AUSTRALIA’S NEW IMMIGRATION SCHEME

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 87, 4 July 1927, Page 12

AUSTRALIA’S NEW IMMIGRATION SCHEME

UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM AUCKLANDER’S IMPRESSIONS USTRALIA has her unemployment problems, and it is just as well that we should know something of them,” said Mr. C. F. Bennett, who returned from a holiday trip to Australia this morning on the Aorangi. Just before Mr. Bennett left Melbourne there were 6,900 on the waiting list of the unemployed. That was after a considerable number had been given work. Mr. Bennett spent six and a-half weeks in Australia altogether, and during that time he travelled 3,000 miles by steamer, 1,000 miles by motor, and went from West Australia back to New South Wales and Victoria by the transcontinental railway. “Even then I touched only the fringe of the Continent,” said Mr. Bennett, who went on to speak of the great possibilities of Australia. The Aucklander is of opinion that Australia can absorb large numbers of immigrants, and a new scheme lias been inaugurated whereby boys will be brought out so that they can grow up in the country. This scheme has met with the approval of the Labour Party. Next year a delegation of 500 Scotsmen will go home to place before the people of England, Scotland and Wales the advantages and possibilities which lie ahead of the young people. The prime mpvers in the scheme are the men who compose the “Big Brotherhood” movement, which originated in Victoria through Mr. Richard Linton. The “Big Brotherhood” will watch the career of the boys who come out and interest themselves in the welfare of the young immigrants. Mr. Bennett believes that this scheme could be worked in New Zealand with advantage. He says that a similar delegation to that going Home from Australia could go from New Zealand and put before parents the desirability of boys coming to New Zealand. Land values are giving the Australians some concern at present, said Mr. Bennett. There is one difficulty in Australia, he continued, and that is that there are not enough people on the Continent. Building activity in Sydney is intense, he said, and a great deal of money is being spent. At a land sale he attended he saw city property passed in at £1,500 a foot on a frontage of property with only a depth of 78 feet.