scale. , In the second place under the existing Act the rate of progress is too slow for the effective handling of the migration problem Thirdly, there should be direct co-opera-tion by means of British representatives overseas similar to the present oversea committees representative of Australia. Fourthly, there is ho doubt a large number of people are willing to migrate but are unable to do so under the present conditions. " If the Government will agree to bear the whole cost of settlement schemes," the letter added, "it is suggested that the conditions of those schemes should provide for the gradual repayment by settlers of moneys advanced by the British Government, fn the case of migrants who do not settle on the land, voluntary societies should pledge themselves to secure repayment." The institute urged that the repatriation of migrants should not be made too easy, and that there should be a home , land settlement scheme as favourable as that for overseas settlers. Lord Stanley, Conservative M.P. for Fylde (Lancaster), will introduce the deputation, and Mr. Christopher Tumor, author of " The Land and the Empire," will be the chief exponent of its ideas. It is expected that Mr. Amery will make a most important pronouncement.