PEOPLING THE EMPIRE

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 5 February 1923, Page 2

PEOPLING THE EMPIRE

(By

John Buchan

in the Observer.)

No one of us can be very cheerful to-day when he sees the masses or Honest men seeking work and unable to find it; and the endless misfits 1 , where men capable of higher things are forced into hack-work by the need of bread. It is a season of stock-taking, and we go carefully over our assets, weighing each of them and laboring to discover some means of /using it to’ better purpose. There is oiie asset which we are inclined' to rule out of that category altogether, and set down as a bad debt.—the human asset, the superfluity of men. Is this wise? The war has left us a. poor people, yet the natural resources of the British Empire indude, with one exception, everything necessary to wealth and prosperity. That exception is men. It is of little use that we possess iron and coal and every kind of mineral and' vast fertile areas if there is not the tabor to develop them. At present our resources of man-power have not been called out. They are still congested in Britain. Take the case of Australia, where, of all the dominions, the need of immigrants is greatest. Parts of the tropical territory no doubt present special difficulties that is generally assumed; but in the large temperate tracts ideal conditions for settlement exist, and yet men are there only in the scantiest numbers. She is nearly twenty-five times the size of the United Kingdom, and her whole population is little more than two-thirds of Greater London. In England and Wales the population averages 626 to the square mite; in Australia the average is less than two. The whole continent is a vast treasurehouse waiting to be opened. The value of emigration is generally admitted—too generally admitted—for it tends thereby to become a pious opinion and not an active policy. But it has always had its critics, and recently I have heard it urged that Britain would be foolish now to deplete herself of her best citizens. Since, naturally, the Dominions only want those who are fit and willing to work, it is argued that in sending such men overseas we are lowering qur own national standard, and raising the proportion of I tire unemployed among our own people. But there is one very striking fact which such critics overlook. Our normal yearly stream of emigrants, to which in the past they made no objection, was entirely arrested by the war. Up to 1914 some 300,000 persons, mostly young and healthy, left Britain every year, the majority settling in the dominions. Eor five years emigration was rft a standstill, and even now it has not been restored to anything like its past proportion. Even deducting the three-quarters of a million who were lost in the war, the net increase of our population due to this five years’ stoppage of migration, amounts to 1,250,000. Tliqt is a fact to be weighed. It means an enormous increase in the number of persons seeking employment here, and creates a moist serious situation in view of our depressed industries and restricted trade. We have not enough jobs for even tlife fittest of our young men, and unemployment naturally tends to lower their health and efficiency. Emigration since war lias therefore acquired a new urgency, it is not only desirable, but essential, jit interests Britain and her Dominions alike. An attempt, it may .be remembered 1 , was made shortly alter the war to settle ex-service men overseas. The Oversett Settlement, Committee, under the chairmanship of the new First Lord of the Admiralty, granted tree passages to all approved ex-service men and women who wished to settle in any part of the Empire, ami nearly iSU,Gut) persons availed themselves oi the scheme, most of whom, it may f>e hoped; are now successful settlers. But oo,oJo is too small a number to do more than touch the fringe of the problem. There have been special difficulties. It has beeii found that the ordinary pre-war desire to emigrate has largelydisappeared. Eor' most of those who fought in the war, and for many Who did not, the glamour of overseas has gone, and the instinct for adventure is dormant. The war, too, I think, revived- in most men an appreciation of the charms of their own land, and they are loth to leave it. But the .Home' Country is not much of a home to the workless, and cruel necessity 'will revive the impulse to emigrate. Again, since the- war, even when that impulse existed, the lack of shipping facilities and the huge rise m passenger rates put ,any considerable movement out of the question. In July, 1921, an important stop was taken when the Conference of Empire Prime. Ministers urged the ' introduction of legislation for promoting migration in co-operation with the Dominion Governments. The Empire Sett’em.nt Act of this year, which, was the eonsewrO r ; practical scheme. ,T!us ..Act :: the British Government to spend £l,- 1

15Q,00Q r during the financial year 19222.3/and up to £3,000,000 in each subsequent year for a total period of 15 years, upon co-operation, to an extent of not more than half their total expenditure, with Dominion Governments or approved public or private organisations in schemes for migration and settlement. Under this Act suitable settlers may receive a free grant of one-third the cost of their passages to Australia, and in the case of need a loan of the remainder. Meanwhile settlement schemes in New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia are being pushed forward. This Act is undoubtedly one of the most hopeful measures of our day, but its existence at present is far too little known. An Act of Parliament is a remote thing to the ordinary man, and usually only the visit of the tax-collec-tor of the Government informs him of it. What this Act needs in order that the right sort of emigrants should be attracted and helped is widespread publication and explanation. Above all, it needs to be supplemented' by some practical education m the conditions and chances of overseas life. Now —and here 1 come to the main point of these observations —the British empire Exhibition has been undertaken largely to bring these points koine to the British public. In 1924 Wembley Park will be the scene of the largest exhibition that lias ever been held in this country. Its exhibits .will be confined to the British Empire, but they will comprise every known variety of manufactured goods and raw materials; it will be a concrete demonstration of the immense resources that are awaiting development. So tar it will iollow the lines of other exhibiting, though on a tar greater scale. But, apart from exhibits in the usual meaning of the word, this exhibition will provide the widest possible information on all imperial matters. Lectures and cinematographs will, demonstrate the conditions and opportunities awaiting settlers overseas', and a special liitelligetuoe Bureau will give, detailed -information on the subject- to all inquirers.