NATIONAL LAND SETTLEMENTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1745, 16 August 1905, Page 59

NATIONAL LAND SETTLEMENTS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 23.

Mr Eider Haggard’s scheme for planting out some of England’s povertystricken millions on colonial lands has met with warm approval in some quarters and with, plenty of criticism in others. Mr Haggard, it may be remembered, was sent out to Canada and the United States to report whether only such national scheme would* be likely to be attended with success. As a result of his inquiries he believes that it would, and he has himself outlined a plan which, with proper safeguards and control, he considers workable and sound. His idea is that Government should guarantee the interest on a suiiicient loan, and place the administration of the scheme in the hands of the Salvation Army or any other approved organisation. To set the scheme on a good financial basis he proposes to “followk the example set by that brilliantly successful measure, the New Zealand Advances to Settlers Act.” -tie does not bknk the fact that a great deal of money would be required. To transport and settle even 1500 men and their wives and families in Canada would cost approximately £2OO per family, or £300,000 in all. v The colonist, it is true, would have to discharge his liability within a given number of years before he could get a title to his section of land. Five things Mr Haggard considers necessary to success: The avoidance of past mistakes (in the Salvation Army colonies), the cheapness as well as the suitability of the land, the careful selection of the colonist, the payment of a fair price, spread over a considerable number of years, for the land, and the need for the colonists to remain under skilled but sympathetic management. It is a pretty comprehensive list .of provisos, but mey must all be faced if the scheme is to have a chance of success. Canada, with her great waste lands orymg o.ut for settlement, is ready and willing to help t-ne scheme along. In the case of Australia and New Zealand the local conditions are very different, and a great and sudden influx of immigrants would tax their powers of absorption to a dangerous extent, xrut rr it is a good thing for Canada, it is not so easy to see how England is going to benefit. The class wham Mr Eider Haggard wants to benefit are not those Whom Eingland can best spare. The coaonies would like to get me best of England's labouring population, and the more of that class they get, the more successful will be the colonisation scheme. But Canada’s gain will be England’s loss. Instead of getting rid of the inefficients, the loafers, the degenerates, who constitute the chief labour problem in this country, Eingland will foe denuded to a greater extent than ever of her agricultural population, already diminishing far too rapidly. Naturally the colonies do not want the inefficients, nor could they be expected to receive them en masse. But on the other hand England can ill afford to lose the class which makes the best colonists. Far better would it be for this country if Mr Rider Haggard or someone else could produce and carry into effect a scheme for getting the

people ba-ck upon the land here, instead of shipping them over-seas. The whole problem raised by this report simply bristles with difficulties, and it would he rash either to appiove *. demn any national system of artificial emigration until these difficulties have each and all been earnestly considered.