BOY MIGRATION

Evening Star, Issue 19792, 16 February 1928, Page 12

BOY MIGRATION

A GREAT MOVEMENT VALUE OF CO-OPERATION When the history of the peopling of Australia and New Zealand is written one of t!ie outstanding dates will bo January 24, 1911, lor on that day the first party of .British boys landed in Wellington, New Zealand, to take up work on farms in the dominion, writes Thomas E. Sedgwick in the 1 Sydney Morning Herald.’ These number fifty, and were all from Poplar and Liverpool, between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, and they had had all the drawbacks as well as the advantages fully explained to them. The New Zealand Government had granted them reduced fares, which were made payable out of wages. They also undertook to place them as apprentices with selected farmers, to see after their welfare, and to correspond with each boy every month. About ninety-six per cent, of the money advanced for fares and outfits was recovered, and after three years the boys all had over £9O on the average in their savings accounts. The experiment proved many things Such work should only be conducted by official authorities, which should secure the co-operation of religious and other associations in welcoming the new arrivals and in making them feel at home. The cost of the extra work incurred was more than reimbursed by the improved training of the apprentices, the increased savings, and the check on the possible drift to the cities before the lads were acclimatised to the conditions of rural life. Boys were shown to be the best class of new settlers, now that the pioneers and their posterity had largely opened up the country. They could learn and save 'before they settled and married. They were receptive, and had a longer expectancy of life, for the same fare, as adults. After gaining experience they could go further back, and in their turn open up new and undeveloped districts. They advertised the country well and without expense by their long and descriptive letters home, which were read, discussed, and passed from hand to hand in the family and home circle. As nominators the boys are unrivalled, and few (it any) ships now come to Australia with migrants without bringing a number of mothers, brothers, sisters, and other relatives of boys who had come out themselves as farm learners only a few years before. Town boys were also proved to be as suitable "as those country-born if properly selected. They had no preconceived notions as to rural methods, and were quick both to learn and in their movements. The New Zealand Government took two further parties of boys with equally satisfactory results before the war. They now take parties of grammar and public school hoys, as the demands of their soldier settlement and of local rural workers have equalled the amount of Crown land and subdivided areas available for settlement. CANADA’S EXPERIMENT. Canada tried a similar experiment in 1912, and the results were equally inrstructive. The Government of Ontario agreed to place out fifty lads on farms, but did not make any arrangements for their apprenticeship, after care, or the banking of their wages. The repayment of sums advanced for fares and outfits in respect of this party amounted to only 66 per cent, of the sum lent. The Government of Canada, however,

realised the advantages of such youthful migration, and with the co-operation of the British Government now grant free fares to boys, and place them on farms as apprentices, with due arrangements for their supervision and after-care. In 11)12 Australia was taking a, few small parties of boys, especially' to Victoria, but by 1913 their value had become so generally recognised that 240 arrived, together with 500 other assisted passengers, all booked for Victoria. The trustees of the Dreadnought fund have rendered yeoman service in bringing out thousands of lads to New South Wales, where they are given a few weeks’ preliminary training on Government farms before being placed out in situations. Queensland and South Australia have each taken several hundred British lads with similar gratifying results. In Western Australia the Young Australia League nominates a number of boys each month. to be placed on farms under the_ supervision of the league. The uniformity of selection methods and of fares, introduced with the institution of tho Commonwealth Migration Department in 1920, has been a great advance on the former method of _ each State working independently in its recruiting policy at Home. BALANCING POPULATION. The co-operation of the British Government in distributing the British population more evenly over the Empire has had a wonderful effect, apart from tho financial results. They have abandoned their pre-war policy of confining their assistance to pauper unemployed migrants, and under the Empire Settlement Act make grants, pound for pound, to assist in the migration, training, and settlement of British persons in Australia and other dominions. They grant free railway warrants from the'homes of the migrants to the ports of embarkation, and the State Government grants free fares from tbe_ ports of debarkation to tho first situation or other destination of the approved migrants. After-care is receiving more attention in all the States. The New Settlers’ League and its offshoot, the Big Brother movement, are doing good work in this direction. The annual requisition of about 2,500 boys for placing out among the 200,000_ landholders (over one acre) in Australia should be increased. Facilities do not yet exist in any part of Australia for the settlement of groups of trained boys who have been employed on the land in Australia for over throe years and have saved £IOO or more from their wages. They' could deposit £SO each, work in combination, and would only require £1 a week maintenance, although the clearing and other improvements would be worth to three or four times that amount. The bicentenary of tho birth of Captain Cook,' which falls in October next A), should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. The County of Yorkshire contains a population of four million people (only one million less than that of Scotland herself). To get out an additional 2,000 boy's to the mother State or to help settle some of the Dreadnought and other lads already working on farms in the State would be a worthy memorial to one of Britain’s greatest sons—a true Dreadnought. .