DOMINIONS COMMISSION

Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16229, 27 March 1917, Page 11

DOMINIONS COMMISSION

FINAL REPORT. RiEOOMMECSTDATIONS. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) LONDON, March 25. The Dominion's Royal Commission, in a final and unanimous report covering its five years' investigation,' states that it visited ©very capital and every Stat© and province in the five Dominions. It held 160 sittings and examined 850 witnesses. . . Hie report acknowledges the Commission's. indebtedness to the sssi stance of Mr G. H. Knibbs, Government Statistician, during the Australian tour and to Mir Malcolm Ross in New Zealand. Reviewing the Dominions seriatim, tlie report inferemtially favours the existing systems of development oif the potentialities of Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland in tho order named. The Australian interior, it states, is largely waterless aind impossible of settlement. Northern Queensland, North Western Australia and the Northern Territory have not proved suitable for a ,largo white population, nevertheless enormous areas, mainly in the coastal belt, are as healthy as any country in 1 til© world. There is a beautiful climate and the rainfall is sufficient, but this is the most sparsely populated civilised country in the world. The report criticises the undue aggregation of population in Australian towns. Wheat areas are enormous, but lacking railways, the average acreage yielding 50 per cent, below Canada. Mineralogioal potentialities are enormous, particularly in Queensland, which marny believe ranks ns the first: of the Australian States mineralogically. New Zealand is a splendid agricultural country, another Britain of the" Southern Seas. Social legislation and even the distribution! of wealth in New Zealand'are probably more advajnoed than in any part of the Empire. A DEVELOPMENT BOARD. DOMINION REPRESENTATION. The principal recommendation is the creation of a permanent Imperial Development Board, under the direction otf a permanent Imperial Conference, com- 1 prising twelve members intimately acquainted with the Empire, seven representing Britain, India and the Orown Colonies, wfith one each for the 'five Dominions, with headquarters at London. The Board would make frequent Empire peregrinations. Its main functions would be to complete and continue the work begun by the Commission in relation to the production and distribution of food and rawmaterials throughout the Empire, scientific reisearch, the employment on Empire capital in the development of Empire resources, emigrat:on within the Empire, steamships, cables and railways in so ifar as they are contributory to Imperial development, legislation affecting trade and the preparation uf Imperial .statistics. The Board would be purely advisory in the initial stages and must not encroach on the political or administrative machinery of the selfgoverning Dominions. Its principal duty wotilld be to initiate or report our schemes remitted by the Imperial Conference in" participation with the Governments of the Dominions. IMPERIAL COMMUNICATION. Inter-Imperial communication, the report states, demands vessels of greater draught and length, necessitating th© deepening of harbours oil the Suez, Cape and Canadian routes, notably Fre,mantle, Adelaide, Melbourne, Lyttelton and' Port Chalmers. The Australasian system oif dry docks is inadequate, except at Sydney. The shipping services will need reviewing in 1920, when the Orient contract .expires, with a view to securing 18-knot services and landing mails in Adelaide in. 25_ days 14 hours via Suez and 28 days via the Cape, said in 25 days in New Zealand via Halifax and •Vancouver. Subsidised services must submit a schedule of freight® to the Governments to obviate d rrerential rates inimical to Imperial trade. EMIGRATION SCHEMES. The Commission recommends the creation of a central Emigration Board under British Governmental direction, with a oonsulative Board comprising the Dominions' representatives!' The Commission discountenances soldiers' emigration without adequate capital abd training, and urges increased female emigration to redress the balance of the Bexes. lit recommends Government acquisition of the Atlantic cable and the land line from Nova Scotia to Montreal connecting wiith the Pacific, thereafter reducing the full rate tio 2s, the deferred rate to Is and the week-end rate to 6d a word, and the Press rates correspondingly, assuming the alboiition oi' the Commonwealth's unjustifiable terminal charge of ' sd. Tho nationalisation of this private cable is becoming an urgent problem of statesmanship. The Commission endorses Sir Joseph Ward's view's oh this subject as expressed at the Im-. perial Conference in 1911. | Other recommendations are a quinquennial census o fthe ilii'nipiro, interquennial census of the international exhibitions, unification of legislation regarding patents, _ trade marks and companies, modification of the double income tax and uniform Imperial decimal coinage and metric weights and measures. ' i