EMIGRATION IS NOT CONFESSION OF FAILURE

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 35, 13 February 1929, Page 5

EMIGRATION IS NOT CONFESSION OF FAILURE

BRITISH MINISTER EXPLAINS POSITION

PEOPLING THE DOMINIONS

CO-OPERATION IS NECESSARY.

LONDON, February 11,

Mr H. B. Betterton, Minister of Labour, in the House of Commons, in submitting the supplementary estimates of £366,000 for indusfrtal training and transference, said that whereas last year only 2020 persons went from the training centres to Canad and Australia, there were now 6000 training for Canada alone. It cost a man nothing till he reached Canada. They were prepared to train as many as it was anticipated Australia would take.

igjir;. HilSjon! Younig* ICMef-Secile-try for Emigration, said it was a mistake to think that a policy of

emigration amounted to a confession of failure. Emigration was most prevalent in the most vigorous periods of Britain’s life. It was tragic to think that th® Do-* minions werle being peopled by foreigners instead of by Britons. DOMINION CONDITIONS.

Mr W. Lunu said fens of thousands. were anxious and willing to emigrate, but the conditions in the Dominions were not encouraging. The Rt. Hon. L. C. Amery, replying, said that the Government in nowise desired to shift the burden 0 f unemployment 'on to the shoulders of the Dominions. The migration policy must be based on co-opera-tion between Britain and the Dominions, but the G'o-vernment believed that migration, if persistently called out with this co-operation* would help the growth of the Dominions, the trade and the welfare of the whole Empire. The test of a migrant should hot be his unemployment', but his fitness.: If he were likely to succeed and Wished to be migrate die should bp encouraged, hut if he was unfit and unwilling, he should <be discouraged.