OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT:

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 144, 13 March 1920, Page 7

OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT:

ASSISTANCE FOR- 'EX-SERVICE MEN. London;-March S. Speaking in the House of Commons on thei Colonial 'OfJic'e . vote, Colonel Amei'.y, Under-Secretary for the. Department,' 'described the work of thy Overseas Settlement Office. -He particularly emphasised the assistance given to exservice men. Up.to date, ton thousand applications, totalling-eighteen thousand persons, had been received, .Mid the Overseas. Governments had passed two thousand persons, 6ome of,..whom, hed already, sailed. • The total expenditure onthe'scheme might reach one million sterling in 1920 and 1921-. .He mentioned ,tlmt he would shortly introduce. a Bill ; by which the Dominion Governments would be.-; enabled to enforce payments from men who deserted their families in Great Britain. These payments would ;be transmitted: to the -Boards .of Guardians maintaining the families, Ho referred to-the-formation of a federation embracing all the immigration societies. Canada was interested in. the settlement of women, and the Canadian _ Government's substantial assistance ■ in tho whole sviheme'was only the beginning of one of the most important of Empire movements. .Ho dwelt,on the.desirableness of careful selection of men wishing to proceed overseas. Nobody suggested, that Great Britain could hold all the people who hod gone to' the Dominions; on the contrary, if it h'adyiot l>een for tho great oiiiigratioii during the .last century, and if there bad been no Dominions with which lo trade, .we could not support ourselves to-day. He eniphasi'seir the desirableness of encouraging men to migrate lo'parts of the Empire, instead of to foreign lands-. Those' wlio stayed under the Hag were a -strength' and aft asset to' the Empire in' peace or war, of quite a different character''from those who wont to other countries. He could reckon safely that oiie Englishman who" 'went to tho Dominion* was, from the standpoint of the safety of the Empire, worth twenty tiriies'as much a*'one, who went even io so friendly a. country outside tho Empire as the United States.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. " .