A MILLION FARMERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 August 1921, Page 9

A MILLION FARMERS.

BIG SCHEME OUTLINED. TO POPULATE AUSTRALIA. Tn a. striking speech at a National Club luncheon in Sydney on July 19. Sir Joseph Carruthers propounded a scheme for settling a million farmers on the land in Australia. He said if America can maintain 12,400,000 persons actually engaged in agriculture, of whom probably one-half are interested as owners, and the other half as hired workers, and can do this on 879,000,000 acres of cultivated land and grass land, an average of one to every 70 acres, is it not a fair thing to believe that Australia can at least aim at placing additional men on the land to secure 1,000,000 farm owners, with a fair quota of laborers, either hired or of their own families?

“I suggest that a fund of at least £30,000,000 should be named, and that this fund should from time to time be raised as required by Australian and Great Britain in equal proportions, with a joint backing'. The administration of the fund should he entrusted to a joint and representative body, which would supervise the carrying out of all the details of the scheme and which should have power to make its contracts and arrangements with States or with either of- the two greater Governments concerned.

“Just as any development company proceeds to utilise new land and to settle it, so the proposed joint body can proceed. Why should England be asked to join in? She has a surplus population that must emigrate, and it- is to her interest to direct the tide to one of her own Dominions rather than to see population lost to the Empire. Australians trade very largely with England, and she benefits by it as much as we do. The advantage of any increase in our population is hers as well as ours.

“Thon look at the matter of defence. Either wo or England must maintain an armv and fleet sufficient to beat off any

possible enemy, with a base and a strong fleet in the Pacific. It is a better proposition for Great Britain to join in financing and controlling such a scheme

as I propose than to have to continue alone the building of battleships costing £4.000,000 or £5.000,000 each, and it is a bettor proposition than to continue to develop Egypt and Mesopotamia for Arabs and Egyptians. The trust or joint, body would own the public* works and the land and a large part of the expenditure, would be directly productive and represented by a. permanent asset. It may take each country the prjee of a battleship or a cruiser each year, for a few years, to make up its contribution. If we can have another 10,000.000 people added to our population, our debt, will be less than that of England at the close,of the Napoleonic wars per head of population. , The only way to pay off our public debt lis to increase the numbers working to i produce wealth from our soil —which is I the. only original source of wealth. To- | day the right atmosphere exists for a j practical outcome io the proposals I have sot before yon. The bld world of the I white races in Europe is disorganised and over-peopled. There must be great emigration. Large numbers want to emigrate to escape conditions that are insufferable or to seek at least a better outlook in life. “If Mr. Hughes and Mr. Lloyd George woro/t) announce that they had agreed upon a scheme similar to what T have suggestp.d, imagine* the immediate effect it would have. The public mind would seize upon the idea, and mon in all parts of the Empire who now think of Australia as an empty continent would reconstruct their views and picture it as a groat and growing country, taking a now and greater place in the world’s ■ affairs '■