PREPARING THE EMPIRE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 219, 20 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

PREPARING THE EMPIRE.

SIR RIDER HAGGARD'S VIEWS. Sir Rider Haggard, who is back again in England, after his colonial tour, made an interesting statement concerning his mission. Tho gato wis open, he said, for the settlement of Imperial ex-Service men 'c the Dominions, most of which had P'omised equal treatment to tho British soldier to that which they would giro to their own returned men. Everything, (.1 claimed, depended on the help given by tho Home Government through si me adequate machinery. He scouted the* idea that there wa> any wish to promote emigration. H>» efforts had always been directed towards re-peopling England, but private and class interests were too deeply roo*,ei, for such efforts to be a success. One gieat difficulty was the "inipnyability or agriculture," and particularly in England of petit agriculture or small agriculture. Incidentally, hementionel tl.at the small holder could not thnvo without some form of protection. There was nc particle oi truth that t movement was on foot to expatriate men to the Dominions. They wanted to make sure that everyone who emigrated t'. settle did not go to places outg'do the Empire. Tho Empire must be built up of British flesh and blood if it was t(, bo saved. If during the last fifty years this country had saved for the Empire those of its citizens who emigrated to the United States, it was computed that, instead of a population of 58 mililon white persons throughout the whole of the Empire, there would l-»< a population of about SO millions, which was larger thjyi that of Germany. for the future, he feared, the Empire, as the Zulus said, must "sleep upon its spears." It was no wild stretch of fancy to say that in times ' <• come every village or group of villages would have its own powerful antiaircraft guns, on which it would l>e obligatory on its youth to practise, as in times of tlve Plantagenets when men in every village were compelled by law to practise on the archery butts on Sundays. Zeppelins were infants to-day compared to what they would be twenty years hence.

It was for those reasons ho felt England and her oversea children could not, after thv> war, look for a period of rest. We must 1)0 armed, but where wene on" countrymen to rome from if they were alowed 10 drift to the States and South .America? Their duty was to check emigration to alien lands. Tnless the Empire increased its population, it would go the way of Phoenicia and Rome. This was the essence of the do> t; ins he had preached throughout the Empire, with, he was glad to say, no mean results.