The Daily News MONDAY, JULY 5.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 134, 5 July 1909, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, JULY 5.

THE COMMONWEALTH. Mr. W. T. Stead, the editor of the Review of Reviews', gave utterance to a home truth when he told the members of the Imperial Press Conference last week that the greatest need of the Empire, so far as Australia is concerned, is to get the island continent filled with white people. The blunt declaration may not have been palatable to the Australian delegates, but it would lose none of its force or" effect on that account. Mr. .Stead, of course, is not singular in his 1 opinion. To those Australians who bother to give the matter thought the need is quite apparent, as is the danger of the present situation. In a recent number of the Melbourne Argus, appears an article from the pen of Dr. Arthur, M.L.A., of Victoria, bewailing the apathy of the Commonwealth and State Governments towards this great question, and pointing out that "from week to week things crop up which seem to give support to the statement of those in Britain who are friendly to Australia, that we are not leally in earnest about immigration."' lie mentions two things of the kind to which he alludes. The Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs had announced that he would scrutinise carefully the terms on which a big station owner was bringing out 23 men to work on his stations; and a New South Wales Minister refused to entertain an offer of a London organisation to send out free 20 lads a fortnight, if the Government would place them for a few months on a Government farm for training. Dr. Arthur says that both Ministers have acted rightly in the circumstances; but the effect of their action on the minds of jicople at Home is to raise the question: "Does Australia want immigrants, or is it only that she Say* she wants them, without meaning aiinything by it.V" Victoria, says Dr. Arthur, has erected a sti iking building in the Strand, lilled the vyindow. with alluring p'ictures of Victorian farms and splendid specimens of Victorian produce: "but should anyone enter and enquire what inducements are offered to go to this paradise of the south, there arc found to be practically none, 'fjhere are no assisted passages worth sneaking of; no certainty of work; no land on reasonable terms."' The Commonwealth advertises every week in ; onc or mole Home pa:per6: "•Australia! oilers the people of the Mutherlaiull a new home, where there is a chance fi)r all. Anyone with no other capital than energy and perseverance, may prosper in a land which possesses' inexhaustible, and, for the most pan, unexploited' resources. To every Dritish man or woman who wants to emigrate, we say, Come to Aus'.--! : -i. where every man who likes to work can have his own home on his own land." Dr. Arthur says, in clli-et, that this' is so misleading as to lie faivica.l. A harsher term might be applied without injustice. A eorrcspond.-,il of the Argus offers a solution:—"The l.'nited Kingdom and Australia have each its great need at the

present 'moment to prepare for an ominous future, and each has just what the other wanjs to quadruple its strength; the question being how best to bring the one to the other for mutual beuelit. The former urgently wants an outlet for surplus population, and the latter imperatively needs men, women and children to work her vast continent, and when the; hour comes defend it against other na.fioiiri requiring more space for their impelling necessities So"'—let llieat Itriiaiii lease from the Commonwealth for 1011 or ."itlo rears lhe Northern Territory, and settle it at her own expense, with the money now siM-nt on the relief of the distressed surplu, population. Mere is one Australian who publishes his opinion that | lllp c try needs iininigrution; but only i.ii- the region that is not good ciioiiL'h for Australians. There mi;.lit even be as much dilliculty in settling the Northern Territory as in finding room for immigrants in Victoria—or New Zealand-for, says an Auckland contemporary, "noibody can even guess how many Chinese settlers have already landed in the no-man's-land of XorUie/ii Australia."