SETTLERS FROM BRITAIN

Southland Times, Issue 19653, 2 October 1922, Page 6

SETTLERS FROM BRITAIN

THE AUSTRALIAN SCHEME. EXPENDITURE OF £36,000,000. MELBOURNE, September 22. In announcing to-day that an agreement had been signed with the Victorian Government for a joint scheme providing for the introduction of 2000 new land settlers, the Prime Minister, Mr W. Hughes, stated that this was one section of a comprehensive proposal to expend £36,000,000 on immigration. “The 2000 new settlers to be introduced to Victoria,” he said, “represent the first in? stahnent of 10,000 newcomers who are to bo .settled on farms in the State.”

Mr Hughes explained that the agreement reached with the British Government at the conference of Prime Ministers he attended last year secured the cooperation of the British Treasury in the development of the Empire. The initial cost of settling a new farmer was in pursuance of this agreement to be assumed by htree Governments, the 43i*itish, the Commonwealth, and the State. An arrangement had already been completed with Sir James Mitchell, Premier of Western Australia, under which 6000 new farmers were to be introduced to Western Australia at the joint cost of the three Governments, and at a total loan expenditure of £6,000,000.

-Realising that this new settlement would make room for additional population in the sparsely settled areas of the west, Sir James Mitchell had undertaken to introduce within five years 75',(XX) newcomers. The Western Australian agreement has now been followed by the one mentioned above with the Victorian Government, under which in the first year the Commonwealth Government will lend to the State Government the sum of £3,000,(MX), to be devoted to this new settlement. The sum will be increased to £6,000,000 as the settlement proceeds, and new farmers are introduced.

The Commonwealth Government will I make an annual contribution to the in- ! terest charge, and the British Government will grant a per capita loan to the settler. The Prime Minister is ready to make similar arrangements with all of the other States the moment their Governments indicate a willingness to proceed with the work of providing farms for immigrants. There is thus immediately available for new land settlement operations in Australia the sum of £36,009,000. The shipment of these new fanners and their dependants, added Mr Hughes, and the resultant flow of other immigrants are provided for in the passage money agreement signed in July last by the British and the Australian Governments under which the cost of transportation is a joint charge. The migrants are recruited and selected in England by the Federal Department of Migration and the Settlement at Australia House. A contribution of £l2 is made towards the cost of each adult passage, which now costs £36 net, and a portion of the balance of the passage money so advanced by instalments when the migrants obtain work in Australia, the work of collection being in the hands of the States. At the present time the flow of migrants to, Australia is between 25,009 and 30,000 a year. With the new schemes coming into operation and the reported intention of the New South Wales Government to adopt an active policy, it is expected that the inflow of easily absorbable new population will speedily reach about 100,000 per annum.