DOMINION MIGRATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 11

DOMINION MIGRATION.

YOUNG OFFENDERS EXCLUDED| ■ EX-SERVICE MEN'S CRITICISM. (Received June 0, 8.12 p.m.) Slin . LONDON. June 8. The conference of the Empire Service League was opened to-day, by the Secretary of State for tho Dominions, Mr. Am cry. The Minister paid a tribute to the work done by tho League in assisting tho development of the overseas Empire. Some people, he said, seemed anxious regarding the effect of the Imperial Conference of 1926. They were mistaken. The Conference had not loosened a single bond. On the contrary, it had made it clear that unity depends on common interests and mutual co-opora-tion. The Conference passed' a resolution urging the extension of the Overseas Settlement Act in the direction of granting special concessions to ex-service men. Mr. Andrew Young, a Scottish schoolmaster, said Australia was worse than Canada in excluding boy migrants because they had been convicted of youthful escapades. Mr. Young hoped that the delegates would persuade the Governments of these countries to modify their restrictions in such cases. Captain Simson, the secretary of the League, said that in his opinion the restrictions in these Dominions did not discriminate between murder and youthful crimes. Thousands of young people were not accepted as emigrants because they had been convicted of trifling offences at the age cif nine or 10 years, when they lacked parental control. The Conference became uproarious when Mr. Eraser East, of Brisbane, in defending his Government-, remarked that some Dominions formerly had no choice in declining to accept, criminals. Mr. Gilbert Dyett, the chairman, said tho British laws ought to be amended so as to permit boys who had beon convicted of trifling offences to migrate with clean records.