EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 June 1922, Page 2

EMPIRE SETTLEMENT.

BOY FARMERS’ lUAGUE, NEW BRITISH SCHEME. TVARM SUPPORT GIVEN. London, April 8. A few days ago Colonel Beckles Wilson propounded a scheme for training boys with a view to their becoming farmers in the various Dominions. The idea was to form an association of boys drawn from tKe town population, on the model of the Boy Scouts, who would be taken in hand and given an interest in and elementary knowledge of farming. The scheme has been carried a step further, and a meeting of the Empire Migration Committee of the Royal Colonial Institute, under the chairmanship of Lord Sydenham, has discussed it and given it official approval.

Colonel Beckles Wilson, in explaining his proposal, expressed his beliel that there were at least 200,000 boys in the slums of bur great cities who could be induced to take an interest in farming, if their imaginations were captured and an esprit de corps were formed. He proposed an association of British boys all over the Empire, who would “rather be manly than, menial, who prefer to be producers rather than parasites, who wish to be given the chance by work on the land, wherever their services are enlisted, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere, to <lo their share in building up the Empire on the only true and lasting foundations, namely, health and harvests, bone and " sinew", peace and plenty.” He quoted Kipling’s lines as a good motto: — Your’s is the Earth, and everything -that/s in it, And what is more, you’ll be a Man, my son! ORGANISED IN COMPANIES. Sir Robert Baden-Powell and others, he said, had approved of the idea. The organisation would be on the basis ot companies, the companies to be drawn from and named after English counties. Lads would be eligible for enrolment between the ages of 10 and 18, passing out as farmer cadets at from 15 to 18, and becoming master farmers at 21. There would be a special uniform and badge, with insignia and rewards for proficiency. Parcels of land, adjacent to every large centre would be allotted to the association by the Government, and would be broken up by the boys, for the preliminary, agricultural tuition, including the care of cattle, under master farmers from overseas. After two years of approved service any boy of 15 would be eligible as a cadet for overseas service, under farmers selected by the Dominion Governments, at a regular rate of pay. At 21 he. would be granted f acilities to become the owner of a farm section. There would be annual exhibitions and reunions, and the migration in due course of the boy's family would be encouraged, according to his ability to support it. THE QUESTION OF GIRLS. Earl Stanhope suggested that boys or men might be taken for a very short period of training in country life here just to see if it appealed to them, and then shipped overseas at the expense of this country and put on to an .English-governed farm in Canada ot Australia, to which they would have given their pledge to remain for a period of one or two years. On this farm they would be instructed in farming as practised in the particular country, and at the end of the training would be inspected by a Dominion official to see if he approved of the individual as a suitable colonist. Should he be not approved, he would either remain for a further course of training or be transported home', but .in either case, until passed by the Dominion official, the whole or the greater part of the cost of his transportation and training would be borne by the home country. “How to get sufficient girls to emigrate is a different and much more difficult problem, and I think social conditiones here have got to get much worse before- girls will be prepared to face ‘the great adventure? ” SUPPORT FROM PUBLIC MEN.

A number of letters were read in favour of the scheme. One from Canon Pughe, of the Church Army, offered to start such an organisation at once. Colonel L. C. M. S. Amery (head, of the Overseas Settlement Committee) described the proposal as interesting and suggestive. “Your idea,” he said, “of a boy farmers’ league is certainly very attractive, and I shall be glad to hear it has been pushed a stage farther.”

Sir Gilbert Parker wrote: “It is only by training that an interest can be secured in any real project of develqpment. The Dominions do not want human refuse dumped upon them, as you say. You are on the right track, and I believe it is the only way that overseas emigration can be successfully increased. Co-operative colonising is the best way.” The hope was expressed that the idea might be extended to an organisation of girls for domestic service. After discussion, it was decided to refer the whole scheme to the Parliamentary Committee with a view to its being taken up as part of the Government’s overseas settlement plan.