EMPIRE MIGRATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18514, 27 March 1922, Page 5

EMPIRE MIGRATION

PROBLEM OF CO-OPERATION. AUSTRALIA’S EXCEPTIONAL ATTITUDE. Frees Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, March 24. (Received March 26, at 5.5 p.m.) The Australian Press Association has interviewed various British Government authorities in reference to the forthcoming Emigration Bill, providing for financial co-operation with the dominions under joint schemes of migration and land settlement. The interviewer found a general concurrence of opinion that the principal difficulties affecting Australia were due to lack of unanimity among the political parties regarding immigration. Whatever one party proposed the other opposed. This particularly applied to the State Parliaments, which controlled lands without which land settlement is impracticable. The Canadian Federal and Provincial Parliaments had favoured immigration for the past 20 years. New Zealand was preponfavourable in recent years. Australia was the conspicuous exception. Tho first essential to Imperial co-opera-tion in emigration js continuity of policy. This is impossible unless all parties in the Australian Parliaments agree to co-operate with the Imperial Government and are able to guarantee continuity, because emigration is a non-party question. If the Australian State and Federal Parliaments made immigration not a party hint a national question, thereby enlisting the support of all parties and also ensuring continuity of policy' independent of probable changes of Government, it would enable the Imperial authorities to formulate a permanent policy both nolitically and financially.—A. and N.Z. Cable.