EMPIRE MIGRATION

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 101, 23 January 1935, Page 8

EMPIRE MIGRATION

Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, Under-Secretary of State for the Dominions, has returned to London from his Empire tour, and coupled with an announcement of the fact to-day is a statement that he wiil have a conference with the Dominions .Office shortly in connection with migration and Dominions affairs. Mr. MacDonald’s visit to this country was a comparatively unostentatious event. He arrived without beat of drum, allowing it to.be known that his investigation into the problems of Imperial migration w’as a side-line of a private holiday. It may be hoped, however, that he has used his eyes and ears,, and has returned to England with definite knowledge of Dominion opinion on the subject of Imperial migration. What is Britain’s view? To-day's cable message reports, that the British Government is eagerly Dominions’ and Colonies’ observations on the committee’s report.” This document, published in September last, presents the conclusions of an InterDepartmental Committee on Migration Policy, and incidentally sets out a comprehensive review of the problem of the distribution of population in the United Kingdom and the Dominions. It was to have been submitted to the Dominion Governments with a view to an effort being made later to reach agreement on a common policy, and also circulated to voluntary societies and to persons specially interested in migration. . • ■ The committee, of which Mr. Malcolm MacDonald was chairman, confined its attention to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and expressed its confidence that “the conditions which led to the peopling of the great Dominions with many hundreds of thousands of migrants from the United Kingdom Would recur, although perhaps in an altered form,” and it saw no reason to doubt that in that event “the volume of migration from this country (the United Kingdom.) would be as great as.it had been in the past.” After surveying the circumstances the committee reached this conclusion: that migration was one of the products of recovery, and it therefore followed that the best method of promoting migration was to bring about the conditions, such as a rising level of inter-imperial trade, “which would of themselves attract migration, and then to see that the w'ay was made clear, and kept clear, for the migration so attracted.” The British committee’s report does not advance the solution of the problem. Its general tone is negative. Who is to fix the. point of Imperial recovery at which systematic migration may be initiated ? This question shouici be answered by the Dominions themselves. The committee admits that any scheme of migration must be a matter for consultation with the Dominions, but adds that “the idea. that migration could of itself bring about an economic recovery is a fallacy.” Is it?

Take the case of .New Zealand. It must surely be obvious that a country estimated to be capable of carrying at least ten million people, and at present tenanted by only one million and a half, would stand to gain in every way by a large increase of population. Yet, as The Times remarks, “advocates of large schemes for filling the vacant spaces of the Empire are given no encouragement in the report.” Mr. Malcolm MacDonald’s observations since the report was published may have directed him to more hopeful conclusions.