TRAINING FOR BRITISH EMPIRE EMIGRATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3757, 16 March 1926, Page 81

TRAINING FOR BRITISH EMPIRE EMIGRATION.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir —No satisfactory measure of success seems to have attended many emigration schemes that have been started in this country, because essential facts and fundamental principles which must form the basis of any successful scheme have either been overlooked or ignored. The younger that emigrants go out )•> easier it is for them to fit into * ways of a new country. A sound siing in practical farm work is the

st preparation for a settler going on to the land. This he can only acquire bj taking a share in the daily routine of a farm managed on commercial lines, and learning to become expert by precept and example. Any other kind of socalled practical work undertaken as when boys are crowded together in large numbers in one centre is unnatural, and fails to train the muscles or interest the mind of the worker, who cannot develop an interest in the work or the feeling of contentment which pervades the mind of the successful husbandman and of the caretaker of live stock. The latter, for example, makes his animals his chief interest from day to day, and his hobby during times of relaxation, if he is taking fall advantage of his opportunities. A youth spoiled in the training naturally develops habits of laziness and indifference, and degenerates into a pleasureseeking loafer.

It is not in the interests of the country to encourage boys reared on the land to emigrate, although it would not be right to exclude them. The greatest amount of promising material for our purpose is to be found in selected townbred boys as they leave school at 14 years old or over, with little or no prospect of regular employment. Much of the work they could do on the farm would not command wages, and might even result in loss to the employer. The proper place to train them for one year, or, still better, for two years, although not necessarily on the same farm, is scattered individually among the farmers of the country by specially-appointed local committees of the county councils, where they would be taken as untrained units into the labour supply of the farm, and receive instruction and gain experience in the normal way.

They could be boarded and well provided for at £1 per week (paid out of emigration funds) by the farmer or one of his workmen, or by any respectable tradesman living within convenient reach of the work by means of a bicycle. An honorarium at the end should be promised to each according to progress made by way of encouragement. It may be asked: TVhy pay for a worker who ought to be earning wages? The answer is simply: Because this is a great national educational scheme —the only possible one to accomplish the .object that refuses to start by itself, because the interests of the people to be employed in carrying it out are local and personal. The farmer well knows that a cart wheel will not revolve without greasing, which is necessary to prevent it creaking, firing, and finally jamming. No scheme will work unless its wheels go round. Moreover, the demand for emigrants is from* the colonies, not from the farm, consequently they have to be taken on as a favour, and it will req:.. discretion and no little local knowledge and persuasive skill to place as many thousands of boys in country districts as should immediately begin to train for emigration. I fully believe that, in spite of initial difficulties, aggravated by the shortage of houses, the desire to participate in the scheme will soon develop rivalry and competition, for there is a benefit to be conferred on the farmers who take boys and on the cotters who board them, to be discovered by experience. Think of the advantage to a working man’s wife with a family of one, two or three children to have another added and £1 a week extra to feed them.

The system at this end must have its counterpart in Australia, Canada, and other British dominions, by which emigrants would be guided to their future employers, from whom they would earn wages and gradually become incorporated in their new surroundings.—l am, etc., Robert Wallace. University, Edinburgh, Jan. 14.