GROUP POPULATION.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17124, 20 April 1921, Page 10

GROUP POPULATION.

"tntou ora own cobhkspondent.) LONDON, March 3. In an address on "Migration Within the Empire,'' Lord Charnwood in the chair, Mr Christopher Turnor urged the adoption of the "group-system," under which, emigrants were settled together, so as to act in co-operation, and to create a community or mutual interest and support, in preference to isolated settlement in which probably 75 per cent, of the pioneers failed. In tho latter case men had to shift for" them: selves as best they could in a strange land, under unfamiliar conditions,,without friends or capital, and often without training. It had been proved, ho sad, that organised settlement not only could be, but had been, so consistently successful in various Dominions , and States that it might bo said that failure was practically eliminated. In his view the only solution of the problem lay in developing the countryside. Tho total white population of the Empire was 68,000,000, less than the population of European-Germany. The agricultural population of'the Empire was 13,400,000, of which about 8,000.000 were in England, which left, roughly, five and a half millions to till the soil of onefourtlh of the land surface of the globe. In France, with an area of oue-eeventy-fourth of the British Empire, there was a white population of 36,000,000, the agricultural population numbering 18,000,000. In Germany, with an area of one-sixty-fourth of our Empire, there were 21,000,000 engaged in agricultural work. State-aided migration would Le discussed at the forthcoming conference of Dominion Premiers, and there shouid be a strong central migration authority hej*e tl see that men going c-verseaa were received and trained properly.