EMPIRE MIGRATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18898, 26 June 1923, Page 8

EMPIRE MIGRATION.

BRITAIN’S GREAT MISSION. A FALLACY EXPOSED. (Feom Oob Own Cokeespondent.) LONDON, May 10. Empire migration as a means of redressing the balance between the oyer-populated Mother Country and the thinly peopled dominions was urged by Lieutenant-colonel A. Buckley (Parliamentary Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade, and chairman of the Overseas Settlement Committee) in an address to the Rotary Conference at Scarborough. He denied that it was a method of dumping down in the dominions a lot of helpless people who could not make a living here. There never was a greater fallacy. It was essentially a problem of the readjustment of tho population and of the creation of new wealth and opportunities. Tho population of this country had increased by six millions since ISOO. Up to that year three-quarters of tho emigrants from these shores went to places other than the British Empire, and most went to America. Since that year, however, two-thirds of the emigrants had gone to the British Empire. Lieutenant-colonel Buckley hoped to organise some system of county migration committees to sec that the right men were sent. He wanted to send the best people abroad. It was no use sending out weaklings, for they only gave the Old Country a bad name. If the rotary movement gave some attention to this work it would he a most useful instrument for good. The committee had sent out 2500 boys to Australia in the last two years, and they had only had 12 letters of complaint. SETTLEMENT PROBLEMS. . The Duke of Devonshire was tho chief guest at the West Australian dinner last evening (Sir J. Connolly being in the chair), and Sir Janies Allen and Sir H. d’Egvillo were among others present. One thing which the Duke was anxious strongly to make people understand was that Empire settlement and migration were not dismal attempts to make improvements or to better conditions, but these matters were taken up with confidence, and hope, and certainty in the future. He would always look back with very considerable satisfaction to the fact that ho had the privilege as Secretary of State for the Colonies of signing the agreement with the Government of Western , Australia, the Commonwealth Government,' and tho State Government for the purpose of putting into effect the arrangements completed for Empire settlement. That agreement had two objects—(l) To provide work for the emigrants in tho country districts, and (2) for the settling of 6000 men on farms of their own. They were working as a part of their daily operations in close connection with tho commonwealth representatives and with the State representatives, carrying out a policy which ho believed had the confidence and support of people at Home and in the dominions. On those lines they would continue to work except that as time went on they would become bolder, and broaden and widen the opportunities for those for whom they wore working. He was quit© confident that they were working on the right lines. They were nobly doing their part in the solution of that problem. He could only wish them the greatest success in their efforts, and they could rely upon the Government at Home to be a firm friend, anxious to work with them, proud to take part in the development of their great inheritance, and to co-operate with them in every way. The big problem that they had to face was security from outside aggression, security that the conditions which prevailed throughout tho Empire would be of that character that when an honest man did a day’s work and put his back and soul into it he should bo secure and left free and unmolested. — (Cheers.) PEOPLING EMPTY SPACES. At the City Temple last night Mr Lloyd George addressed a crowded meeting held under the auspices of the Colonial Missionary Society. Most, jnissionar^ - societies, he said, were missions to tire heathen, but this one was a mission to our own race of people. Describing himself a believer in the British Empire, the ex-Prime Minister said that In the past Empire had been too much of a boast and too little of a trust.

“ These treasures, these resources, these people, they are a trust committed by Providence to the charge of the men and women of these islands, and their kith and kin beyond the seas. It is almost a new theory, this theory of trust. The first lime it was embodied in a great international code was four years ago in the Treaty of Versailles—a very much abused document, especially by those who have never road it, and the less they have read it the more violent the abuse. But they will find, if they can spare time from the preparation of diatribes against it to read it, they will find there amongst other good things the theory of the trust of empires put in the form of ■what is called a mandate theory. It is a trust not held for prestige, not held for profit, not held even to account to the British Parliament, nor even the British people, but a trust for humanity to be reported upon every year as to what you have done with the souls committed to the charge of the British Ernoire. It is because this colonial societv anticipated that theory, realised the trust of Empire, the of Empire, that I believe in it as an essential part of the machinery of busy civilisation and want to see it progress. “There were formerly two theories of British Emp're. One was it was a good thing to be flattered; the other theory was that it was an evil thing to be deprecated and just tolerated. They are both wrong. The new theory is the one. which I have described: the theory that it is a trust to be strengthened, to be developed, to be utilised for the benefit of humanity. .And that new sense of the beneficence of the British Empire has grrwn prodigiously m recent years, largely, I think, ns the result of the war. We now realise that the Empire saved the liberty of the world. That is no exaggeration. Anyone who reads what was done then know that had it not been for the British Empire liberty would have been overthrown.” THE EMPIRE’S WAR LOSSES.

Mr Lloyd George went on to refer to the seven or eight millions of men who went from the British Empire during the late war, and with an earnest ring in his voice said, amid cheers: “How I wish there were just one word of appreciation of that fact in France and in Belgium. We are not a people who want gush, but just one word, they never know when the British Empire may be useful again. Under the blessing of God its days are not over, and it will stand watch over freedom on earth, as long us its might remains.” The war opened up a vista of the power of the British Empire of its splendours, of its possibilities, and of its resources. One day, he said, the people would discover these possibilities. Just now they could not believe it. There was nothing mankind was more suspicious of than the obvious. Cicero had said that States were made up of hearths and altars. These men, when they crossed the seas, would found hearths, but would they found altars? Upon the answer to that depended the greatness, the beneficence, the real glory not merely of the British Empire, but of humanity itself. “This Empire,” he said in conclusion, “is going to have a great influence upon the future of the world, and, if it is going to establish its real power, it must be by the means that have made it great in the past.”