EMIGRATION UP-TO-DATE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1678, 27 April 1904, Page 79 (Supplement)

EMIGRATION UP-TO-DATE

' TJJ. ' . (From Our Special -Correspondent.) LONDON. March 4. An Emigration. \ League, which boasts as its object the promotion of “legislaition off ©ling free training, emigration, and a colonial farm to one member of a family,” but which is under the painfjul necessity of disclosing the fact that during the year 1903 it's subscription liislt only totalled £1 Is lOd (we are told this sum includes a cheque for £1 from Viscount Helm&ley, but the genesis of the odd shilling and! ten pence is not disclosed) hardly seems likely to do much toward relieving England of some of her superfluous population or to add materially to the flesh and blood resources of the colonies. Yet leaflets of this League have been falling, thick, as leaves in Vallambrosa, on London lately. Therein the modest ideals of the League are briefly set forth. It has its basis, wet are told, in the fact ithat England ils over' populated, whereas there is plenty of room for untold millions in the colonies. Bpfc the League recognises that the colonies offer no fair field fc" the triad failures of the Old Country, and that some training is necessary to fit men and women for life in Greater Britain, and especially for those whopropose taking to fanning. Sto the League proposes to catch the future emigrant young train him or her “on training fanns at Home, from the age of leaving school, under authorities created by Act of Parliament” ; and on reaching the age of 18 the emigrants are to be provided with outfits and passages out of the money placed to their accounts for work done on the training farms. On arriving in the colonies the League propose:.! that the emigrants “should be received by authorities apointed by the colonial Governments,- under whom their training should be completed.” The League assures us that it would be found that by the authorities acting in co-operation that “the whole coslb of the training would be covered by the value of the produce,” and that “it would also be found that there would be sufficient over to reduce annually the loan made for the initial outlay, besides the money placed to the credit of each colonist for work done.”

Having completed the training of the emigrants, the colonial Go vernments are to give the colonists, at the age of 21, ‘ithe choice of entering upon settlement farms, on which the buildings should he erected and the necessary stock provided, the cost of which, with a reasonable amount of interest, the colonists should pay by instalments .spread o>ver a number of -ears, at the end of which the farms would become their own.” ’Tis a beautiful programme and so simple:—John Sinks, a superfluous son of John and Susan o> that ilk, having passed through the educational mill of the Board School at the ratepayers’ expense) is, with parental consent, taken at the age of 14 or thereabouts to a 40-acre Govcrnnienib farm and there, for four years, is instructed (also at the ratepayers 5 expense) in the gentle arts of farming and “petit culture.” Arrived at the age of 18 he is to be, fitted up with a supply of clothing, etc. (again at the ratepayers’ expense), and shipped to gome colony where a loving Government will welcome him with open arms, complete his agricultural education, keep and clothe him for three years, and naliso his attainment of the age of 21 b)y allowing him to purchase a ready-made farms on the “easy terms” of a furnituredealing firm, besides making him a cash present based on bis problematical earnings during the last three' yeiais of his apprenticeship. The glorious .simplicity of the scheme is its chief commendation. All that has to be done is to pass an Act of Parliament establishing training farms for the reception and education of superfluous Rinks’s, and to finds colonial Governments willing to “do the rest. . lo eniraible these things to be done it is, of course, only necessary to send cheques in plenty to the Rev. A. J. J. Hughes, secretary of the Emigration League, at 4 The Causeway, East End Road Finchley, and .oroes them “Emigration League Account. 55 Lest some be sceptical as to the” utility of stuch a league I may mention that’ though the office of president apears to be vacant, the vice-presidents include one duke (Sutherland), one viscount (Barrington), one lord (Armstrong), and three bishops (Ely, Thetford and Barking). Possibly this sextette contributed that mysterious Is lOd to the Leaguie 5 s funds last year.