GREAT COLONISING SCHEME REVEALED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 596, 23 February 1929, Page 9

GREAT COLONISING SCHEME REVEALED

MILLIONS OF ACRES IN CANADA TO BE OPENED L T P SOON (United I*.A. —By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. J Press Association) Reed. 2 p.m. OTTAWA, Friday. A statement published in London, that the British Government is training Welsh miners to cultivate

70,000,000 acres of the Peace River country, lifts the veil from one of the most ambitious colonisation schemes visualised in Canada. Officially, the Government has no direct responsibility for three years. Financial interests of international prominence are dealing with the details of the project, which embodies not only agricultural development of over 70,000,000 acres in Northern Alberta and the north-west territories, but takes account of the exploitation of the natural resources of oil, minerals, timber, and water-power on a scale that is unprecedented. A London message says that "Daily Express” in an editorial criticising non-British migration, chiefly to Canada, says that unfortunately the Dominions are coming to suspect migration from Britain as an attempt to shift the burden of unemployment to their shoulders. The bungling way in which the British and Dominion Governments have handled Empire settlement is mainly answerable for this unhappy impression. What Britain is offering to the Dominions is much more valuable than exports of machinery, goods, and gold. It is offering them the same stock that built up the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It is the mosts precious gift in her power to give.