The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1912. GAINING POPULATION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 36, 5 October 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1912. GAINING POPULATION.

The present campaign in Britain of advertising the Commonwealth of Australia as the Land of Promise proceed, l with vigour, and Captain R. M. Col lins, the official who deals with this work in London on Australia’s behalf, is sanguine that the Commonwealtl will receive 100,000 British immigrants during this year and might add half as many again to the numbei if extra accommodation could be secured on the steamers. All the availI' able berths have been booked foi many months ahead and efforts tc charter some ships for special trips have not proved successful. “It is not merely our advertising that does it,” states Captain Collins, “though we do plenty of that these days. The ( country ip advertising itself. You have been getting bigger and biggei shipments of our wool, wheat, meat and fruit during the last few years. You have been hearing, both in the ordinary way of news and from emigrants who have gone out in the past, of the rapidly growing development ol Australia at Home. We cannot launch into millions of expenditure, you know, and remain happy through it, without people over here getting to hear about it.” Captain Collins further says that Australia is providing for an enormous agricultural population. The gigantic Burrinjack reservoir in New South Wales is going to irrigate about 2,000,000 acres at a cost of £2,000,000, and Victoria bar also turned attention seriously to irrigation. Under the direction of Dr. El wood Ylead, an expert from the United States, the rich but dry malice lands of the back country in Victoria are being turned into fertile gardens by means of irrigation. Captain Collins tells the people that the Australian climate is the most glorious in the world all the year round and advises sceptics to go and see for themselves. It is certainly true that large numbers are taking his advice. It is also to bo fondly hoped that the tide of Britain’s surplus population will continue to set towards these southern lands. New Zealand could very well do with such a stream: it would mean increased prosperity and added security against the Yellow Peril.