OUR ENGLISH LETTER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1249, 6 February 1896, Page 13

OUR ENGLISH LETTER.

COLONISATION AND EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE. From Our Own Correspondent. London, November 30. On Tuesday afternoon Mr W. S. Sebright Green read a paper on " Colonisation and Expansion, of the Empire " to a fairly numerous gathering of Fellows of the Royal Oolonial Institute. The proceedings took place in the library. Mr Green told us that the object of his paper was to bring forward for consideration and discussion the question of how the expansion of the Empire and the realm of Greater Britain can be utilised as a field for labour for such of our surplus population as are able and willing to work without proving an evil to our colonies by overstocking the labour market. The question of finding employment for the ever - increasing population of the Old Country, said Mr Green, is one that demands consideration more and more, as the numbers of the unemployed increase, whilst the sources of emj xjloyment which formerly sufficed do not ! increase in like proportion. Ho pointed out that agriculture in England is no longer able to afford scope for remunerative labour to those seeking it, and expressed a doubt whether under the present system the cultivation of the soil would ever again yield the three-fold income it did 00 years ago. " Rent to the owner, profit to the farmer and a living wage to the labourer aro relies of the past except in rare cases where the tenant employing a large amount of capital is able to utilise a large amount of labour," continued the lecturer. And, alas !he was uttering a simple truth. Turning to colonisation, Mr Green said that the trouble arising from thoughtless, reckless emigration to places where there is no actual demand for labour were not likely to arise from colonisation systematically carried out. One of his suggestions was that a large colonisation society, not carried on for gain or profit, should be established for the promotion of emigration and the settlement of families upon good land suitable for English working men in the colonies, the purchase of laud for settlements and the making of advances to families of small means desiring to go out as settlers. In order to make such colonisation a success it was most desirable that the settlers should be able to obtain occasional employment at wages in the immediate neighbourhood of their own land, especially in the early days of the settlement Mr Green was of opinion that such a society as he suggested should purchase the land in a neighbourhood Avhere such work could be found, rather than endeavour to obtain a grant of land from any colonial Governmant. It was preferable for colonisation purposes to purchase land well situated for settlement than to take up even free land at a distance from rail and seaport, and not near a market for produce, and which land might cost from £5 to .£lO per acre to clear. He had no doubt that there were many people in England who would make good settlers, and who were willing to go out, but had not sufficient means of their own to justify the move. His suggestion was that the Society should be prepared, where proper security was given, to make advances to settlers who required them during the first year, and to assist them in reaching the settlement, such advances to° be repaid by annual instalments. He suggested also that the Society should take the responsibility of selecting the colony as well as the land to which settlers should bo sent; and that a specially selected pioneer party should be sent out in charge of a competent and practical manager to put up a large reception house for the settlers, pending the erection of the necessary dwellings on the respective plots. In the course of the discussion which ensued, Mr J. C. F. Johnson, of Adelaide, said that what they wanted was to be told how best the Empire could use the millions of acres which it had at its disposal. The trouble, he said, was not the lack of good land, but the difficulty of finding what sort of produce could be made to pay. Up to a certain point the colonies had their wool, their metals, their corn, their wine and their oil ; but to-day, with the exception of the metals and j>erhaps of wine and sometimes wool, none of the products of the Australasian colonies actually paid the producer. Many experiments, something like the one suggested by Mr Green, had been tried in Australia, among others a system of homestead block, and a system of communistic village settlements ; but though the former had been partially successful, the latter had failed. Whether the fault was in the system or in the people, Mr Johnson refused to say; but if any system was to succeed, it was necessary to send out colonists, and not emigrants who wanted assistance. The Hon R. Oliver, of New Zealand, endorsed the views expressed by the member for Onkanaringa. He added that if the present Secretary of State for the Colonies carried out his policy of exploiting the Crown colonies, then we might hope that emigration from the Old Country would go to those regions also. Mr McFie, of course, had something to say. He is always to the fore at R.C.I. meetings, and seldom gets reported. He suggested that a system of selected colonists should be adopted under some general scheme -of colonisation. Mr Bond, a Westralian, and Sir Frederick Young also spoke. Among the New Zealanders present were Mr and Mrs Beetham, Mr J. S. Rutberfurd, 'Dr C. Inglis, Captain Ashby, M. Jonathan Seaver .and Mr Stanley Edward.