MIGRATION MATTERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19302, 15 April 1926, Page 13

MIGRATION MATTERS.

SIR JAS. ALLEN AT OXFORD. GUEST OF UNDERGRADUATES. [FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] LONDON, March 10. Sir James Allen and Mr. F. T. Sandford, migration officer, recently visited Oxford in response to an invitation from tho Thomas More Society to be present at ono of their meetings. The society, which is composed of men and women undergraduates, has a section whose business it is to investigate migration matters and on this occasion their report was to he submitted to (he meeting. From this report it is evident that the High Commissioner's visit must have been of some value, for the findings of tho' subcommittee showed that the students were peculiarly out of touch with tho real facts of migration. Sir James Allen based his remarks on the findings ol the sub-committee and spoke for more than an hour. Tho undergraduates appeared to take a real interest in his address and asked a great many questions afterwards which were answered by the High Commissioner or by Mr. Sundford. Sir James spoke of group and child migration. On the question of capital, he said tho capital of a migrant was not necessarily monetary capital. Good health, adaptability and willingness lo work could quite well take tho place of monetary capital. On the question of training before embarkation, Sir Jamos maintains that the best training was obtained by actual experience. Tho sub-committee expressed the opinion that the policy of migration, though it might serve as a palliative, could nover be a satisfactory solution of the problems of unemployment at Home. In such circumstances the extension of migration merely shifted the centre of disturbance elsewhere.

The High Commissioner produced figures which showed that there were very many more people in employment in England to-day than there were in 1914. TTad there* been no war and had the average annual flow of migration of 300,000 been maintained there would have been practically no unemployment, in this country. England was able to absorb the natural increase in her population if the migration figures were raised to a level proportionate with those ruling before the war.